Plex server on Windows 10 server suddenly cannot be found. appears not to be running

General Discussions
1

I have had plex server running on this machine for at least a year. Suddenly, without me changing anything the server can no longer be found. I have used the plex download tool to ‘repair’ the installation. Now, even though I start the server app it still app it doesn’t then appear to be running.

Unusable at present. Any ideas.

2

Here is the information I get when I look in the devices list.

server name

10 days ago

1.13.8.5395-10d48da0d

Plex Media Server

PC

Windows 10.0 (Build 17134)

3

Take a look at the server log files,
The Plex Media Server.log in particular

  1. Shut down the Plex server
  2. import the attached reg file into the registry (it only activates debug logging, in case it isn’t already) secure_preferred.zip (386 Bytes)
  3. start Plex server
  4. wait 5 minutes
  5. shut down Plex server
  6. fetch log files ‘manually’ https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/
4

I tried what you told me.
I had to stop the plex media server in task manager because there is no user interface visible on the machine.
I imported the registry setting you sent me
I started the server and left the machine for 5 minutes, again, no evidence the server was running, no feedback of any kind.
I stopped the server again in task manager
no log files created

5

It should appear in the task tray, unless you are running it as a system service.
plex_task_tray_icon

Did you follow the instructions in the article further down, headed as ’ Manually Finding Log Files’?

Open regedit.exe
navigate to the branch
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server
Look if the key LocalAppDataPath is in existence, And if so, which path it contains. Is this path still there and accessible?

6

Thank you for your help. Its taken me a little time to get back to the issue.
Yesterday I reinstalled the plex server software to ensure I am running the latest version. Again I could see in the task manager that the server was running but there was no other indication.
I looked again at the registry settings and found that log files were set to a non-existing drive. I adjusted the settings to a known folder location. After restarting the server it worked successfully. It showed up in the task bar, and clients we are able to connect to the server. I have had to re-configure the libraries. It maybe that the incorrect log destination was the issue?

7

I don’t think there is a way to define the location of the Log files alone.
What you probably saw was the key LocalAppDataPath.
And yes, if that one points to a non-existing folder, Plex will fail to start.
To reset it, you simply can remove the whole key LocalAppDataPath from the registry.

8

I am having the same problems. every day i launch plex it cant find my home server yet it can find ones use from friends?? I have no idea how to fix it. ive tried the update it worked for a day now again the same problem im sorry i dont understand the log file thing posted above.

9

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