Server Version#: 1.19.5.3112-b23ab3896
Player Version#: 4.41.1
I have two accounts on my Windows 10 PC. On account A I have the server installed. If I log to account B, and shut down my PC from it, when you turn on the PC next time you will be prompted to log in again to account B (the last one used). At that point, if I switch to account A and log in, the server becomes inaccessible. I have to restart PC from account A so that it defaults me to it on the next login in order to get the server available again. So the server becomes accessible only if the LAST logged in account was the one which installed the server and was the one that turned off the PC.
In task manager it shows Plex Media Server run twice, the one in the red square is from the account B. If I end any of these servers, it doesn’t help. Running server again doesn’t make it available, even the web interface becomes unreachable.
The Plex server runs in the “user” context. Which means that the registry settings, as well as any and all data in the Plex data folder is only available to this user.
As a result, if you start Plex server under a new user account, it will behave as if it were never installed on this computer. Because it doesn’t have access to the data in the other Windows user account.
Additionally, if both Windows user accounts are logged in, Plex server might be running twice, as demonstrated by the above screenshot. Look at the column “User Name”.
If you use a different Windows user account on the same computer, you will need to make sure that:
you don’t start up Plex server under the old user account anymore.
The best method is to explicitly log out from this Windows user account and never log into it again. After you log into it a final time, seek the Plex icon in the task tray, right-click on it and disable “Start Plex Media Server at Login”
If you are regularly using both Windows user accounts, occasionally even concurrently, you must make sure that:
only run Plex server in one of the accounts
make sure to log into the Windows account with the plex server first. Later perform an account switch to the other account. To make sure plex is still running in the background.
the Windows default behaviour to already log in to the last-used user account even before you type in your password, can be disabled with a policy or this registry change DisableAutomaticRestartSignOn.zip (401 Bytes) (it might only work in the Windows 10 Professional version, I haven’t tested this on a Home version)
There is a way to run Plex server as a Windows system service. However, this will lead to a loss of the ability to transcode in hardware. If you don’t know what a Windows service is, you can read up on it here: PMS as a service
