Plex system and user profiles locations

Plex Media Server
,
1

Server Version#:1.18

Hi,

Here’s my problem:
Just downloaded and paid for the Android app. I notice it is transcoding h265 video files, and I don’t want it to as the device is capable of direct playing h265. (Let’s not get into detail on this part).

Here’s my (assumed) solution:
I figure, the default Android profile is set to transcode h265 video. I want to look at the Android system device profile to confirm this, and if so, I want to copy that into a User device profile and make edits, play around, and see if I can’t get direct play working (as well as learn a bit about device profiles at the same time). However, I can’t find ANYTHING that I’ve so far read in reference to device profiles.

Here’s what I need help with:
So, I can’t find anything… not even the system profiles! I’m using FreeNAS but forget everything, I installed Plex in a regular jail from pkg repo - in this case, it’s just BSD Plex. I changed the config directory to be on a dataset outside the jail by using this; sysrc plexmediaserver_support_path="/config".

Should /config contain ALL the Plex data?
Should the system profiles be somewhere in /config? (/config contains the Plex Media Server and Plex directories, preferences.xml, plug in xml’s etc)
There is no directory /config/Plex Media Server/Resources - should there be, or does that need to be created when i create /config/Plex Media Server/Resources/Profiles/name.xml?

So, as I said I really just want to know where all the system profiles are, so I can check them out and copy them. Then, where do the user profiles reside?

I’ve tried using find in the /config directory, but searching for xml files returns A LOT of results, a search for Android.xml returns nothing but, as I have no idea where or what the system profiles are called then searching doesn’t really help me …

Anyway, thanks for reading, Sorry if it didn’t make too much sense, have a terrible headache tonight and going crazy trying to find these profiles.

2

I created a user profile named Android.xml and tested it in two locations;

/config/Plex Media Server/Resources/Profiles/Android.xml
/config/Plex Media Server/Profiles/Android.xml

Set the same permissions each time as Preferences.xml, restarted PMS and still the system profile was selected when playing media.

Inside the file I’m using;
Client name=“Android”
Header name=“User-Agent” substring=“Android”

My next step will be to do a packet capture to confirm that the client name and user-agent are aligning correctly with what the device sends in HTTP requests.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, if not just to get PMS recognising the user profile. The rest I can play around with (would be especially helpful to see the original Android profile).

Thanks,

3

Packet capture proved fruitless as the traffic is TLS encrypted. I was doing the capture off the server switch port. What httpd server does Plex use, or where do the HTTP access and error logs go? They aren’t in /var/log/.

Still can’t get the right profile to be recognised.

I read in another forum post that HTTP devices like the app don’t use profiles, but that doesn’t seem right as the logs indicate it is using the Android system profile.

Surely, someone out there knows how this works. I’ve read so many forum posts on this, most without any replies. Who knows if those people were able to find a solution…

4

Interested in this as well, some more control over your own PMS is always appreciated.
Anyone from staff please chime in?

5

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