No new Preferences.xml being created after deletion

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Server Version#: 1.16.2.1321

I recently upgraded my router and changed my local IP range, and it cause issues with Plex where I was able to access my local web server but not actually find the server. I eventually got it working by deleting the Preferences.xml and plexmediaserver.pid (they’re backed up) and I was able to see the setup ad get everything working again.

It runs fine but it never creates these files again, so everytime my server restarts I have to run the setup again. Obviously this is not ideal, so is there any way to trigger the creation of these files, or potentially to use the old file to recreate it manually?

2

sudo chown -R plex:plex /var/lib/plexmediaserver

It can’t create the file if directory and file permissions are not set to the plex user.
Now restart and reclaim it. It will write Preferences.xml with all the info in it.

3 
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 3 plex plex 4096 Jun 30 20:21 Library

total 44
drwxr-xr-x 5 plex plex 4096 Jul 26 22:26  Cache
drwxr-xr-x 5 plex plex 4096 Jul 23 00:03  Codecs
drwxr-xr-x 6 plex plex 4096 Jul 23 00:03 'Crash Reports'
drwxr-xr-x 2 plex plex 4096 Jan 31 02:05  Diagnostics
drwxr-xr-x 3 plex plex 4096 Jul 26 22:26  Logs
drwxr-xr-x 3 plex plex 4096 Jan 27 23:09  Media
drwxr-xr-x 6 plex plex 4096 Jan 27 23:23  Metadata
-rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex    4 Jul 26 20:35  plexmediaserver.pid.backup
drwxr-xr-x 6 plex plex 4096 Jul 12 14:51  Plug-ins
drwxr-xr-x 7 plex plex 4096 Jan 27 20:44 'Plug-in Support'
-rw------- 1 plex plex  996 Jun 30 16:53  Preferences.xml.backup

plex should already own the folder as well as all the contents of Library, but I went ahead and ran the command again and nothing seems to have changed running ls -l after.

edit: nevermind, I see that I would need to reclaim it again. I will try that tomorrow, but I don’t have high expectations since it seems like the foder and contents are already owned by plex

4

Is this machine remote?

If it is:

  1. ssh -L 8888:127.0.0.1:32400 ip.addr.of.host
  2. Sign in and let that session sit idle
  3. In incognito window: open http://127.0.0.1:8888/web
5

It’s a local headless server. I usually access it in a similar way with ip.add.r.ess:32400/web from a pc on the same subnet. With the old Preferences.xml file, it would just say “no servers found, looking for servers”; until I deleted that file. It looked the same as accessing it from app.plex.tv/desktop, which is pretty confusing

6

Ok. no more messsing around with it.

sudo tar cfz /tmp/plexlogs.tar.gz “/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Logs”

Attach the plexlogs.tar.gz from /tmp.

I will look why it’s fussing.

7

plexlogs.tar.gz (3.2 MB)

I tried looking through with tail and seeing what jumps out, but I didn’t see anything. I would prefer not to lose all my watch history. Is there any way to export watch history if I were to need to nuke my setup?

8

Is the server idle enough you cans restart it and then collect the logs about 2 minutes after restarting?

9

plexlogs.tar.gz (3.0 MB)

10

Ha, I just realized after restarting (I actually restarted my VM as well as my host just in case) it created those files. That’s bizarre. I swear I had tried that before. Oh well, it all seems to be working at this point

11

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