I just want to share my experience with a recent Plex issue becuase it could be useful for someone experiensing similar issue.
I had been using Plex for a couple of years now and had no issues with it whatsover. I watch it on Roku, my Android device, PC. Share my library with friend and it worked flawesly. I really thik it is GREAT.
However, yesterday for some reason my Plex Server failed to start when I started my machine. When I run PlexMediaServer.exe the icon briefly appier in the tray and disappear as soon as I move mouse over it.
I went though numerouse forum posts trying to find solution. But nothing worked. I did re-insatlled it using latest version from Plex site. I tried reset procedure explained here https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201119258. Nothing worked. The funny thing I didn't see any Crash files or even log files in ..\Plex Media Server\Logs folder. Niether any windows EventLogs. It's like the killed as soon as it's stated.
Finally I figured out the problem.
Previousely I had changed default path for my PMS cache folder, becuase it was getting big (over 3Gb) and I was running out of space on my C: drive, so I move PMS folder to another drive and change setting in Plex to point to drive M:. For some reason (which I still need to find out) my drive M: was re-mapped to different letter and became drive G:. I didn't relized it at the begining that I don't have drive M: anymore. So PMS when started was trying to load profile form drive M: was not able to do so and quit with no message. That is the reason I didn't see any logs or crash reports. The reinstall didn't work because this information is stored in regestry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server and is not removed when you uninstall PMS. So when you re-install it is using the previuse profile settings.
The way to fix this issue is either re-map the drive to the old letter or modify LocalAppDataPath variable in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server" to a new drive.
Few suggestions to Plex development team in case they read it:
1. Give option to remove regestry setting during uninstall, so next install refresh regestry settings
2. If profile folder can't be loaded on start-up - log error to Windows EvenLog with appropriate message.
Hope this post will help someone.
Plex - RULES. Love the product. Keep up the good work and thank you!!! :D :D
I've been without Plex for several months now and I've directed my users to other services because of this error. All information I could find online was from people being called idiots for not clicking the icon in the taskbar. I tried reinstalling, deleting everything and then reinstalling and just figured it was broken and waited for a patch. A patch never came and I moved on. Decided that I'd take a look at it today, but I had honestly written Plex off.
Who the hell doesn't delete registry keys on uninstall and ever worse, wont update them on reinstall? Someone needs to get their **** together. I though I was past the day of having to manually update registry settings.
Who the hell doesn't delete registry keys on uninstall and ever worse, wont update them on reinstall? Someone needs to get their **** together. I though I was past the day of having to manually update registry settings.
Thanks again for sharing this fix.
People do not want to lose their libraries after uninstall and install.
The registry on windows and preferences.xml on other systems hold the key to where the library is and that is the path that is causing the failure to start if it is invalid
Whenever Plex Media Server starts and exits immediately without an exception event logged in the Windows Application Event Log the likely cause and probably all reported cases is that the path is wrong and there are quite a few cases reported on the forums
We do need the 2 changes mentioned by eugef above:
1. Uninstall to give options for complete / partial or just default (as now) the application only uninstall
A Delete Registry and Remove Application
B Delete Registry and Remove Local Data and Remove Application
C. Remove Application only
[I Can;t see the 1B being implemented to remove the local data as this could many many gigabytes of millions of tiny files which could take ages to complete the deletion for)
2. Give dialogue box error message if path is not found on start with option to:
Apparently this is still an issue. Some kind of message, or better yet, the option to select a new drive path would be helpful. Glad this post is here anyway.
This is why I hate pc’s … You have to be technically proficient to understand the language to attempt this fix. I can figure this out but it’s an investigation and time consuming. Plex isn’t stable. Program won’t start nothing. I click and nothing … uninstalled reloaded blah blah blah. What a waste of time. Looking for an alternative.
Works if you change original drive letter. Windows Un-install did not work. This simple reg edit did. took 5 seconds. (Type regedit and find the right drive spot.) Saved TIME!
open services in taskmanager…search for all services from plex an stop them,then
check in taskmangers processes all plex media entrys and stop them…now restart plex server and there you go…worked for me…
