PMS stopped working on Shield

General Discussions
1

I need some help! Yesterday nothing could connect to the Plex Media Server on my 2017 Nvidea Shield Pro. I used the remote to restart the shield but still the server was unavailable. So I pulled the power for 20 seconds and let it restart - Plex worked. 3 hours later the music stopped and PMS is unavailable. No time to mess with it so left it alone.

This morning tried a hard restart again. Plex kind of loaded on the shield but just a whirring circle or animated line. nothing would open.

Thinking I need to re install I went into the android setting on the shield and under apps was ‘uninstall updates’ for the server - so I did. Turns out that was a back to factory reset for the server to supplied version.

Open the app and try to set up the server… it goes through a few steps whirrs for 20 seconds on starting for the first time… then says something went wrong do you want to try again which just takes you through the same loop.

So I’d like to know what went wrong initially and now and how to fix it please.

media on the shield pro still plays fine with kodi and I can browse to the internal storage on the shield via my wired network.

2

OK so I’ve now seen the plex app wants a server version higher than the one I reverted back to. I am not offered any update options in the play store app. Looking at the play store site on my windows PC gives me no PMS options as it thinks it is still installed and up to date. Do I just wait for google to wake up to the fact the server is out of date or is there a way to force it?

3

Thinking the player original player app would talk to the original server as supplied with shield, I uninstalled the changes for the player app too.
Now nothing talks to anything. I get directed to a sign in page that never loads.

One thing is becoming obvious. There is no support with plex. I have 6 months of plex pass that came with the shield. can’t see me continuing afterwards.

No replies here. Am I in the wrong place? Probably not as I see plenty of ignored problems.

And this forum software thinks talking to myself qualifies as an answer to my problem. crazy.

4

Make sure you’re using a static IP address, either manually configured or assigned by router, for the Shield. You don’t want the IP address of the Shield to change. Clients can have dynamic addresses. Servers should have static addresses.

Make sure you’re running Shield TV experience 5.2 or 6.0. If you’re running 5.1 or earlier, upgrade.

If enabled, disable IPv6 support on the Shield TV. Can re-enable if desired after things are up & running. This is just precautionary. I’ve seen comments by others that PMS & IPv6 may not play nice together. That said, I have v6 enabled on my Shield & within PMS and have no issues with it.

The versions of PMS & Plex client that ship with the Shield are out of date. Update to the latest versions. You should be on PMS 1.9.2 & client 6.5.x (I believe 6.5.3 is current. I have a beta release, so the actual release version may be different, but is still 6.5.x).

Note 1: Apps on the NVIDIA Shield TV do not always auto-update. You can force an update by going to the Google Play Store on a laptop/desktop, searching for Plex and Plex Media Server, and clicking the Install button.

Note 2: PMS & Client versions may differ for public & Plex Pass users. If you’re not on the latest releases, repeat checking for updates after launching Plex client on the Shield TV and logging in to your Plex account.

If you updated PMS, restart the Shield TV. Precautionary, not required. I just like to restart after PMS updates.

Launch the Plex client app. Sign in to your Plex account. If prompted for setup, follow Setting Up and Managing Plex Media Server on NVIDIA SHIELD.

Point a web browser at https://plex.tv/web and login. You should be able to see & configure PMS.

Alternately, point a web browser directly at the Shield TV, http://shield_ip_address:32400/web, and login. You should be able to see & configure PMS on the Shield.

Completely for future reference: There is a category specifically for PMS on NVIDIA Shield There is also an Android TV category for the client. Absolutely nothing wrong with posting in the General Discussions area. However, for platform specific questions, you will probably receive faster responses by posting in the platform specific area.

5

Many thanks for the reply. I typed a long reply yesterday and managed to delete it before posting. Some info I didn’t have then so I’ll respond to your points fully now.

The shield has a static IP and always has. It is set in my router. Access from outside was working.

The shield updated not that long ago - a couple of weeks so it is up to date. All worked afterwards.

Couldn’t check IP v6 yesterday but have today and it was off and is still off.

There was no way to force an update of the plex apps. The play store via firefox on my PC would allow no update as it thought my reverted apps were up to date. The shield did eventually auto update plex after 2 - 3 days but the problem is not solved.

The shield has been restarted many times during this. Including power off cold boots.

Whilst plex is not working on the shield I have installed PMS on my windows home server and all previous clients can see and use it except the shield which finds no servers.

PMS on the shield was faster so I’d prefer to use it there but I now cannot get through the set up procedure.

Running plex on the shield I get only a configure page with 3 or 4 icons. First one is server selection - no server found. Second is set up PMS on shield. This starts fine then wants me to log in. It gives me a 4 character code to type into a browser link. Chrome launches from the link (My user log in is saved in chrome) and the code I type in is accepted. The page says to return to the plex app. When I alt-tab back to plex I get a new code and can’t get any further. The web page approval is not registered in plex it stops at giving a code.

I pulled the network cable on my server in case the existence of another server was confusing set-up on the shield - no difference.

I cannot browse to the shields plex web page from my PC. I can see the shields internal storage and add/remove media. Kodi on the shield is working and can see and play what is on various network shares.

Thanks again for responding I would have replied sooner but thought no help was coming.

6

It would have helped if I had read properly what it said above the code given by plex - open the web page on another device. Why have a link you can click if you are not to visit the site on the same device?
Anyway the server is now running again. Based on last time it will take most of the day to scan the libraries I’ve re added and time will tell if it now works properly.

7

It is working again.

My wife is shall we say annoyed that her music playlists have gone. There is a shield folder I can access over the network that is called database backups. In it are files dated before the crash. I have recreated the same libraries. Is there any way to restore from these backups?

Think I know the answer and it is no on the shield but confirmation would be nice (so why have backup files?). I read somewhere playlists exist only in the database so no simple playlist files to be found, which would have made putting them back easy.

8

Glad you have PMS working again.

I’ll have to defer to others on the playlist question. I don’t have music in my Plex system.

Here’s another post that says playlists are stored in the database.

Here’s a tech note about how to restore a database from a backup. However, the note covers Win/Mac/Linux. Not sure if possible on Android. Maybe with a file manager you can get to the necessary directories on Android.