# Restoring library after computer crash

**URL:** <https://forums.plex.tv/t/restoring-library-after-computer-crash/930573>\
**Category:** Plex Media Server\
**Tags:** server-linux\
**Created:** [September 9, 2025, 11:10am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/restoring-library-after-computer-crash/930573 "2025-09-09T11:10:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pysaumont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ba0ec/32.png) [@pysaumont](https://forums.plex.tv/u/pysaumont)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 11:10am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/restoring-library-after-computer-crash/930573/1 "2025-09-09T11:10:12Z")

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Server Version#: 4.147.1 Ubuntu Snap  
Player Version#:  
\<If providing [server logs](https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/) please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only [debug logging](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201643703-reporting-issues-with-plex-media-server/#toc-1) should be enabled\>

Hi,

I am having a problem with a system crash on my Ubuntu machine. My media are on an external USB disk and have not be affected. I have a copy of /var/snap/plexmediaserver.

I tried to reinstall Plex, stop it and replace the content of /var/snap/plexmediaserver with my backup, but that didn’t work. Plex sees the old library name (in fact under the name of the machine) but nothing more. I can of course rescan the media, but I will have lost all graphics (which Plex replaces by a generated Thumbnail if it doesn’t find the correct image in the databases it connects to), and more importantly, the status of each movie or series: categories and seen/no seen. As I have thousand of moves and series, that’s a real problem. Is there a way to force Plex to use the old data?

As it sees the library but not any content, my guess is that the path has changed, because linux paths to USB disks might be generated, such as /media/username/5BCA9F0A0E46D175/. Is there a way to check the path in the plexmediaserver data?

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**Author:** ![ChuckPa](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/chuckpa/32/79710_2.png) [@ChuckPa](https://forums.plex.tv/u/ChuckPa)\
**Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 12:00am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/restoring-library-after-computer-crash/930573/2 "2025-09-10T00:00:12Z")

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Do you know the old path?

You can always tell Linux where to mount the USB drive.

If PMS is expecting it there, then once you make the mount permanent, it will find it again.

Alternatively, you can effectively “move” the path reference without losing anything. It takes a few steps but does work.

> [@Linux Tips](https://forums.plex.tv/t/linux-tips/276247/2):
>
> Using other hard drives (Windows or Linux) with PMS This How-To is written to help with Internal and External drives. It also is written to demonstrate how to cope with NTFS and EXT4 formatted drives. By logical extension, any format supported by Linux can be handled using the technique shown here. In all cases, the goal is to give user plex permission to read your media files which Linux doesn’t allow by default due to its strict security model. We will walk through the steps needed …

In that `Linux Tips` category, you’ll find several other how-to’s

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 9, 2025, 12:00am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/restoring-library-after-computer-crash/930573/3 "2025-12-09T00:00:22Z")

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