Plex crashing on every scheduled scan

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 4.157.0
Player Version#:

Hi

Can anyone help? I currently have Plex server running on. a Mac Mini - M2 2023 running OSX 26.2. My library files are in a drive on a Synology NAS running DSM 7.3.2.

I was affected by the Mc / Synology issue a few years ago but this seemed to stabilize and everything ran fine for some time. Recently I have started to re-label my files as per the Plex recommendation here: https://support.plex.tv/articles/naming-and-organizing-your-movie-media-files/

Recently I noticed that every morning my Plex server has crashed and required a re-start. I was unable to fix it so I removed both libraries and started to rebuild them. Long story short I now have 1 move library (I’ll re-add TV shows later) and my Movies folder has 1343 films in it at present. Over the holidays I’m trying to finish re-labeling the files - I’m finishing about 100-200 a day. After each batch I’m performing a manual library scan which seems to complete OK.

What is odd is that a scheduled scan is taking place overnight and is crashing the server. So every morning I have to log into the Mac and manually re-start Plex.

I have attached my logs. Please can anyone help as it’s driving me insane as I cannot work out what is crashing my server.

I also have a second question. When I experienced the Mac / Synology issue where my films disappeared etc, all my collections got messed up. Is there any record of the names of my old collections and the films in each collection? maybe in the logs or preference files?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Plex Media Server Logs_2026-01-02_10-34-04.zip (3.5 MB)

2

Unless you have an old backup of your database its gone.

Do these logs include an overnight crash? if so what time did that happen? or when did you restart?

3

Hi

I’m assuming these logs do include the crash as I downloaded them earlier today. Every morning my server is not running and I need to restart it using the option in the menu bar - I’m assuming this is a crash. I think I restarted around 9.30am today

I’ll do a clean install of Plex on the mac to see if this makes a difference and report back

4

@ChuckPa any chance you can take a look? I See it crashing on a TV show but not sure how to identify which one.

5

To me, it looks like a movie (based on where the logs cut off)

Jan 01, 2026 02:01:42.221 [0x16d217000] DEBUG - [UltraBlurProcessor] Calculated media file path for path [metadata://posters/e0f396718f9d694fb16cf10bd841f41f1e8e1bb7]: ["/Users/macminihomeserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata/Movies/1/c196840f7ea0942bc7192b06a8da15d62507005.bundle/Contents/_combined/posters/e0f396718f9d694fb16cf10bd841f41f1e8e1bb7"]
Jan 01, 2026 02:01:42.224 [0x16d217000] ERROR - [UltraBlurProcessor] Failed to decode image data
Jan 01, 2026 02:01:42.265 [0x16d217000] DEBUG - Calculated media file path for path [metadata://posters/ab69bc9b9a28a63327f4f5ab0e7626c8cc991c0d]: ["/Users/macminihomeserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata/Movies/1/c8e66d27c09a1743ae515960556b110ee7e107d.bundle/Contents/_combined/posters/ab69bc9b9a28a63327f4f5ab0e7626c8cc991c0d"]

The easiest way I’ve found to find out which file(s) is to go into that metadata directory and look at the artwork & poster (under _combined)

6

Sorry

I’m a real novice. Can you tell me which log you checked to find where the scan crashed and where I can find the metadata directory?

Really appreciate your help!

7

@RetroBerlin

Under the /config directory , Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata

Different images (other sources) structure the top directories differently but you will always see the same structure under Plex Media Server

8

Many thanks. I’ve actually deleted the server now and will do a fresh clean install over the weekend. The structure I’m using now for my files are for example:

Folder:
The Mack (1973) {tmdb-29515}

Files in the folder:
The Mack (1973) {tmdb-29515}.m4v
Poster.jpg

Let me see how it runs and I’ll report back

9

I have a similar issue. Plex on MacOS26.2 randomly crashes about once a day at seemingly random times.

10

I have managed to resolve it but it was quite a manual process. Basically I did a clean install of Plex Server on my Mac and then used the recommended Plex naming convention for my files and folders

Folder:
The Mack (1973) {tmdb-29515}

Files in the folder:
The Mack (1973) {tmdb-29515}.m4v
Poster.jpg

I then started to to add the folders back into the Plex library. I did this in batches of 50 and ran a scan until a batch crashed the server. I then had to go through a process of elimination to narrow down the file crashing the server. In most cases it was a bad Poster file but in some cases it was a movie file than needed to be repaired in Handbrake.

BTW. Using this method did mean that when the server crashes there was an Unexpected Error every time you try to restart the server. I ha d to do a new clean install every time there was a sever crash due to a bad file.

It has been a long process but I now have a smooth running Plex server with all my movies and TV shows reloaded