PMS won't start after upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04

Treverr · March 29, 2025, 10:19pm

Server Version#:1.41.5.9522
Player Version#:NA

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 24.04 and now Plex will no longer start (running this bare metal, not in a Docker as I had issues with that and my setup before), I have tried to remove it and reinstall it, change permissions, and investigate logs but I can’t see to find out what the actual issue is here… the best I can find is

Mar 29 14:05:15 server systemd[1]: Starting plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server...
Mar 29 14:05:15 server systemd[1]: Started plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server.
Mar 29 14:05:19 server systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=9/KILL
Mar 29 14:05:19 server Plex Media Server[86539]: Error starting framework core for /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-a96edc606/PlexThemeMusic.bundle.
Mar 29 14:05:19 server Plex Media Server[86602]: Error starting framework core for /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-a96edc606/Musicbrainz.bundle.
Mar 29 14:05:19 server Plex Media Server[86606]: Error starting framework core for /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-a96edc606/Fanart-TV.bundle.

I have wiped this directory and reinstalled in case something got off but still the same issue…

drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Fanart-TV.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Framework.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 HTbackdrops.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 LastFM.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 LocalMedia.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 LyricFind.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Media-Flags.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 MoviePosterDB.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Musicbrainz.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 PersonalMedia.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 PlexMovie.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 PlexThemeMusic.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Scanners.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 System.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 TheMovieDB.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 TheTVDB.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 TheTVDBv4.bundle
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 WebClient.bundle

I have no idea what happened to cause this to not work anymore, even as a fresh install it doesnt work.

Treverr · March 29, 2025, 10:19pm

@ChuckPa youre usually pretty good about figuring out these super odd ones, any suggestions?

ChuckPa · March 29, 2025, 10:54pm

@Treverr

open a terminal. id plex (let’s get the UID & GID)
ls -la /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Li*/Ap*

is it all owned by plex:plex ?

Everything in /usr/lib/plexmediaserver will always be owned by root
(apt / dpkg owns it)

Confirm please? SNAP or DPKG ?

Treverr · March 29, 2025, 10:59pm

Thanks for the quick reply! Been at this for hours…

open a terminal. id plex (let’s get the UID & GID)

uid=999(plex) gid=999(plex) groups=999(plex),44(video),110(render)

ls -la /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Li*/Ap*

trever@server:~$ ls -la /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Li*/Ap*
total 12
drwxrwxrwx  3 plex plex 4096 Jul  3  2023  .
drwxrwxrwx  3 plex plex 4096 Jul  3  2023  ..
drwxrwxrwx 14 plex plex 4096 Mar 29 15:53 'Plex Media Server'

It all should be, this was my first thought. So I made sure to make everything in this folder owned by plex:plex just to be sure. I chown it a couple hours ago and all its subdirectories

Confirm please? SNAP or DPKG ?

Installed via DPKG downloaded from Plex website

Thanks in advance!

ChuckPa · March 29, 2025, 11:11pm

Please now make me a tar.gz of the Logs directory under “Plex Media Server” and attach it here.

Question: Did you try and fix permissions by applying 777 to everything ?

Treverr · March 29, 2025, 11:15pm

Here ya go!

Logs.tar.gz (1.3 MB)

Treverr · March 29, 2025, 11:34pm

Yes I did

ChuckPa · March 29, 2025, 11:42pm

First, How much free space is there in / ?
df -h /

Next, Let’s fix the permissions of /var/lib/plexmediaserver
(put them back to normal)

sudo bash
find /var/lib/plexmediaserver -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \; 
find /var/lib/plexmediaserver -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

The signal -9 (Killed) is something hard terminating PMS some four (4) seconds after it starts.

What you show me for the .bundle files, better be those located under /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plugins-a96edc606

Confirm this please ?

Treverr · March 29, 2025, 11:50pm

First, How much free space is there in / ?

Plenty
/dev/nvme0n1p2 1.8T 287G 1.5T 17% /

Next, Let’s fix the permissions of /var/lib/plexmediaserver
(put them back to normal)

Done.

What you show me for the .bundle files, better be those located under /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plugins-a96edc606
Confirm this please ?

That is correct:

trever@server:~$ ls -la /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-a96edc606/
total 80
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Fanart-TV.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Framework.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 HTbackdrops.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 LastFM.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 LocalMedia.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 LyricFind.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Media-Flags.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 MoviePosterDB.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Musicbrainz.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 PersonalMedia.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 PlexMovie.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 PlexThemeMusic.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 Scanners.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 System.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 TheMovieDB.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 TheTVDB.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 TheTVDBv4.bundle
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Mar 29 15:10 WebClient.bundle

ChuckPa · March 29, 2025, 11:51pm

Here’s where it starts to go stupid.

Mar 29, 2025 16:10:25.639 [126893066038072] DEBUG - [GPU] Got device: NVIDIA GA106 [GeForce RTX 3060], nvidia@unknown, default false, best false, ID 10de:2503:1458:407b@0000:2e:00.0, DevID [10de:2503:1458:407b], flags 0xe8
Mar 29, 2025 16:10:25.651 [126893167766160] INFO - Killing process: Plex Plug-in [com.plexapp.system] (pid: 607010)
Mar 29, 2025 16:10:25.651 [126893167766160] INFO - Killing process: Plex Plug-in [com.plexapp.agents.thetvdb] (pid: 607090)
Mar 29, 2025 16:10:25.651 [126893167766160] INFO - Killing process: Plex Plug-in [com.plexapp.agents.htbackdrops] (pid: 607093)
Mar 29, 2025 16:10:25.651 [126893167766160] INFO - Killing process: Plex Plug-in [com.plexapp.agents.imdb] (pid: 607094)
Mar 29, 2025 16:10:25.663 [126892810185528] DEBUG - Grabber: Cleaning up orphaned grabs.
Mar 29, 2025 16:10:25.663 [126893167766160] DEBUG - Media Provider: Registering provider com.plexapp.plugins.library
Mar 29, 2025 16:10:25.663 [126893167766160] DEBUG - Auth: Refreshing tokens inside the token-based authentication filter.

At this point, it’s been running for 250 ms. There’s no reason to kill of that which it just started.

Do you happen to have any bundle files in /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plugins ?

Treverr · March 29, 2025, 11:53pm

I do not:

trever@server:/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins$ ls -l
total 0

ChuckPa · March 29, 2025, 11:54pm

Good.

Now for the cra-cra test

Plex stopped
Rename Library → Library-keep
Start Plex

See what happens

It should create a new empty server

Treverr · March 29, 2025, 11:57pm

Same error

Treverr · March 29, 2025, 11:57pm

Do you want the logs from there?

ChuckPa · March 29, 2025, 11:57pm

Standby. I will get you an older version.

Something wrong with the tea you’re drinking

ChuckPa · March 30, 2025, 12:00am

Install this.

If it does not create a new empty server then, unfortunately, your machine and Ubuntu 24.04 do not play well together (not the first case I’ve seen)

https://artifacts.plex.tv/plex-media-server-stable/1.41.3.9314-a0bfb8370/debian/plexmediaserver_1.41.3.9314-a0bfb8370_amd64.deb

Treverr · March 30, 2025, 12:04am

Mar 29 17:00:22 server systemd[1]: Starting plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server...
Mar 29 17:00:22 server systemd[1]: Started plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server.
Mar 29 17:00:23 server systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=9/KILL
Mar 29 17:01:53 server systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: State 'stop-sigterm' timed out. Killing.
Mar 29 17:01:53 server systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Killing process 2244617 (Plex Script Hos) with signal SIGKILL.
Mar 29 17:01:53 server systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Failed to kill control group /system.slice/plexmediaserver.service, ignoring: Invalid argument
Mar 29 17:01:53 server systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Failed to kill control group /system.slice/plexmediaserver.service, ignoring: Invalid argument
Mar 29 17:01:53 server systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Failed with result 'signal'.
Mar 29 17:01:53 server systemd[1]: Stopped plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server.
Mar 29 17:01:53 server systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Consumed 1.470s CPU time, 50.4M memory peak, 0B memory swap peak.
Mar 29 17:02:13 server systemd[1]: Starting plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server...
Mar 29 17:02:13 server systemd[1]: Started plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server.
Mar 29 17:02:23 server systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=9/KILL

ChuckPa · March 30, 2025, 12:07am

There it is. Ubuntu 24.04 , on your machine (reasons unknown), is being completely hostile to PMS.

Is this a Live-Upgrade 24.04 or a fresh install 24.04?
If Live Upgrade, what did you upgrade from?

Treverr · March 30, 2025, 12:07am

It was a live upgrade from 22.04

ChuckPa · March 30, 2025, 12:13am

I did not have that problem

I went back to 22.04 (fresh install) for other reasons (primarily the stupid GUI junk)

My recommendations:

Make a tar backup of Library-keep and save it off the root partition
– Do you have a /home partition ?
rebuild with 22.04
When you do rebuild, if you don’t have a /home partition, I recommend one
– you get this layout
– partition 1 = UEFI / boot (1GB)
– partition 2 = root (128GB)
– partition 3 = swap (8GB)
– partition 4 = home (remainder)
– After creating this, we move /var/lib/plexmediaserver → /home/plex using a systemd override.
At this point, all your PMS data and your existing home directory are safe from erasure during OS version changes / reloads.

If you don’t need a GUI, Ubuntu Server is the way to go here.

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PMS won't start after upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04

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