Problems after moving metadata

Plex Media Server
1

Hi

Wondering if anyone can suggest how to get out of hole I seem to dug myself into. I had previously moved my metadata from my OS drive to another disk, and this was fine.

I’ve been building up my collection and spent a lot of time fixing metadata, images etc and it occurred to me when that drive failed I would lose most, if not all, of my work, so I figured I would move the data again to my drivepool where it would be duplicated across multiple drives.

All seemed to work so I removed the original metadata folder. Then I noticed that newly added items were missing images. I could add them but could not get them from the agents in Plex. A bit of reading and I discovered that I should not use a virtual disk like DirvePool for metadata because Plex requires hardlinks to work (don’t know why) and pooled drive don’t support that.

So I copied my metadata again from the pool to a single disk, an SSD outside of the pool, but Plex would not run: I started it and the notification icon appeared but the web site would not appear. After a few minutes, the icon would disappear. The Logs had not been updated, so I assume something is stopping Plex from even getting that far. I created the folder (E:\PlexData) using the same user account I use to run Plex so I don’t think it can be a permissions issue.

I tried a different drive, but the result was the same.

Switching back to the Pool location allowed PLex to run.

Could it be that when I copy the data back from the pool the lack of hard links is causing Plex to choke, and is there any way I can keep my metadata?

Thanks for any guidance.

2

Did you the copying while plex server was completely shut down?
Otherwise you end up with a damaged database.

You may find this command line copy tool useful: [HowTo] An extended guide on how to move the Plex data folder on Windows

3

Yes, I had used the Exit option under the icon and also stopped the Plex Update Service.

4

Execute the command anyway (after adapting the source and target folder parameters, ofc.)

What path did you actually put into the registry?

How does the content list of E:\PlexData look like now?

5

By "the comamnd " do you mean using RoboCopy? that is what I did for all moves (admittedly just using the \E switch) and this worked for the first move to the drivepool.

I updated 3 locations in the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server
LocalAppDataPath = “E:\PlexData”
ButlerDatabaseBackupPath = “E:PlexData\DatabaseBackup”

HKEY_USERS.DEFAULT\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server
LocalAppDataPath = “E:\PlexData”

The E:\PlexData folder has two folders and nothing else.

DatabaseBackup (empty)
Plex Media Server (with subfolders)

6

This looks all in order then. Is the SSD formatted with NTFS?

7

Yes it is. All drives are NTFS.

8

Is this a typo? there is a backslash missing after E:

I’d put a backslash at the end of the path as well E:\PlexData\

9

I tried with and without the trailing backslashes.

10

The Logs folder is empty?

11

The Logs folder has the logs that were copied, but they have not been updated since then (actually the Updater writes a log, but not the server)

12

Have you checked the access permissions of the whole E:\plexdata folder? The user account under which the server is started needs to have full r/w access to every single folder, subfolder, and file in there.

Reset them when in doubt – recursively.

13

That’s my next step, I suspect this will take a long time since copying the metadata takes a couple of hours each time.

14

It is faster than the copy process.

15

You may find this useful: http://lallouslab.net/2013/08/26/resetting-ntfs-files-permission-in-windows-graphical-utility/

1 Like
16

Otto, I want to thank you so much for your prompt help and suggestions.

I am not entirely sure how I achieved it but Plex is now running again happily and I can refresh metadata and get all images.

Thanks again

1 Like
17

Glad to hear that.
Happy plexing!

18

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