@Anyware thank you for keeping onto of users that need assistance. The combination of AutoMounter and the numb.conf file fixed all the issues for me. Still don’t let Plex empty trash, just in case, but I’ve removed the finder windows from launching at startup so nothing visible anymore when I log into the server. This “fix” made me so comfortable, I finally pulled the trigger on a new M4 mini and just finished migrating over. OH BOY is this thing fast!
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Yes Thanks Anyware…. Was going to pull the trigger on a M4 Mac Mini for Plex Server Usage among some other things, but was super hesitant based on the Network Drive Connection issues in Sequoia.
Feeling a lot better now but still unsure if I should just grab an Intel base SFF PC for QuickSync compatibility and Windows which I’m currently running Plex on.
Seems like a M4 Pro can handle 13 - 4K to 720P transcodes with Tone Mapping on. So it definitely is an impressive machine! Just don’t want to have little issues like dropping network shares or plex not being able to see all the files on a network share when it’s 2025 and those types of issues should be so far behind us now!!
i haven’t had any issues after switching to NFS. i still use SMB for my own connections to the NAS, but NFS is mapped and read only which is fine for plex.
would love for SMB to fixed without using 3rd party programs though.
Hello everyone,
I know its use is deprecated and that the topic has already been discussed, but to add my two cents, I wanted to share that I switched from an SMB connection to an AFP connection, and now I no longer have any issues with the trash bin on my movies. Additionally, the connection is even faster with AFP. I’ll continue using this type of connection while waiting for an official solution from Apple.
That said, I’m planning to test NFS connections in parallel to see if they perform just as well. What’s your take on this?
Below is a screenshot of my Synology NAS performance with a fiber connection. So far, so good.
Just throwing my two cents into this thread since I just found it…
Keeping Finder opened never really helped for me. What seemingly triggered the problem for me is my torrent client. It downloads torrents to a folder on the same Synology NAS that holds my media library.
Usually when the issue would occur would be if I start downloading two or more large media files simultaneously, or if sonarr happens to start downloading numerous smaller media files simultaneously. This would cause the connection to the NAS to drop, and it wouldn’t reconnect until I re-opened it in Finder. The torrent client wouldn’t find the files either until I reopened the folder in Finder. So definitely didn’t seem to be specific to Plex, for me at least.
After going through this thread, I created the nsmb.conf file with some of the options here plus some from the reddit thread that was posted. Also installed AutoMounter. Turned off auto scan library on file changes as well.
Fingers crossed. This has been driving me nuts for two months now. Especially since it completely jacks up my recently added movies every time it happens when half the library disappears and readds as new titles after a rescan…
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if you use radarr to process your library, you can set it to update the file dates, which plex will use when adding to the “recently added” it helps a little bit with this part. (settings, media management, show advanced, Change File Date)
Thanks for this. What speeds were you roughly getting with SMB (compared to your AFP screenshot) ? Just to verify, you are now able to keep your finder windows closed now with AFP?
In a few days, it will be four months since this issue started with no resolution in sight. Damn, I feel bad for those affected.
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Been struggling with this problem for months. Was sure my databases were corrupt. Rebuilt them a couple of times. Now I find this. Sheesh, guess I should search the forums first.
I’ve always kept a folder open (opens automatically on startup) so that’s not an issue. Just implemented the nsmb.conf and am rescanning my databases. Fingers crossed.
Still limping along and waiting resolution.
Mitigated some of it by subdividing my data folder with A-Z subfolders.
WOW! I’ve not been getting updates to the thread. I have had to go quite a way back to the beginnings of the smb config file discussion. Looks promising. I’ll catch up and try it. Thanks to everyone for not letting go.
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And this doesn’t work. I have the SMB configuration stuff. It’s been fine for four days, and then just now I look and half my movies are just gone. This is really, really old.
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Sorry to hear that. Can you tell us a little more about your configuration? It might help to identify what is different or unique in your case. For what it’s worth, I’ve been running successfully and without issue ever since I posted about the updated nsmb.conf file, so something must be different.
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I have an M1 Mac Mini running Sequoia 15.2, and Plex Server 1.41.3.9314. It is connected via 10gb ethernet to a Synology NAS (and RS1221+) running the latest DSM (7.2.2-72806 Update 2). It’s been fine for more than a year, everything getting updates all along.
There is a TV Show folder with 68 Shows and thousands of episodes, it has no problems. There is a Movies folder with 2128 movies in it that goes insane every now and then 
I wake up and it shows 990 movies. Rescanning them gets them back.
The NAS shared drive that has them on it is mounted at boot, and I have sleep disabled on the machine, so that mount never goes away. Edit: I have checked and when I “get info” on these shared drives it shows them as connected via smb://
Today for example, the drive has been mounted all day. This morning I checked and all the movies were there. This afternoon I look and the 990 problem has happened. The drive was always mounted.
I have always had all three “scan” library boxes checked. And not had an issue until now.
I have, in /etc a file called nsmb.conf that has just two lines in it:
dir_cache_off=yes
mc_on=no
I have rebooted since that was changed (as I noted above four days ago).
I have not liked the idea of scan being off because I have a scanner that gets things I like. Nothing like waking up to new stuff. But because of this, I have just decided to turn all of those off just in case that will help.
I’d love to know what I’m doing wrong. The only thing I can think of is I haven’t had the “movies” folder open in Finder all along, I guess I’ll try that.
Thanks!
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Thank you for the additional detail. That sounds remarkably similar to the configuration I’m running (latest versions of everything on similar hardware), and the nsmb.conf is correct. The symptoms even sound the same as what I experienced (and see using my test/thrasher app). The only difference I notice is that I use AutoMounter to keep the share up-and-running. Keeping a Finder window open wasn’t doing it for me…I needed AutoMounter to solve it in my case.
The only other oddity I noticed—but never took time to confirm—is that after some long amount of time, the Synology-side SMB cache seemed to reach a limit (remember, I was thrashing it with tens of thousands of requests) and I had to either explicitly clear the SMB cache in the Synology admin panel or reboot the Synology. I only did this twice over quite a bit of testing, so I was never sure if it really solved any issues. I only mention it as something you could try if you want to continue with the experimentation.
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So I’ve downloaded automounter but not sure why. As I said, the share is always there. And I could quite figure the point.
The automounter UX isn’t clear. Do you have just the drives mounted? Or is there some way to keep that folder open? And do I want the “bonjour” setting on?
Edit: and do you have the scan switches on?
Thanks
I have thoughts about why the share might appear to be connected when in-fact it isn’t, but those thoughts aren’t validated enough to post them here and potentially confuse the issue. All I know is that those of us who have it working reliably are often running AutoMounter to make sure that the connection remains alive.
Yes, I just have the drives mounted…no Finder windows open. I left the Bonjour setting on, though I don’t know if that’s important.
As for scanning, I have Plex scan every night, though I often fire-off a manual scan when I purposely add/change something.
Thanks. I’ll activate the AutoMounter and then experiment with reenabling scanning (to some degree).
The good thing about this error is that at least it’s not really destructive. No media is actually lost. So, though a pain in the tail to recover (I have a kids collection I have to reconstruct), it’s not that bad when it does fail.
Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.
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I’ve had success with NFS, since I switched I haven’t had to open finder or even remote into the mini (I run it headless) it does fine on software updates or reboots.
I have auto scan on, and use the connect feature for the Arrs which triggers a quick scan on media changes.
I do not use auto mounter, my NFS settings on the synology are set to read only, since plex doesn’t need to change anything in the media folders. (Unless you use it to delete)
If you turn off the ‘Empty trash automatically after every scan’ setting in the ‘Library’ section, Plex will not delete the items in your Library, it will just show the items as ‘Unavailable’. It will not solve the issue you are currently facing with the disconnects from your share, but at least you won’t have to rebuild your collections, redo the posters, etc.
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It sounds like your issue is not with mounting, but when Plex scans the folder, it only sees a portion of the folder contents. I think the true problem is that MacOS 15+ has a very small cache size for smb folders. When it scans, it does not see all the folders in the sub-folder your library is in. Many of us with over 1000 folders in our movie library had reported that we would only see around 1000 movies when the issue happened. I saw the same thing in Finder. When Plex would lose a huge portion of my library, they didn’t show up in Finder either. With the changes to the nsmb.conf, now I see ALL the files in the movie library (although, it takes a few seconds for all the folders to display since the list is not cached).
Try adding the following line to the nsmb.conf file.
dir_cache_max_cnt=0
