Synology Server Version#: 1.13.5.5291
FreeNAS Server Version#: 1.12.2.4929
I’ve just installed FreeNAS 11.1-U5 on my new server and I’m trying to move my existing PMS from my current Synology NAS, but I can’t get the new PMS service to run after I’ve copied the setup data. Can anyone advise?
I’m first installing the latest version of PMS that’s shown in the FreeNAS list of available plugins (version number as shown above). I confirmed that this clean installation will run, then I signed out and shut it down. I followed the instructions found here and copied the contents of the “Plex Media Server” folder on the Synology to the FreeNAS jail, overwriting the originals, but when I subsequently try to restart the PMS service on the FreeNAS box, the “working” animation appears but the server doesn’t actually start when the animation stops. I’ve tried rebooting the server and it hasn’t helped.
I’ve tried this a couple of times now: once overwriting the existing files and the other having deleted all of the existing files first, but it makes no difference. Is this possibly because there’s a version mismatch between the 1.13 on the Synology NAS and the 1.12 on the FreeNAS? Should upgrading the installed version (before or after copying the settings) on FreeNAS fix it?
I’ve tried to find instructions on how to manually update PMS on FreeNAS (e.g. this thread) but pkgng doesn’t seem to work from the CLI in the Plex jail and I can’t even work out how to run this script. Can anyone tell me how to update PMS or how to get the transplanted server to actually run?
Update: I found out how to install PMS on FreeNAS using the CLI pkg tool, and successfully installed a later version of PMS (1.13.4) than that available in the plugins list (1.12.2), but when I overwrote the Plex database (recursively updating the permissions in the appropriate file path), I once again found that I couldn’t run the PMS service on the FreeNAS box.
Is it likely that the PMS database files are not compatible across versions? I wouldn’t have thought it would matter, given how similar the PMS version numbers are, particularly for my second attempt.
Hi, did you ever solve this problem. I have this problem and have spent days trying to fix it. Every time I move the Plex database to the Freenas it just makes the PLEX web interface stop working even though plex server is running. I think I am going to give up with this for the time being as I don’t think its possible. Instead I will probably move Plex to windows but even then you lose all the artwork and have to refresh the entire library. My Plex as been built up over 10years. Really think it time that all these problems were addressed.
No, I never did get this sorted out. As you can see in the thread, no-one responded, either Plex support staff or knowledgeable users, so I had nothing to work with. I opened a thread on the FreeNAS forums which similarly came up blank, so I gave up trying to transfer the existing data and just rebuilt from scratch, which has its own problems in addition to losing all the metadata.
There’s a thread over in the feature suggestions forum which asks for official tools for porting/syncing databases between two servers. Perhaps if enough people +1 it, Plex’ll add the functionality eventually.
Hi, thanks. Yes there is no support whatsoever in moving between different systems. The staff spend all their time coming up with new fancy ideas. My system is huge so starting from scratch is not an option. Even moving from Synology to Windows only works if you download all the metadata again so whats the point. I have just done a simple move from Synology to a Mac which I have spare and all the artwork was there so now about to move the 25gb database to the iMac to see what happens.
