Server Version#: QTS TS-451D2 Version QTS 5.0.1.2425 (2023/06/09)
Player Version#: Plex version, PMS 1.32.4 (?)
I had a non-plex related issue which caused the top level root directory of my NAS to fill up a few days ago which caused some boot issues. I have cleared all of those up, but at this point my plex server is not booting/working correctly. I upgraded to the newest version in the QNAP App center to no avail, and subsequently have installed the most recent version manually from the PLEX downloads section which didnt seem to do anything. I have not uninstalled plex at any point, and I have restarted the NAS a few times after all the previous non-plex related issues were resolved.
The symptoms Iām having are as follows:
When I boot plex, it āstartsā but when I click the open button or attempt to access plex from my normal plex related devices (laptop/tv/etc) I get an āUnable to connectā type error as though the server isnāt actually running. I get this page unconditionally at this point, whether itās definitely off after a reboot, or if the process has been started, or if the process has been stopped after starting.
I donāt think the installation is working correctly. When I stop the process in the app center, I can still see an executable for PMS running via a putty/ssh āps -ef | grep -i plexā command.
I donāt see anything glaringly awry about the [PlexMediaServer] entry in /etc/config/qpkg.conf
The PlexMediaServer entry in config lists the version as 1.32.4 however every file I can see in linux has a last touch time of June 12th, including the Plex Media Server EXE itself. The server was definitely not running on 1.32.4 at the time because iām permanently terrified of ever touching a working version of plex for fear of inciting a problem like this.
There was a somewhat relevant topic that google pointed me to on this forum which was related to shared folders and symbolic links, but I havenāt made any intentional changes to my shared folders and/or installation configurations in several months. Itās possible those were temporarily/permanently altered during the unrelated preceding non-plex issues though. For a while most of the file station was āemptyā presumably because it had no temp space to do basic functions, though I could access raw files via windows explorer on my network at the time. Itās possible the plex config is just royally messed up somehow.
Iām not sure if there is an obvious log file I should be attaching, I donāt see any log folder obvious to me in the plex installation folder at this time.
I am working on these steps. I found the log folder, only one log file is updated with a date since around the time it failed:
Startup Crash.log contains just one line:
Jul 09, 2023 20:26:16: Failed to initialize logging: Error parsing file at ā/share/CACHEDEV1_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xmlā
No preferences.xml file exists in that directory, though the directory exists. Iām still working on getting the full PlexData gzip. Is there a potentially faster way to do it? Iāve got rudimentary gzip/putty/winscp skills.
Also, Iām unclear if this is related, but the PlexData folder which was created above seems to have some major permissions issues with it. Iāve set the permissions several times in several different ways, and I canāt access anything directly from FileStation within the QNAP, however I was able to access it from my local machineās windows shared folders. Iāve even tried as the default admin account. The permissions seem to be fine when looking at them from a linux perspective (770), but i canāt even get QNAP to compress a single file for example, or open one up in a QNAP text editor.
The preferences.xml file in the PlexData folder is 825 bytes and doesnāt really show much in plaintext, just a bunch of NUL characters in notepad++.
Any help or direction would be appreciated!
I suspect something may just be corrupted.
So I was able to fetch a previous version of this file which is about the same number of bytes but actually has visible plaintext data in it (xml style preferences, as expected). Iām now realizing I still donāt have the ability to actually delete the bogus version of it, which seems to be related to my inability to compress anything in that folder. Even as admin, iām somehow prevented from performing actions.
Iām working with QNAP now to figure it out from that end.
Regarding the PlexData folder which I only very recently created from the previous comments above, is that data merely a copy of the plex metadata, or is it actually located there now? I have been using plex for a long time, but never had that mapped and it never appeared at that location until recently. Did the metadata folder move or is it a copy?
It ran in an hour or so and finished without any fanfare or error message or anything. Iām less experienced in symbolic links. QNAP support has suggested I should uninstall and reinstall plex to fix it. Iād lose all the metadata doing that though, right? whats the way to back it up?
Iām not actually sure that the filesystem is corrupted, plenty of the rest of everything else is just fine. I can access everything with the right permissions via my local pc. I also have a snapshot of the metadata folder from before the issue, so thatās nice. What would you suggest is the play from this point? Theyāre still suggesting an uninstall and a reinstall. It does sound like the plex install itself is somehow corrupted, so perhaps rolling the metadata back to what it was before the issue would suffice? or at least saving that backup aside just in case?
Stop PMS from AppCenter, reboot your QNAP, and then check if you can delete the corrupted Preferences.xml file.
If you can do so, I recommend that you rename the Library folder to Library-Old, then grab the Librarydirectory from the snapshot, and put that next to the Library-Old folder.
After doing that, install the latest version of PMS on-top of the existing one.
After that, start PMS and wait for db upgrades etc. to take place, and hopefully you are good to go.
Iāve performed the above steps, and for the first time in a week or so iām actually able to see plex running, however it looks as though its a fully fresh server, asking for a name, initial libraries, etc. I still have the backup snapshots available, and i copied them in place and then installed plex 1.32.4 over top of it, which puts me in this position. Any suggestions?
Edit: The filesize of the PlexData/Plex Media Server is significantly smaller than the multiple gigs the one I pulled from backup. Iām going to try to replace the library directory over top again.
Correct, I have not yet uninstalled Plex at any point. I had copied from backup into the wrong subfolder so the directories went Library/Cache, rather than Library/Plex Media Server/Cache. Iāve just fixed this and iām trying a reboot and a retry.
Edit: I think iām all set. Iāll write a retrospective post here shortly.
