Plex Media Server not Starting

Plex Media Server
1

I’ve recently updated the plex media sever and now it doesn’t start when I turn on my computer. It shows constantly trying to start.

Imac Catalina 10.15.7 sever version 1.29.0.6219-b1b4d4871

2

If the Plex Media Server won’t start and doesn’t even get to the stage where it’ll be writing to the server logs (have you already checked those?), you can attempt the following procedure to see if there’s any error messages on the OS level:

  1. Open Finder and navigate to /Applications
  2. Select Show Content from the context menu of the Plex Media Server.app item
  3. Navigate to Contents/MacOS
  4. Open the Terminal app
  5. Drag the Plex Media Server executable from the Finder window (#3) into the Terminal Window and press Return to execute it

This is no different from running the app, so it won’t succeed – but you should get a more specific error message about what’s causing it to fail starting.

3

Thanks for your help. I think I’ve done what you said and I’ve copied what happened below. Does this mean there’s something wrong with my MAC?

Last login: Wed Sep 21 09:58:37 on ttys000

The default interactive shell is now zsh.

To update your account to use zsh, please run chsh -s /bin/zsh.

For more details, please visit Use zsh as the default shell on your Mac - Apple Support.

/Applications/Plex\ Media\ Server.app/Contents/MacOS/Plex\ Media\ Server ; exit;

Garys-iMac:~ garydeponio$ /Applications/Plex\ Media\ Server.app/Contents/MacOS/Plex\ Media\ Server ; exit;

libc++abi.dylib: terminating with uncaught exception of type boost::wrapexceptboost::system::system_error: listen: Address already in use

****** PLEX MEDIA SERVER CRASHED, CRASH REPORT WRITTEN: 1C539C64-B1DB-4B49-86C0-8EAD50323106

logout

Saving session…

…copying shared history…

…saving history…truncating history files…

…completed.

Deleting expired sessions…none found.

4

I’ve updated my Mac to use zsh now it says this.

Last login: Wed Sep 21 10:20:13 on ttys000

/Applications/Plex\ Media\ Server.app/Contents/MacOS/Plex\ Media\ Server ; exit;

garydeponio@Garys-iMac ~ % /Applications/Plex\ Media\ Server.app/Contents/MacOS/Plex\ Media\ Server ; exit;

libc++abi.dylib: terminating with uncaught exception of type boost::wrapexceptboost::system::system_error: listen: Address already in use

****** PLEX MEDIA SERVER CRASHED, CRASH REPORT WRITTEN: C800A033-F511-4B42-9616-3962DB0991D8

[Process completed]

5

It seems you have some other instance of a Plex Media Server running (or in some stale state) or another app that’s already using the same port.

There’s some command line tools that can tell you what apps are listening to a specific port (well… a number of commands); though from what I’ve found, the approach seems to depend on the version of macOS you’ve installed on your machine. So this link might or might not work…

6

Thanks, so If I follow the above instructions and find the process listening to that port what can I do with that information? It appears it will just give a number which means nothing to me?

7

It’s a sequence of commands that’ll give you the Process ID (PID) and based on that you can determine the process name.

8

Ok I’ll give it a go now :+1:

9

One question, what port am I looking for IPv6 or IPv4?

10

port should be independent of that.

11

What does that mean? Sorry I am a complete novice

12

IPv4/IPv6 are means to address a device in a network. The port is another aspect of that address but it’s independent.

Apps/servers on a device will “listen” to requests addressed to a certain port and react to it.

As a weak comparison… consider IPv4/IPv6 to be your house’s address details and the port number the apartment number. There’s different means to get somebody to get to your house (you can give them the address / postal code / … or you could give them longitude/latitude) – the apartment number will still be the same.

13

I’m not having much luck with getting this to work in terminal? Is there any other way I can see if there’s another instance of Plex Media Sever running? Or another app?

14

Last login: Wed Sep 21 19:58:12 on console
garydeponio@Garys-iMac ~ % lsof -nP -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN | grep
zsh: parse error near \n' garydeponio@Garys-iMac ~ % lsof -nP -iTCP -sTCP:LISTEN | grep <port-number> zsh: parse error near \n’
garydeponio@Garys-iMac ~ % netstat -anv | grep
zsh: parse error near \n' garydeponio@Garys-iMac ~ % netstat -anv | grep <4> zsh: parse error near >’
garydeponio@Garys-iMac ~ % netstat -anv | grep
zsh: parse error near `\n’
garydeponio@Garys-iMac ~ %

15

Run a port scan, would be an idea.

16

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