I migrated my plex server a few times now. And since I didn’t want to lose my watched status, or have to contact those I share with a new server name etc, I have just copied over my PMS folder to the new server. That said, I think I made an error as I seem to have nested folder duplication.
with over 1.5M files in my /Library folder
I have
/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server as expected
but I also have /Library/Application Support/Application Support/Plex Media Server
everything in this folder has a file date of a year back it seems
Can I delete this /Library/Application Support/Application Support/ folder?
Also inside of /Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server are a pile of folders I expect (cache / codecs/media / meta data etc.
but I also have
/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plex Media Server
inside this second Plex Media server are again the expected folders (cache/codecs /logs) with year old file dates.
Can I delete this /Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plex Media Server folder
All this duplication looks to be that I messed up a copy at one time or another.
Do you still have the original folder structure somewhere ? ( a zip file perhaps ?)
Since you have Library/Application Support/Application Support, I think this is where your error occurred.
I would like you to do the following:
Stop Plex
Rename “Library” → “Library.keep”
Create a new “Library” folder.
Now copy into that new “Library”.
After everything has copied, fix the final structure if needed (by moving Up/Down the directory layers) so you end up with Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server as you should.
When you’ve got it all set.
Right-Click on “Library” → Properties
Set the owner to plex, in group users
IT IS IMPORTANT to Apply to this folder, sub-folders, and files so that everything gets the ownership gets set correctly to run on DSM 6.
Thanks for the quick response. I have snapshots but nothing the years old it would have to be. I am willing to play with it as I think I can just purge the nested extras. If I get myself in trouble I can always restore to a snap from yesterday. I posted as I am about to move no another box and I wanted to avoid copying those nested duplicates to my new server unless somehow they were normal.
If you get things duplicated and nested incorrectly, you’ll never get the intertwined files which don’t belong out. It’ll be a mess forever.
That’s why I suggested starting again.
If you have snapshots and can roll back – great.
Now, if you have the original data, and know there is NOTHING of what exists in Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server of any value – then DELETE it before you start. Why risk contamination if you know it’s not important? See my point?
I guess I misunderstood what you were suggesting then. I definitely want to clean this up.
at step 4 I thought you were suggesting that I copy everything from .keep into the new one.
I have everything where it should be, it is just that I have these extra folders with duplicates
it I could start again and only copy what is supposed to be there … that’s exactly what I want to do. I just couldn’t find a source that described exactly what was good and what was bad.
Move the existing structure you have , with all those intertwined things – OUT of the way
Copy fresh from the old server (Start this task over) into a new “Library” directory
When the new copy is complete, Fix the permissions.
Now test it to make certain everything copied correctly.
Example 1 :
Example 2:
Make a ZIP of the source machine “Library” directory".
Copy it to the new machine
Unzip it one directory above “Library”
Move the new folder up/down 1 level if needed.
Thanks Chuck. All those duplicates were indeed not used/required. My plex folder is 1/2 the size it was and so far working perfectly.
Might it be a good idea to enhance the faq … add a description of the expected folder structure and a bit about what each subfolder is used for?
