Plex did not create a linux user for itself?

[ChuckPa]

The DVR is set to record into /media/NGMEDIA/NugTV.

It then wants to record a program.

It wants to create a .grab directory there for capturing the stream but
because it has no permission in one or all of

/media
/media/NGMEDIA
/media/NGMEDIA/NugTV

it reports it can’t capture – which is true.

Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.731 [0x7f5bac43ab38] DEBUG - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] Subscription: No existing library item episode 'grandparentGuid: plex://show/61db7f42843977430b6d30fa grandparentThumb: https://metadata-static.plex.tv/2/gracenote/21c1cecdb6d43a386be4fdb587b48813.jpg grandparentTitle: The Nutcracker and the Mouse King grandparentYear: 2021 guid: plex://episode/63940fe7407512037d502636 originallyAvailableAt: 2022-12-23 parentGuid: plex://season/61db7f42843977430b6d30fa/2022 parentIndex: 2022 parentTitle: Season 2022 ratingKey: plex%3A%2F%2Fepisode%2F63940fe7407512037d502636 title: The Nutcracker and the Mouse King type: 4 year: 2022'
Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.731 [0x7f5bac43ab38] DEBUG - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] Grabber: checking for 2182 MB of available disk space in grab path and 100 MB in the transcode cache path
Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.731 [0x7f5bac43ab38] DEBUG - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] IsOnSameVolume: failed to stat "/media/NGMEDIA/NugTV/.grab": No such file or directory
Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.731 [0x7f5bac43ab38] ERROR - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] Failed to calculate available disk space for path '"/media/NGMEDIA/NugTV/.grab"': 2 (No such file or directory)
Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.731 [0x7f5bac43ab38] DEBUG - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] Grabber: Saving recording to "/media/NGMEDIA/NugTV/.grab/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c-280b79264d6e1a64340a84af01ed505f6855b863"
Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.731 [0x7f5bac43ab38] ERROR - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] Grabber: No write permission.
Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.731 [0x7f5bac43ab38] DEBUG - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] Grabber: Operation for 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King - The Nutcracker and the Mouse King' on channel 5fc76b89088e7d002d651249-5fc705f87c6557002ee1eb7e completed with status error (No write access to destination)
Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.731 [0x7f5bac43ab38] DEBUG - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] Activity: Ended activity c984a947-3071-4fde-8e13-c64f72da587d.
Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.731 [0x7f5bab157b38] DEBUG - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] Activity: updated activity 50dd965a-ab8b-4d48-9844-5b0f5b1e9b6b - completed 100.0% - Refreshing Sub
Dec 23, 2022 22:14:01.732 [0x7f5bac43ab38] ERROR - [Grabber/0a2ffe95531660cc3bc606265b5c18c9842e2d0c] Starting media grab failed.

Where you need check is if:

1. plex has read-execute on /media
2. plex has read-write-execute on /media/NGMEDIA
3. keep going all the way into where .grab is created under NugTV where it also needs read-write-execute.

Here’s the How-To about getting DVR permissions correct on Linux.

Linux Tips

Automating Linux permissions using inheritance (helps with DVR/LiveTV too) Linux has a very powerful and convenient way of automatically setting the permissions of your media files as you add more to your media directories. Linux allows only one username and one group to own a file which is somewhat of a restriction. This can be easily leveraged to accomplish what is needed for Plex. An excellent application of this is when you wish to record with Plex DVR, allowing it to write directly in…

[Cerberus73]

Why is that still pointing to “media” I wonder… I went through your linux tips and the libraries are supposed to be pointing to /disks/ now. Is there something else for the DVR location?

[ChuckPa]

why pointing to there?

Look at the library section definition.
Next look at the recording settings

It’s been a while but there is a place where you tell it the target library section for your recordings.

[Cerberus73]

I’ve got two libraries now, movies and TV. Both of them are pointing to /disks/NGMEDIA/. Seems weird that the DVR is still trying to write to /media/ and I cannot for the life of me find any setting for telling the DVR where to record!

[Cerberus73]

NGMEDIA is no longer mounting to /media/ so I guess it’s not surprising that plex is having trouble writing a file there…

[Cerberus73]

So, on a whim I re-mounted /disks/NGMEDIA without ro set, rebooted, and it looks like it’s recording

Turned on hidden files and there’s a .grab folder in there! We may be onto something…

…and success! You’re a genius!

[ChuckPa]

Don’t you love all the little details?

@Cerberus73

without ro set

‘ro’ is ‘read only’

Linux does exactly what you tell it.