Plexmediaserver.service doesn't work after the latest update (raspberry pi)

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

Hi,

First of all i am new to this so excuse my ignorance.

I had my plex server running perfectly on my RPI 4. After the latest update I get the following message when I check the status of plexmediaserver.service.

plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2020-04-30 10:51:49 CEST; 26min ago
Process: 2360 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c /usr/bin/test -d "{PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR}" || /bin/mkdir -p "
Process: 2362 ExecStart=/bin/sh -c export PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_INFO_VENDOR="$(grep ^NAME= /etc/os-release | awk -F= "{print
Main PID: 2362 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

apr 30 10:51:44 raspberrypi systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
apr 30 10:51:44 raspberrypi systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
apr 30 10:51:49 raspberrypi systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Service RestartSec=5s expired, scheduling restart.
apr 30 10:51:49 raspberrypi systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 3.
apr 30 10:51:49 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Stopped Plex Media Server.
apr 30 10:51:49 raspberrypi systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
apr 30 10:51:49 raspberrypi systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Failed with result ‘exit-code’.
apr 30 10:51:49 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start Plex Media Server.

Like I said before it was running just fine before the update. I know it has something to do with the user and group in the plexmediaserver.service file because when I change the user to plex instead of pi it works perfectly. I want plex to run as pi for permission reasons. How come it doesn’t work anymore?

This is the content of the plexmediaserver.service file

[Unit]
Description=Plex Media Server
After=network.target network-online.target

[Service]
Environment=“PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR=/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support”
Environment=PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_HOME=/usr/lib/plexmediaserver
Environment=PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_MAX_PLUGIN_PROCS=6
Environment=PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_TMPDIR=/tmp
ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c ‘/usr/bin/test -d “{PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR}" || /bin/mkdir -p "{PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR}”’
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c ’
export PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_INFO_VENDOR="(grep ^NAME= /etc/os-release | awk -F= "{print \\$2}" | tr -d \\" )"; \ export PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_INFO_DEVICE="PC"; \ export PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_INFO_MODEL="(uname -m)";
export PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_INFO_PLATFORM_VERSION="$(grep ^VERSION= /etc/os-release | awk -F= “{print \$2}” | tr -d \" )";
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/lib;
exec “/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Media Server”’
Type=simple
User=pi
Group=pi
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
StartLimitInterval=60s
StartLimitBurst=3
SyslogIdentifier=Plex Media Server
StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=journal

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Thanks in advance

2

Ensure that the Plex Media Server application data directory is owned by pi:
sudo chown -R pi:pi /var/lib/plexmediaserver

By default it will be owned by plex.

By the way, you shouldn’t be overriding the user and group under which PMS runs in the service file; create /etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service.d/override.conf and place the appropriate entries in there:
sudo systemctl edit plexmediaserver.service

This will open a new override.conf if it doesn’t exist file (under /etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service.d) for editing. In there, add something like:

[Service]
User=pi         # Run as user pi...
Group=pi        # ... and group pi
UMask=0002      # Set file creation mask; new files will be created as 0775

Run sudo systemctl daemon-reload after saving the file. You can then start the service.

3

Followed your instructions and it works. Thanks alot.

4

No problem, glad you got it working.

5

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