Had a look around the forums and could not see a similar recent issue with a solution, so apologies if this has been covered elsewhere already.
I have been running Plex Media Server on my shield TV since it became available to plex pass users without issue. Previously I was running a NAS server and accessing it via the plex client on the shield.
The server was working perfectly with the beta version of experience 7, and even worked flawlessly following migration of data to the sd card from internal. However, last night the final version of the oreo update popped up and I dutifully installed it. Since then the plex server is only showing as offline (on all devices, not just the shield).
I have checked that both the client and server are up to date, I have even uninstalled all updates then reupdated for the server.
I have tried accessing via the dashboard with no luck. Needless to say I have rebooted the shield device itself a few times.
Firing up the app asks me to claim a new plex media server on the device (obviously with no data) and trying to choose my original it remains offline.
I would rather not have to setup a new server on the shield, as my original had years worth of data and preferences stored.
I was running the beta of plex that allowed for server metadata to be stored on the internal user (sdcard also in my case) on shield experience 6.3 and all was working and happy.
The preview update for shield experience 7 came which I installed along with any and all updates including plex and it’s server. It totally borked my shield server and rendered it basically permanently off line. No matter what I did such as reboots, remove and reinstall the plex apps, try to put server back on internal. Nothing would bring back the shield plex server. Seems the update rendered the sdcard disconnected somehow, which for me, not even reformatting it would bring the plex server back on line. What a mess!
I ended up having to do a total factory reset of the shield and start fresh which worked. Even migrating the meta data to the Sdcard after I reformatted it and set it up correctly worked. Kind of a pain, but it’s all happy again. I was able to apply shield 7.0.1 and again server was off line. A simple reboot brought that back. The absolute latest and most recent update applied perfectly.
Not sure I’ve helped you, but for me, all I could come up with and doing much reading on the GeForce forums, was a factory reset.
Hopefully someone else will have a better solution.
I suggest you to turn it off. I too had to factory reset it, and I did it multiple times, upgraded to the shield experience 7.0 and the problem was still there. After a lot of trial and error I noticed a PMS update changed the status of debug logging to on and just turning this off solved the performance issue.
Dude, you saved me. After the latest NVIDIA update (which caused a variety of issues), I finally got the Shield itself working after a factory reset… But the Plex would not add ANY of my media from my external hard drives.
Turning off the debug logging (which had set itself to “On”) on the Plex Media Server seems to have fixed it. It’s now seeing and scanning all my media into the library.
Fingers crossed everything else works ok, but THANK YOU!!!
I have this same problem. The new update between the Shield Oreo, and Plex External HD support has been a total fiasco and disaster. It makes me really hate technology. I just want to watch my media. Everything was working great before.
I paid for plex pass because I wanted synch’ing and I liked the software and then it wouldn’t synch files because it would do it on the internal 16GB shield HD. So when the new update came and it was like “you want to run the software on your external HD” I was like “FINALLY”.
Totally screwed up my server and I had to delete everything and reset up the server, it would never find it half the time, and it takes forever to boot up. I def disabled logging.
Anyways Plex works on my TV, but I often have to fully reset the Shield, on my phone everything is always OFFLINE. Like it goes offline now as soon as the shield goes to sleep. Or is the external HD going to sleep? and now that the Plex server is hosted on the external storage it is now offline? What is the issue how can I fix it?
I have posted on here and the nvidia forums and there is no word from any official support. I am a paying customer now, there should be some answers.
My Plex Server is also always offline after about a half hour after I stop using the local Shield its hosted on. No way to “wake up” the Plex server without actually using the Shield again. It is pointless to run a Plex Media Server for an entire household if the only way to keep it awake is to use the Shield it is running on.
Yeah it is just a cheap USB powered seagate external 4TB HD. Like if you have this kind of hard drive is this an unfixable issue and you shouldn’t be using it to host your PMS server? There needs to be a guide. I used to have it setup like they suggested (from their before oreo guide) before they made the big announcement (PMS server on the Shield, with the files on the external in special Shield folders, thumbnails and some files on the HD). It worked pretty good except for the synching. Then they announced and pushed “Put it on your external HD! it is supported now!” a couple weeks ago, so as a lemming I was like great finally thinking if I did it would do synching on the external hd (which has always been an issue). I will spend the time going back to the old way.
The HD has to be disconnecting/going to sleep when the shield sleeps thus making the server offline, and when you try and connect it is never running cause it is on this sleeping HD.
I just have a fantasy that one day synching will work.
I’m having very similar problems. Pulled the trigger on a new Shield 16GB after reading that Plex finally allows the use of external storage for library files.
After doing the initial setup of the Plex Media Server, I set a 128GB SanDisk Ultra Fit Flash drive (set up as ejectable storage under the Shield system settings) as the location for my Library in the PMS settings. I started adding media and everything seemed to be working great, I was able to do three simultaneous streams, everything was really fast and so on.
After rebooting the Shield it showed the PMS as unavaible, on the Shield itself, in the web app, everywhere. I was not able to get it going again.
After a few tries, Shield actually asked me to do the initial setup again, which I did. It then showed two servers, the old one which was still unavailable and the new one which was available but had zero data on it.
I had sideloaded some apps and was afraid that might have broken it. So I did a factory reset of the Shield, applied the initial updates, set up PMS as before and did nothing else to the Shield.
Everything was working great again, playback, transcoding, etc. Rebooted the Shield and the Server is unavailable again.
Now I suspect it has to do with the external storage, because when I went back in the PMS settings it had switched back to internal storage. Switching it back to external doesn’t help. After a few tries, reboots, et cetera it has now asked me to do the initial setup again, which failed at first, then worked and presented me with two servers again.
Powering down shouldn’t be a problem with my flash drive. I understand setting up the USB-drive as adoptable storage would still put all the Plex data on the Shields internal storage? (And I’ve read it might lead to other performance issues on the Shield.)
Really wishing I’d just sprung the extra money for the Shield Pro right now! No hassle with external storage and the current solution on the new Shield seems way too unrealiable. It completely stopped working twice in less than 24 hours. Too bad the Pro isn’t being sold anymore…
I’ve done another full system reset on the shield. Set up Plex Media Server again without using any external storage, not selected in the PMS settings and no USB device connected to the Shield at all.
Everything working fine initially, reboot, PMS permanently unavailable. On all devices, Shield, Phone, Web client on my Macbook Pro, Plex app on my Macbook Pro et cetera.
If I open Plex on the Shield it prompts me to do the initial setup of the Plex Media Server. If I remove the check mark and click continue, I get an error message saying “No Servers Found”, in red below it it says Server Version 1.3.0.0 or higher required. I’m on 1.13.4.5271 according to the Play Store.
If I click retry, same error message. If click sign out and sign in again, same error message. If I click continue the plex app opens, there is no data and when I want to select the Shield as the Server it shows up in the list, but it says “Offline” below it and I can’t select it. Under settings “Plex Media Server” there is only the option to do a Setup of a new server.
This is seriously frustrating. I’ve done two full system resets on the Shield already, so this is the third time I’ve set it up from scratch.
Nvidia support chat couldn’t help either and will get back to me via email…
In case anybody else has that problem:
Nvidia support got back to me and suggested power cycling the Shield. I had unplugged it before, but not for at least 3 minutes.
Surprisingly enough, that actually seemed to have fixed it. I’ve done several reboots since, powered it off, et cetera and it’s been working the whole time.
Still having this issue. It is started in the last 2 months. I’ve had to reset up my server 4 times now.
I have used the media server successfully for about a year via shield.
Starting to really tick me off.
Unfortunately, I allowed the shield to update to +7.0 and now I cannot get Plex Server to work properly. The PMS goes “offline” for unknown reasons. There is no way to restart it. I end up having to create another one / start a new PMS. A second (perhaps related?) issue is that recording live TV is hit-and-miss. Sometimes I can record, but most of the time the recordings fail.
My setup:
Nvidia Shield with Plex server and App
I access the server using a networked PC
I have an external HDD hooked up to the Plex via USB. The HDD has its own power supply. PMS is set to record to the HDD.
This issue has hit me now. PMS running fine for a couple months and suddenly went offline… I get prompted to start a new server… I added USB storage in a powered enclosure containing an SSD drive and the media on a NAS. My gut tells me this is related to storage in some way…
After much trial and error, I have decided to use the default Plex Player and PMS that come with the Shield out of the box.
I have now been running Plex for over a week and it has been absolutely flawless!! I would recommend to anyone with these issues to uninstall the Plex updates and revert to that prior version as there is clearly something wrong with the later version(s).
The only downside to this is the older interface and the fact that I have lost the ability to share Shield content to my PC (through Samba file sharing).
