No remote acces to Plex on QNAP

[mostafae]

Server Version#: Qnap TS251
Player Version#: PMS 1.16.6

I can acces my NAS and play video’s with plex on my laptop via my internal network.
But since a plex update I cant play video’s with the plex app on my LG TV.
Plex says no direct acces. I can only play the video’s in very low resolution.
I tried portforwarding, reinstalling plex without any succes
Would appreciate any help!

[nibbles]

So the LG TV is also on your LAN is that correct?
It sounds like there’s some networking issue since the update.
Let’s have you enable debug logging, then carefully power cycle all your internal hardware. Router then switches then PMS then clients and TV.

After PMS comes back up for 6 min., try to play something on the TV for 30sec. Then stop playback and wait 30sec. Then go into http://app.plex.tv/desktop and Settings > Troubleshooting > Download Logs. Zip up and attach what it gives you so we can check your system for errors.

Below is how to enable debug mode logging only:

This topic was addressed by the team in this post. Click the link to see it formatted.

Remote streams max out at 2mbps

Again, I ask for logs. 2 Mbps is the PlexPass bandwidth limit when no direct connection is available. If this happens on a local LAN, likely causes are: Firewall ports multiple subnets incorrectly configured. LAN IP address range not RFC-1918 compliant. plex.direct private domain being blocked by DNS/router. Reasons to transcode: The player cannot (due to settings or media itself) accept the file “AS IS”

[mostafae]

Plex Media Server Logs_2020-01-11_16-15-51.zip (1.6 MB)
I did everything as suggested?. I hope these logs work.

[nibbles]

It looks like you’re having one of the rare instances when the Plex.tv servers fail to provide the Services.bundle that your machine is requesting. When the Plex servers respond with a 404 Not Found your system is left in a questionable state.

Here is the error message in com.plexapp.system.log

2020-01-11 16:01:48,479 (7f1f906c7700) :  ERROR (networking:219) - Error opening URL 'https://bundle.plex.tv/repos/plexinc-plugins/Services.bundle/commits/62fcf1f

I’ve seen this a few times since June which I started reading the forums.
You best solutions I’m guessing would be to roll back to the previous PMS that worked, or attempt to install PMS again while keeping your metadata and media. It’s also possible that we can get the attention of a team member who can look into the server side of things. I will try to ask someone in a DM now if they can pass this request to the right person.

[mostafae]

Many thanks, I tried a clean install of plex on my qnap without any result.
I would like to try install a previous version of plex but can’t seem te find one.

[nibbles]

Looking at your logs again, I failed to notice the first line saying your PMS version:

Jan 11, 2020 16:00:31.002 [0x7f470fea5700] INFO - Plex Media Server v1.16.6.1592-b9d49bdb7 - QNAP TS-251 x86_64 - build: linux-x86_64 qnap - GMT 01:00
Jan 11, 2020 16:00:31.002 [0x7f470fea5700] INFO - Linux version: QTS 4.4.1.1146, language: en-US
Jan 11, 2020 16:00:31.002 [0x7f470fea5700] INFO - Processor       Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU  J1800  @ 2.41GHz

So you were testing with 1.16.6.1592 and running QTS-4.4.1.1146 on a TS-251 x86_64.
Sounds good, but that’s an old version of Plex Media Server (PMS).

Let’s have you actually upgrade to the latest PMS version rather than go backwards. Although 1.16.6.1592 should still be supported, the age of it could be the cause for the Services.bundle being unavailable.

• Have the QNAP AppCenter version of PMS installed and working to some extent like you’ve been doing already.
• Do the following upgrade when your network is quiet.
• Head to https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/ and get the latest stable version of the QNAP x86_64 server PMS-1.18.4.2171
• Back on your QNAP admin desktop, use AppCenter to Manually Upgrade Plex while it’s running. There’s an icon for that in the upper right corner of the AppCenter window.
• After the upgrade has completed, give PMS 10 minutes to completely initialize and do internal housekeeping and rescan your music files before you try to connect to it. It will have a lot to do if you have a big music library. Don’t be in a rush to connect to it. You can check your CPU and Network usage on the QNAP to determine when it’s basically idle. If you have thousands of songs, it can take hours to scan them all. If you have hundreds of thousands of songs, it can take days to finish scanning, during which time the CPU will be very high and network will be swamped. Let it do its thing. The only way to speed this up is to not have a lot of music.

I’m pretty sure that will fix things. Going backwards from 1.16.6 doesn’t make a lot of sense, as it was a very good stable in its day.

Good luck!

[mostafae]

many thanks!
I installed the latest PMS on QNAP.
Waited for an hour and played for 30 sec and stopped for 30 sec before downloading the logs. I have a few thousands song on my qnap but nothing in the musicstation so there is no scanning in the background.

new logs: Plex Media Server Logs_2020-01-12_19-56-08.zip (782.1 KB)

[nibbles]

I looked at your logs. Let’s have you do a couple more things. It’s common for PMS to have IPv6 support enabled, but it can cause problems and is the first thing we suggest people disable when they are having network issues. Use the web app and go into your Settings > Show Advanced > Network and uncheck the IPv6 box, then Save Changes, then shut down your PMS using the AppCenter to Stop it or by using ssh into the QNAP and ./plex.sh stop if you know what I mean.

Once you have PMS stopped, follow this Plex article to clear all your server caches:

Clearing Plugin/Channel/Agent HTTP Caches | Plex Support

After that, start the Plex server again, and give it 6 min to start up. Then Settings > Troubleshooting > Download Logs and let us see what it’s doing without IPv6 and a clear cache.

Thank you sir. I’m sorry if it’s a bit of a hassle. The idea is to preserve whatever server metadata and library structure you have while trying to get the PMS files back in order. If we were to just completely wipe PMS off the QNAP and start from scratch, it could potentially be faster but it’s probably not what you want.

If you did want to uninstall and start from scratch again, you would want to use this article to do the uninstall, and then give the new server a new name.

Uninstall Plex Media Server | Plex Support

[mostafae]

@nibbles

Clearing Plugin/Channel/Agent HTTP Caches | Plex Support

Can’t find the Plex cache folder on my Qnap.
In the article I found only a PC, OS & Linux tutorial.
Any idea how to empty the cache folder?

I don’t mind to delete the whole thing if that’s easier?
i don’t care for the metadata and stats.

[dane22]

@mostafae

Can’t find the Plex cache folder on my Qnap.

Install this:

Create a share for Plex Library Directory

NOTE: This should no longer be used, if PMS is version 1.19.5 or above, since now build into PMS. See Q28 of the QNAP FAQ If not on PMS 1.19.5 or above, then look here: So, if you want an easy access to like logs, to add/remove 3.Party plugins etc.then this QPKG will help you in creating this share. Simply download the qpkg from here, and install it manually from the AppCenter. It’ll then create a share named Plex pointing to the Library directory, where only admin user has access Happy Pl…

[mostafae]

Hi Dane22, thx for the app. How do I acces or create the library directory?

[nibbles]

@mostafae

Can’t find the Plex cache folder on my Qnap.

The Plex article below tells you how to find the top level of your PMS.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/202915258-where-is-the-plex-media-server-data-directory-located/

Now that you know where it is, there are three ways to get to that directory:

1. SSH in and use the command in the article to cd to it.
2. SSH in and use an alias to cd to it.
3. Make a permanent share to that directory that you can mount on other computers.

Dane22 gave you method 3.
I use method 2 (not easy to accomplish)
I used to use method 1 where I saved the path in a sticky note on my Mac.

That make sense? xD

[dane22]

Install it from the appstore, and after that, a new share will be created

[mostafae]

ok, curious what these new logs say Plex Media Server Logs_2020-01-14_17-33-11.zip (865.9 KB)

[nibbles]

Again it seems to be requesting the Services.bundle but it’s getting a 404 Not Found.
From your com.plexapp.system.log

2020-01-14 14:07:35,391 (7f9972552700) :  DEBUG (networking:143) - Requesting 'https://bundle.plex.tv/repos/plexinc-plugins/Services.bundle/commits/62fcf1f'
2020-01-14 14:07:35,507 (7f9972552700) :  ERROR (networking:196) - Error opening URL 'https://bundle.plex.tv/repos/plexinc-plugins/Services.bundle/commits/62fcf1f'
2020-01-14 14:07:35,509 (7f9972552700) :  INFO (installservice:248) - Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Resources/Plug-ins-ac2afe5f8/System.bundle/Contents/Code/installservice.py", line 241, in install_zip
    commit_json = JSON.ObjectFromURL(BUNDLE_COMMIT_URL % (github_org, github_repo, plugin.git_sha))
...
  File "/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Resources/Python/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 556, in http_error_default
    raise HTTPError(req.get_full_url(), code, msg, hdrs, fp)
HTTPError: HTTP Error 404: Not Found

Looking in your PMS.log, I see IPv6 is enabled. Try turning that off and test again.
Settings > Show Advanced > Network > Uncheck the IPv6 box
then Save Changes and restart the PMS device

On my QNAP running 1.18.4.2171 I see the following in my **Services.bundle/Contents" directory:

[/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/Services.bundle/Contents] # ls -al
total 32
drwxr-xr-x   4 admin administrators  4096 2019-07-10 12:08 ./
drwxr-xr-x   3 admin administrators  4096 2019-07-10 12:08 ../
-rw-r--r--   1 admin administrators   380 2019-07-10 12:08 Info.plist
drwxr-xr-x   2 admin administrators  4096 2019-07-10 12:08 Resources/
drwxr-xr-x 137 admin administrators 12288 2019-07-10 12:08 Service Sets/
-rw-r--r--   1 admin administrators    39 2019-07-10 12:08 VERSION

Is that what you have? I wonder what happens if I delete mine. Will it get another? I think I’ll move it out of the way and see what happens lol.

Update: So I can confirm this issue on my own system. When I take my working PMS system, stop it from running using ./plex.sh stop rename my Services.bundle to a SB.bak file, the start PMS again, I get the same 404 error trying to get a new Services.bundle from Plex.

I bet if we use the url directly we can see the commit,

Update 2: that would have been a bad bet. It’s a 404. Stopping my PMS, replacing my backed up System.bundle, and starting PMS got me a working system again. I’d be happy to zip up my bundle if Dane has matching ls -l output and thinks it’s a good idea.

[dane22]

@nibbles

if Dane has matching ls -l output and thinks it’s a good idea.

It’s a good idea, IF, and only if you are running the same version of PMS

[nibbles]

I sort of thought it would be in the qpkg he got from Plex.
From the July 10th modification time, it appears to be stable.
Life’s tiny mysteries

[mostafae]

anyone knows where I can find a previous working version of plex?

[dane22]

Issue about downloading system.bundle was hopefully fixed today, so try and restart the PMS