Plex Server died in an out of state move, need to start over with some data

Plex Media Server
1

Hello,

In May I moved to another state and my plex server died during the move, it is dead threw it away no bringing it back was not usable.

I have all my media data on external hard drives and some backups from my previous plex server

I have the latest DB files and a registry back up from March of this year,

I’m going to install plex on my new PC and would like to get my libraries/cover art/playlists

To match as close as possible to my previous server, I did do a lot of custom fixes to my library.

Any guides for a server rebuild when you have all the previous media and some DB files and a slightly out of date registry export from another pc?

Also I REALLY wish Plex had a quick export/import feature where I could export a complete ZIP of all the configs/files needed to import that file into a new server instead of piecemeal rebuilds that I’ve had to do a few times before.

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Cover art is not possible, because that is not stored in the database files. You would have needed to backup the whole Plex data folder.

As for the rest:
Set up the server like a fresh installation.
Once you have it running with a small test library, shut down the server. Then copy the database files from your backup and overwrite the current database files.

Before you do anything else, enter the settings and disable automatic library scan, periodic library scan, and crucially “Empty trash automatically after every scan”.

If you don’t see your old libraries listed after starting up the server again, your database backup is damaged. (This usually happens if you try and copy the database files manually, while the server is still running.)

Now, it helps if your media files are stored at the exact same location as they were on the old server. That means drive letter, folder path, and file name should be identical to what they were in the old server.

If you need a reminder what these were on the old server, you can look at the Plex media info of any item in your database.
Of course looking at every item separately will probably take too long. So if your media were distributed across several hard drives, you probably want a nice and tidy list with all your titles and all their associated folders/filenames.
Using the export module of Releases · WebTools-NG/WebTools-NG · GitHub should be able to give you that list in CSV format, which you can open, filter and sort with a spreadsheet app.

1 Like
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Thanks, I’ll give this a shot

My media is sored on the exact same drives/folder and I made sure they were using the same drive letters on my previous plex server

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Also do I need to setup the libraries first then copy over the DB file or will copying over the DB create the libraries when the server is restarted?

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As I wrote.

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Ok thanks, so it will create them once the DB files are copied

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There is no need to create anything, because the libraries are in your backup database files.

1 Like
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Ok so looks like that worked, what is the best way to get the cover art that Plex itself can DL? Only about 10% of my media was custom cover art the rest was just what Plex applied.

My media seems to be available and working but nothing has cover art, should i just do a manual scan to get back what Plex can insert for the cover art?

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Refresh Metadata at the library level.
All the other analysis (intros, credits, thumbnails etc.) will be performed at night during the scheduled maintenance period.

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