Server Version#: 1.29.1.6316
Player Version#: 4.87.2
I’ve just finally updated my server to the latest version, after using an older version for a while.
It’s working fine apart from one puzzling issue.
My ‘Photographs’ library will not pin to the homepage.
If I unpin it and pin it again, it appears for an instant, and then vanishes again.
My other four libraries are fine.
The ‘Photographs’ library has over 20,000 images in it, but surely the server should be able to cope with that? As it seems to be working fine in every other respect I assume that it can, but why won’t it display on my server homepage?
Any suggestions gratefully received.
Thanks, Dave.
Thanks, I have now tested that, and it’s doing exactly the same.
If I unpin all the libraries, so the homepage is empty (apart from the prompt to add something!) when I pin the ‘Photographs’ library, it appears for an instant and then disappears again.
The system obviously thinks it’s there as the prompt is no longer there, but the dashboard is then just blank. If I reload it, again the Photographs library thumbnails appear for a moment and then vanish.
Which web browser are you using?
Are there any browser add-ins activated?
Try another browser or use the “Privacy”/“incognito” tab to see if it makes a difference.
I’ve tried with Firefox 106.0.5 and Edge 107.0.1418.35.
Exactly the same result in both browsers, with or without add-ons enabled.
An ‘In Private’ window is exactly the same.
Very puzzling, why would that one library not display when all the others do?
Please don’t ask me to delete it and start again, it has over 20,000 photographs in it, it will take hours to rebuild!
Or inspect them yourself. Take a look at the Plex Media Server.log file and seek for messages about database corrupt or malformed.
If you find these, you may have to repair your database. https://support.plex.tv/articles/repair-a-corrupted-database/
Thanks.
I’ve collected the logs, and that particular log doesn’t seem to specifically reference any database corruption. I can access the ‘Photographs’ library fine, and it seems to be functioning as it should, it just won’t appear on the dashboard.
I’ve attached the logs in case they give any clues.
Cheers, Dave. Plex Media Server Logs_2022-11-12_23-22-52.zip (3.4 MB)
Here is something to try:
Settings - Server - Manage - Libraries
click on the line of your Photos library (not on the name of the library, but right beside it)
then select “Restore Customization”
then go to
Settings - Plex Web - ‘Show Advanced’ - Debug - “Restore Defaults”
This will reset all customizations of the side bar and the web app in general.
Does this have any effect?
What kind of drive is S: ?
How much free space is left on it?
Thanks!
I tried all that, and no effect I’m afraid.
I see the line of recently added thumbnails for the Photographs library appear on the dashboard for an instant if I change anything, but they immediately vanish again.
As you’ve seen, my database is stored on drive S: on my system, which is a 465GB SSD formatted in NTFS, and there is 180GB free on it, so there shouldn’t be any problems there.
Cheers, Dave.
The Photographs library is definitely set to ‘Include in Home Screen and Global Search’, in its settings. Toggling this setting off and on makes no difference.
All the other libraries are set the same, and they all appear on the Home Screen, but not the Photographs library.
That setting you pointed to was unticked. I’ve tried ticking it but again no difference.
OK, I’ve finally got somewhere with this now!
I bit the bullet and completely nuked the database, and started completely from scratch, just to eliminate any possibility of corruption anywhere in the existing database.
The result was the same, adding only the Photographs library resulted in a blank homepage.
Others added were fine.
After a lot of experimenting, I finally determined that the problem was being caused by images being in subfolders!
My ‘Photographs’ folder has many subfolders in it, and most but not all of them have subfolders inside them.
If I add one of the subfolders to the library which just contains images, it works fine, and they appear as ‘recently added’ items on the homepage. If I add one which only contains subfolders, nothing appears on the homepage, although it works in every other respect.
If I put a dummy image file into one of the folders with just subfolders, that image appears on the homepage, but nothing else, the images in the subfolders don’t appear.
I do hope this isn’t normal behaviour, as the older versions of the server I’ve used did not have this problem at all, they worked exactly as I would expect them to, recognising new images in subfolders no matter how far down the folder tree they were!
Can this be fixed?
That is strange, I can reproduce it all the time.
The only thing I can think of is that the source drive is FAT32 formatted, not NTFS, but I can’t imagine why that would make any difference!
As I said, it didn’t happen with the older version of the server I was using before.
I eventually had to update because I was using Plex RARFlix on my Roku box to play videos and slideshows on my TV, and that app has recently been blocked by Roku and will no longer install, even in developer mode. I therefore had to go over to the normal Plex app on the Roku, which would not work with my version of the server!
Is there a repository of older versions of the server anywhere that I could try to see if the problem happens on them?
Cheers, Dave.
Not publicly. Unless you have a history of recent versions in your %LOCALAPPDATA%\Plex Media Server\Updates there is no advisable way to get older versions.
That folder does not exist on my system I’m afraid, so I guess I’m stuck unless I can find copies of older versions online somewhere.
I just need to try an older version again to see if the problem is there, and if it isn’t, find out which version it started on.
I’ve tried putting library pictures on a drive formatted with NTFS, and no difference, so it isn’t that!
I uninstalled the server, so I guess that removed it.
Anyway, I found an archive of old servers here and by process of elimination, I found that this issue appears on my system between version 1.21.4.4079 and version 1.22.0.4163.
The latter shows the problem, the former doesn’t!
Those two versions were released on February 26th 2021 and March 12th 2021 respectively, so it’s very unlikely there were any released versions between them I would have thought.
So, what could have changed between those two versions to cause this problem, and why is nobody else apparently seeing it?
If you can, I’d attach a hard drive which is formatted with NTFS and put a few subfolders with photos on it.
Then create a new photo library and attach it to that new hard drive.
If that suddenly works, you have confirmed that it may have to do with the FAT file system. (Although it sounds weird.)
