@modkiefer Thank you for your answer. I’ve put more time into the issue and discovered it was a number of issues. Below is a write up of my findings. I hope you and others find it helpful:
I moved my Plex Media Server from an Intel chip to Apple Silicon ( Mac M1 Mini). Unfortunately, there isn’t native support for Apple Silicon with Plex Media Server, but it still runs well on Apple Silicon through Apple’s translation layer called Rosetta.
My setup consists of an Apple M1 Mac Mini, 16 gigs of RAM, a 2 terabyte drive, and connected to my network via an Ethernet cable. I have Network Attached Storage (NAS) with 18 terabytes of storage. All my media files reside on my NAS. Lastly, I have a Silicon Dust HDHomerun 4k TV tuner; this is a network Over-The-Air TV tuner that works surprisingly well.
I ran into some challenges; I followed these steps to get Plex Media Server running on Mac OS. These instructions aren’t Apple Silicon specific.
Turn on user auto-login
Turning on user auto-login allows users to automatically log into Mac OS when it boots up. This could be a security issue if your Plex Server is not in a safe place.
Launch Plex Media Server on user login
Enable Plex Media Server to start upon user login. This ensures your Plex Media Server starts when your Mac starts up or restarts.
Mount the Network Share on User Login
It’s important to add the Network Share via the finder, especially if it has a username and password. Initially, I navigated to my Network Share via the network under the Finder Location. To access my Share, I entered my username and password. Doing it this way will access your files, but it doesn’t save your username and password. So the next time you log in, the Network Share won’t be added.
The only way to save your username and password is to mount your Network Share via Finder.
After loading a ton of new media, your site will be slllllloooooowww.
After scanning your files, Plex Media Server loads very slowly, or maybe not at all. The cause might be your database isn’t optimized. Go to the troubleshooting menu item on the settings page and optimize your database.
If your site is so slow that it won’t load the settings page, restart your Plex Media Server and try again.
Disable Mac OS sleep when monitors go to sleep
By default, Mac OS goes to sleep when the monitors do, even when there are no monitors attached, it appears Mac OS goes to sleep after 15 minutes of inactivity.
Make sure to Mac OS does not go to sleep when the monitors time out. There is an option under in System Preferences > Energy Saver > “Prevent your Mac from automatically sleeping when the display is off”
