PMS on QNAP - "Not Authorized"

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
7

@camandsam

Let’s walk through this in steps.

  1. The “is not hosted by Plex” message is a small security notice put into the Plex/Web app for the very first time you access a server off-lan. (notice you used https://app.plex.tv) It’s telling you what it knows (which in this case is resolved to a LAN IP) and wanting you to confirm that “Yes, this is known and OK to proceed”.

  2. Given you’re on LAN, and you get “Not Authorized”,

It’s telling you that you’re trying to sign in with a server where the credentials don’t match meaning that account really isn’t allowed or the server credentials don’t match – the PlexOnlineToken (sometimes a problem).

There’s a very easy way to access this on QNAP.

  1. Stop Plex
  2. Install the QNAP Text Editor app if not installed (we’re about to use it)
  3. Create a shared folder, anywhere you want, named PlexData.
  4. That share won’t contain any real data unless you put things there.
  5. What I put there is a linkage, which FileStation recognizes, to get into the QNAP application storage area (/share/CACHEDEV*_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer)

How to use it:

  1. After PlexData is created
  2. Stop Plex
  3. Start Plex (so the start script runs)
  4. wait 30 seconds and stop it again. (we want it stopped)
  5. Open FileStation → PlexData → Plex Media Server

You’re now looking right at the internals of PMS’s data storage

We want to edit the “Preferences.xml” file so we can fix this credentials problem.

  1. Right-Click Preferences.xml

  2. Open in Text Editor

  3. Scroll down to the long line of Preferences.

  4. VERY carefully, without damaging others, remove the Name="Value" pairs for:
    a. PlexOnlineUsername
    b. PlexOnlineEmail
    c. PlexOnlineToken
    d. PlexOnlineHome

  5. Save the file and close the editor

  6. Back in Plex/Web (where it was sitting) – Upper right corner – SIGN OUT

  7. Start Plex

  8. Give it a few moments to get started

  9. Open http://ip.addr.of.qnap:32400/web (you must be on the SAME subnet)

  10. It will want you to Sign in – expected because we removed the ownership info.

  11. It will also want you to claim it — same reason – no ownership info.

  12. After 10-15 seconds , (sometimes sooner), it will come up to the dashboard.

You should now see your normal dashboard

Two instances of PMS - Deleted the wrong one :facepalm