Plex folder ownership changed itself to systemd?!?

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Server Version#: 1.32.7.7621
Player Version#: N/A

I was poking around my system recently (Debian 12) and noticed that Plex was ignoring where I told it to do transcoding. It was defaulting to the Plex folder instead of a mnt I set up on a spindle drive.

I checked ownership of /mnt/plex/transcoding (2TB spindle drive) and discovered that the folder wasn’t owned by plex:plex but instead it was owned by: systemd-network:systemd-journal

How in the world did that happen?

Once I change the ownership of that folder back to plex:plex, PMS started using it for transcoding so all is well but I’d really like to understand what could of caused that.

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  1. How did you get PMS on ‘default’ /mnt ? PMS never uses /mnt by default.
    It uses /var/lib/plexmediaserver. Might you mean plex is staying in /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server ?

  2. How / where did you define the mount for the 2TB (/mnt/plex) ?

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Sorry, guess I wrote that a tad bit sloppily. :slight_smile:

Yes, you are correct… Plex installed to the normal directory:

/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server

Inside Plex, I defined a custom transcoder folder:

/mnt/plex/transcoder

Everything has been working fine but recently, a few of my friends starting having playback issues. Some people were able to stream just fine while a few other folks were getting transcoder errors. Upon further investigation, people that were direct playing had no problems and only the people transcoding were complaining. That is when I checked permissions on my /mnt/plex/transcoder folder and noticed it was no longer owned by plex:plex

I can’t understand how/whyownership of that /mnt/plex/transcoder folder switched to:

systemd-network:systemd-journal

Quick edit… when I originally created /mnt/plex/transcode, it was owned by:

plex:plex
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@gene0915

Show me the /etc/fstab entry you have for the drive.
That’s where it’s going wrong.

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Here you go:

UUID=fe8dcddd-8d06-48ea-bd4d-cd5bfaccd984 /               xfs     defaults        0       0
UUID=c7cf1992-af05-41a9-918e-7d5d940aec5e none            swap    sw              0       0
UUID=ab816d7f-8aa0-43c2-ad8d-73bc675b6a34 /mnt/md0 xfs defaults,nofail,discard 0 0
UUID=d2b035ab-aa40-427b-8729-af483ccf91ad /mnt/sparessd xfs defaults 0 0
UUID=f434e069-2834-468f-98e6-c9e7352f73c3 /mnt/timeshift xfs defaults 0 0
UUID=4533eb14-5918-4c05-b44e-63775956cada /mnt/m2ssd xfs defaults 0 0
UUID=b6620666-b18c-4498-b0b2-839f7f520bcf /mnt/plex xfs defaults 0 0

I don’t think this is a Plex problem … rather more of a Debian problem. I might make a post over on their side of the fence.

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After seeing this, I tend to agree with you.

HOWEVER, before you go over there,

  1. edit /etc/fstab and put auto in the filesystems you’ve added so they are mounted at boot rather than on-demand (which seems to be the problem here)

  2. Now rebuild the ‘wants’ directory

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
  1. Next go into /etc/systemd/system/lxc.service.wants and confirm the ‘wants’ file is updated.
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In the Debian Wiki, here’s what it says about fstab and mounting:

defaults - default mount settings (equivalent to rw,suid,dev,exec,auto,nouser,async).

… looks like ‘auto’ is used by default when mounting via ‘defaults’… or am I reading that wrong?

So my new fstab should look like this?

UUID=fe8dcddd-8d06-48ea-bd4d-cd5bfaccd984 /               xfs     defaults        0       0
UUID=c7cf1992-af05-41a9-918e-7d5d940aec5e none            swap    sw              0       0
UUID=ab816d7f-8aa0-43c2-ad8d-73bc675b6a34 /mnt/md0 xfs auto,nofail,discard 0 0
UUID=d2b035ab-aa40-427b-8729-af483ccf91ad /mnt/sparessd xfs auto 0 0
UUID=f434e069-2834-468f-98e6-c9e7352f73c3 /mnt/timeshift xfs auto 0 0
UUID=4533eb14-5918-4c05-b44e-63775956cada /mnt/m2ssd xfs auto 0 0
UUID=b6620666-b18c-4498-b0b2-839f7f520bcf /mnt/plex xfs auto 0 0
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It is supposed to be there but I never trust it

# USB
/dev/sdb1              /usb                   xfs     defaults,auto,nofail     0   4

You want both defaults and auto like I have here.
Adding defaults,auto,rw,nofail is also a good way to be clear about your intentions.
(I have so much stuff in my /etc/fstab I can’t always remember so I am always explicit)

If my suggestion doesn’t correct the problem then I do suggest going to ask as I’ve not seen this behavior before.

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