Plex Media Server on FreeBSD based systems sending 0555 permissions to application data files

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

Server Version#: 1.21.3.4021

No logs are needed for this. I suspect they are useless anyways.

I’ve been trying to figure out why Plex keeps recreating missing DB files with the “r-xr-xr-x” permission, thus rendering it unable to write to it’s own DBs and files. I thought I bunged up ACLs and my Umasks. Having checked them, no directory is under an ACL, and the umask Plex is using is 022.

Having run a ktrace I found an interesting entry when tracing exactly what the OS is being told to do when the missing DB file handle is created.

Here’s the output:

 11902 Plex Media Server CALL  openat(AT_FDCWD,0x81959c400,0xe01<O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC|O_EXCL>,0100555<S_IRUSR|S_IXUSR|S_IRGRP|S_IXGRP|S_IROTH|S_IXOTH|S_IFREG>)
 11902 Plex Media Server CALL  write(0x7,0x805289580,0x128)
 11902 Plex Media Server CALL  socket(PF_INET,0x1<SOCK_STREAM>,IPPROTO_TCP)
 11902 Plex Media Server NAMI  "/Plex Media Server/Plug-in Support/Databases/tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-319568ff-dcf9-4816-afba-e3c4cb2611a4-loading.db"

To summarize, the latest version of the Plex Media Server for FreeBSD systems is creating files with 0555 permissions. This is a critical problem and renders Plex unusable when running on a clean install, and breaks other aspects of Plex when it needs to spawn a new DB file only for it to not be able to write to it. This results in PMS hang ups.

This SHOULD be a straightforward fix.

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I have no idea how to read the ktrace other than its writing to a file… But I sure don’t see this on my system and I think this would be something that would affect much more folks and not just FreeBSD right?
I mean I would imagine the code is the same for linux to create/write to the file.

In any case I just wipped my db files directly, refresh the guide, and the files are created with wirte access:

-rw-r--r--  1 plex  plex     427008 Feb 11 12:17 tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-739f700f-3ae7-4ab0-baa5-a36a24cfc314-loading.db
-rw-r--r--  1 plex  plex      32768 Feb 11 12:18 tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-739f700f-3ae7-4ab0-baa5-a36a24cfc314-loading.db-shm
-rw-r--r--  1 plex  plex    1137112 Feb 11 12:18 tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-739f700f-3ae7-4ab0-baa5-a36a24cfc314-loading.db-wal
-rw-r--r--  1 plex  plex     336896 Feb 11 12:17 tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-739f700f-3ae7-4ab0-baa5-a36a24cfc314.db

Same exact permissions if I run su -m plex -c "touch file"
-rw-r--r-- 1 plex plex 0 Feb 11 12:22 file

So I dunno what’s happening on your side but it doesn’t seem widespread or caused by PMS.

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What version of the Plex server are you using?

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The ktrace doesn’t lie. The directive to create the file with 0555 is coming from Plex. I just ran a touch in that directory as well and the file was created with 0644 permissions. This is looking more and more likely like an issue with the latest Plex releases.

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Same version as you, I don’t know how to see from that output that the mode is 0555 but I take your word for it.

Something sounds very odd indeed but again this seems like something that would affect everyone and so far the are no more reports.

I also don’t think the latest version changed much, it’s just a vunl fix.

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Caveat: I have not really used FreeBSD… but it seems to have a utility designed for this sort of troubleshooting. What does 'procstat -s ’ return? In all honesty, this really sounds like a process that’s executed before a non-default umask has been set. I’ve ran into this sort of issue where a manual application restart behaves differently than an init script start during boot (enterprise environment on Unix, not Plex.)

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I have confirmed that Plex Media Server has a umask of 022

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@Cyberpower678 I said this was last version… does it not happen if you rollback? How about a new clean jail?

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Btw is this only for the DB files? What about logs?

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It does add up to 0555:

S_IRUSR|S_IXUSR|S_IRGRP|S_IXGRP|S_IROTH|S_IXOTH

S_IRUSR = read by user, 400
S_IXUSR = execute by user, 100

And so on for GRP and OTH.

And a counter-report: FreeBSD PlexMediaServer-1.21.3.4021-5a0a3e4b2, working for me. TrueNAS 12.2-U2 system with a 12.2 jail (not a plugin).

I’ve never set up DVR/EPG before on this system.

-rw-r--r--  1 plex  plex    1171456 Feb 11 14:05 tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-71788236-a3ae-44ff-8a20-f2e07fe83a85.db

What does “FreeBSD based systems” mean? Is this FreeBSD or a variant? Jail? What’s the storage?

11

Thanks for the explanation Volts, I actually just noticed that before that is ,0100555 not sure if it means the same.

I believe FreeBSD based means FreeNAS / TrueNAS.

FWIW in my case its a jail with icoage (zfs backed storage) on “vanila” FreeBSD 12.2 (jail is still 12.1) and its also working.

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12

I haven’t had the time to invest in spawning a clean jail yet. I will try it out again, but it may be a day or two.

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The log files are all being created with 0644 permissions.

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Yes, I am running TrueNAS, but naturally Plex is running in a vanilla jail.

15

I wonder…

I believe the empty database file is created by copying from Resources/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db?

Have you changed permissions on that?

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I see the same perms there. I wonder if I accidentally bunged them up. Can you share the ls -l output of you PMS binaries folder?

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That one is 644.

-rw-r--r--  1 5556  5556  318464 Feb  8 11:40 Resources/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db

There is a log entry when the files are created, it gave me the clue. I actually saw it in ktrace myself - I couldn’t understand how Plex could be asking for different permissions on different systems, and wanted to see what you were seeing. :slight_smile:

Feb 11, 2021 14:28:27.397 [0x80ee71f00] DEBUG - Installing Library Database from ["/path/to/plexmediaserver/Resources/com.plexapp.plugins.library.db"] to ["/path/to/plexdata/Plex Media Server/Plug-in Support/Databases/tv.plex.providers.epg.cloud-2502a832-abb5-408f-9d8e-205cf25072f8.db"]
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But those would be installed by the port/pkg a d be the same on others systems… unless your using another method of install/update like a custom script… and somehow messed up permissions.

I actually thought that file was just created on the fly not copied over, nice find maybe it explains the issue.

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The first couple bits of that are used for other stuff about the file - the 1 in that position means it’s a “regular” file.

Prepare to be bored, check out st_mode:

stat(2)

I assumed the same!

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20

That was totally what was broken. I set all files in there to 0755 and restarted Plex and like magic, all systems go again. Nice find. I must have mangled the perms in that directory somehow.

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