Resurrected Plex server, messed up friends sharing

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
1

A few months ago, my old Ubuntu based server crashed, harddisks got corrupted etc.
Recently i rebuild the server, this time on Debian, found some backups of the previous installation, and recovered them.
What i did:
(after initial Debian OS installation)
Install Plexmediaserver 1.15.xx
stop service
Replace com.plexapp.plugins.library.db file from backup
Replace Preferences.xml file from backup
Make sure all mediapaths are identical to the old installation.
Start service

Server seems working fine again, and retained his ‘old’ name, all media is still there, and i only needed to refresh the metadata to get all the images etc. back.

However, when i see my friendlist, they still have their permissions to my shared libraries, but not on this rebuild server. More problematic, i can’t remove the libraries from the ‘old’ server on their list, as the new server have the same name and ID compared to the old one.
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Let me try to visualise my problem


I used to share 6 libraries to this friend. Note the grey " ? "
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725×531 26.2 KB

When i want to edit the user, there is no ‘grey’ server to edit.
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When i share the exactly same 6 libraries again (from running server), it now saying 12 libraries.

Ultimate solution would be, that my friends somehow instantly get access to my old libraries again.
But when despite reusing the same Plex server name and ID is not possible, how to remove the old library permissions ? I already tried renaming my new server, hoping the old one would reappear in grey, but it did not :frowning:

Server Version#: 1.15.3.875
Player Version#: 3.83.1

2

What you were missing is Preferences.xml
Preferences.xml contains the MachineID and ProcessedMachineID .
These are the two items which uniquely identify the server and what sharing with friends are anchored to.

With the DB and the Preferences.xml, you can recover the server as it was.

3

see also I want to backup my Genre tags from one server and restore them onto a new server

4

@ChuckPa
Thank you for your answer !

But as i stated, i replaced the DB file and the Preferences.xml on the new installation from files of the old server backup. So basically, the new server have the old files.

@OttoKerner If i read it correctly, the topic is about moving a library to a new server while retaining the old server.
My situation is more like, old server crashed, reinstalled new server, want to recover server by using backups from old server.
However, despite restoring the original DB and Preferences.xml, friends do not see my new server, until i (re)share my libraries on individual base. (and my old server libraries are still on their list)

5

Pretty sure you restored a backup from a different “incarnation” of the server. i.e. while it may have the same “friendly name”, it has different ID numbers in the preferences.xml
So, technically it is a different server.

You might wanna weed out your server list: https://app.plex.tv/desktop#!/settings/devices/pms to get rid of the duplicate.

6

While i never had more then 2 Plex servers (1 primary for myself, friends and familly, 1 to test and mess with it) it should be obvious that there should be no 3rd ID.

However, when i took a 2 year old backup, the ID’s are indeed different!
The 2 year old backup was still on v0.9.17.2.2159, and the Preferences.xml seems a lot bigger compared to my end of 2018 backup. (have more settings stored)

So, i stopped the server. Downgrade to 0.9.17.2.2159, used the 2year old Preferences.xml backup, start the server. Stop server, upgrade to 1.15.3.85 and YES! everything is back to ‘normal’.

Thank you all for pointing me to the right direction !

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