Plex Server "no content available" on Mac Studio 26.0.1

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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Server Version#: 4.146 (if a later version is available it doesn’t show)
Player Version#:
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>

I just tried to startup Plex on a new Mac Studio M3 Ultra after migrating my data from a previous system. There is ~102 GB of data in ~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server so I assume the data migration was successful.

When I try to start plex via https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#! I get “no content available”. and there are no library options. If I click on a pinned library I get the “no content” error but it is trying to access a different Plex server which is down. If I scroll down to the “more” option the server (which is at 127.0.0.1) does not show

When I go to Settings just my login name options and web options are available. There are no library options.

What is amusing is that I have 3 Plex servers. All 3 have failed. One NAS lost its SSD volume. Will do another post about the problems with the other NAS.

I did go to https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/?cat=computer&plat=macos#plex-media-server and got v.1.42.2.10156-f737b826c September 18, 2025 but it made no difference,.

On my Mac tried to access my Synology server at 10.0.0.35. Same as above - tries to access the other down NAS server.

2

Try to access the Mac PMS first using the bundled web app insecurely to see if it’s claimed, where you will see claimed="1" if so.
Then again insecurely to see if it loads (and possibly claim it there).
Then securely.

These are the three URLs.

http://127.0.0.1:32400/identity
http://127.0.0.1:32400/web
https://127.0.0.1:32400/web

You may have to visit your Authorized Devices to remove the old servers from your account before the hosted web app will connect to your new one.

https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/devices/pms

Are you on macOS 26.0.1?
You should have been asked by the PMS installation to allow PMS to find devices on your local network. You can check that in macOS
System Settings → Privacy & Security → Local Network

3

http://127.0.0.1:32400/identity

This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.

<MediaContainer size=“0” apiVersion=“1.1.1” claimed=“0” machineIdentifier="da6854daf8bb5f4b03afb5e4bc8ebb5ba77754b9"version=“1.42.2.10156-f737b826c”>

https://127.0.0.1:32400/web

Works but shows Synology server

https://127.0.0.1:32400/web

Safari can’t open the page …. can’t establish a secure connection

Settings/Privacy/Local Network has Plex Media server enabled

Removed most of the authorized devices.

What remain are Safari (from my attempt to access the server), IOS, Synology, Chrome, iPad (3 one Plexamp), AppleTV (2), Shield, QNAP, Apple Vision Pro Mac server is not listed.

4

@dmoor

I’m hoping you were sitting at the Mac when doing this :slight_smile:
The output is good. You just have to claim it. At least we know it’s running.

More hoping you actually entered http://127.0.0.1:32400/web and not https
I’m going to assume you did, because you said the secure connection said unauthorized which is what I expect from an unclaimed server. So now do this.

  1. On the Mac open Safari and clear all history and cookies.
  2. Quit out of Safari and start it again.
  3. Open a Private Browsing tab (File → New Private Window)
  4. Close the non-private safari window
  5. Visit the insecure http://127.0.0.1:32400/web
  6. It should ask you to sign in.
  7. It will probably redirect you to the Synology PMS like it did before.
  8. Done leave the tab.
  9. click into the URL bar and enter http://127.0.0.1:32400/web
  10. It should load the Mac PMS and enter setup.
  11. If it does not and goes back to the Synology, the go into the Settings and see if you can pull down the server list and change it to your Mac PMS.

Server.Chooser
Server.Chooser267×354 13 KB

  1. Then lower down click General and in the right window Claim Server

Let me know what works.

5

  1. Visit the insecure http://127.0.0.1:32400/web

  2. It should ask you to sign in.

  3. It will probably redirect you to the Synology PMS like it did before.

Got “no content available” as this time it was trying to access my QNAP plex which is down.

  1. click into the URL bar and enter http://127.0.0.1:32400/web

  2. It should load the Mac PMS and enter setup.

  3. If it does not and goes back to the Synology, the go into the Settings and see if you can pull down the server list and change it to your Mac PMS.

Got the QNAP no content..

Mac doesn’t show.

Screenshot 2025-11-03 at 10.54.12
Screenshot 2025-11-03 at 10.54.12466×534 21.8 KB

6

@dmoor

Please read this topic where @FordGuy61 answered how to move a PMS from Syno to a Mac. The only difference in your issue is that you didn’t claim the Mac PMS first.

https://forums.plex.tv/t/moving-plex-from-one-server-to-another/932164

It sounds to me like you moved the 102GB data folder from Sync to Mac too soon and had never claimed the Mac PMS. The easiest thing to do is this: completely uninstall the Mac PMS and start again so that you can claim it and successfully access it and create a test library. As long as you still have the 102GB data directory available on the Syno, you are safe to completely uninstall PMS on the Mac (and copy the data dir later).

This is the script I use to do a complete uninstall on the Mac.

delpms.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

rm -rf /Applications/Plex\ Media\ Server.app && echo '[1/5] deleted the app'
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.plexapp.plexmediaserver.plist && echo '[2/5] deleted the plist'
rm -rf ~/Library/Logs/Plex\ Media\ Server && echo '[3/5] deleted the logs'
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/PlexMediaServer && echo '[4/5] deleted the caches'
rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server && echo '[5/5] deleted the application support'

echo 'Two manual steps are required to remove all traces of PMS on your Mac.'
echo '  * Use the link to remove the Mac from your Authorized Devices - Server.'
echo '  * Empty your Trash and restart the Mac.'
echo ' '
echo '          https://app.plex.tv/desktop#!/settings/devices/pms'
echo ' '

I figure you know how to chmod a text file to make it executable and to run it from the command line.

Installing PMS on a Mac from scratch

Once you do that and have rebooted, you should be able to install PMS on the Mac. Below is a walkthru to getting PMS up and running on your Mac. (use the public PMS v1.42.2.10156 not the beta).

https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-server-web-ui-fails-to-launch-infinite-spinning-circle-on-macos/927042/9

Once you get the Mac PMS up and claimed and accessible, you can follow the posts by FordGuy.

FWIW I’m able to install PMS on a Mac using my walk thru even though I have PMS running on my QNAP. So I can say for sure the procedure works. Migrating from Linux to Mac isn’t very easy, but FordGuy has that part explained in the above topic.

Let me know if you get stuck.

7

Thanks for all of your help.

  1. Just to clarify things my Mac holds the master data copy. The QNAP and Synology data is just copied from my Mac.
  2. This installation wasn’t a move per se. The computer was replaced and the data migrated using Apple’s migration assistant. In theory the installation should be an exact duplicate of the one on the old machine.
  3. I need to preserve the metadata on the Mac, such as my ratings.
  4. The instructions seem to do a complete wipe. I certainly can wipe but I need to restore the metadata from the migrated data which is already on the Mac.
8

Ah. Thanks for the additional information and clarifying it’s just a problem migrating from Mac to Mac.

We can either try to get the Mac install claimed and visible or reinstall the Mac PMS and restore your metadata.

Because we’re having difficulty reaching the new Mac’s PMS, I should ask why did you leave the Synology server in Authorized Devices? Is that a working server?

I’m in favor of doing a Mac PMS complete uninstall then install from scratch, getting a test PMS running on the Mac, then restoring data to get around this issue of being directed to the Syno Server.

You can ignore the advice about migrating PMS from Syno to Mac as that’s not your situation. You won’t need the FordGuy topic I linked previously.

Copy your ~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server to another folder on the Mac, out of your ~/Library, to protect it from deletion while retaining user, group, and permissions.

To do the following steps, the things that cause the least headaches are whether you had these two boxes unchecked on your original Mac PMS in Settings → Library

Settings.Trash

If that’s how you had those settings, then follow the next steps.
However, if you had those checked, don’t follow the steps yet and tell me.
If you don’t remember, don’t follow the steps and tell me.

Steps to uninstall, reinstall a test PMS

  1. Use the delpms.sh script to completely uninstall PMS because you still have the contents of ~/Library somewhere that you can restore again later.
  2. You next download and install PMS on the Mac, going through setup to get it running with the same server name and create a test library with one video, and prove you can access it and play the video. The infinite spinning topic I linked above will walk you through that.

Let us know if you get this far successfully.

Steps to Restore your old media and metadata

  1. Quit out of PMS on the Mac.
  2. Then put all your movie, tv shows, music, and photo files back in the same location where the old PMS knew them to be located.
  3. You should manually copy your original ~/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server folder into your new Mac’s same ~/Library location and Replace the existing one that was created during the test PMS install.
  4. Then restart the Mac and start PMS to have it run using the restored metadata and media. It should return a claimed=1 when you do the identity URL, because you created and claimed a test server then restored metadata to it.

Tell us how it worked.

On Linux, PMS stores its unique configuration in Preferences.xml but on a Mac that config is stored in ~/Library/Preferences/com.plexapp.plexmediaserver.plist

Because you got PMS running and playing a video in a test install, you made a working plist. Because you did not overwrite that plist but only restored the metadata folder, the working plist should run your restored metadata seamlessly.

You can view your PMS plist using

defaults read com.plexapp.plexmediaserver

and that should output your MachineID, token, username, email, everything that should make it claimed and accessible.

Does that make sense?
:crossed_fingers:

9

However, if you had those checked, don’t follow the steps yet and tell me.

Don’t remember. However both the QNAP and Synology servers have them both checked so I assume the Mac had the same setting.

10

Okay after checking into those settings, I found they are stored in your PMS plist file, which you are not restoring. So when you set up your test server, you are creating a brand new plist where you just disable those two as part of building up the test server.

The reason to have those two settings disabled when restoring your old metadata is that in the off chance your media isn’t readily available, PMS won’t automatically delete the metadata.

11

Thanks for your help. It’s working now after a reinstall and restore of the database.

Would like to complement you on your support. Plex support has been, let’s say, problematic and sometimes confrontational. You have been patient, kind, listen, and courteous. Many thanks!

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