Shield is an excellent streaming device but limited as a server IMO.
It really depends on your needs but I’d recommend running on a PC (linux is best IMO) with your media on external disks like a NAS if you plan on growing overtime.
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I still can’t believe that this was allowed to happen! Did no one in Nvidia or Plex consider that this could cause issues? Did they not test this with apps like Plex (which is one of their pre-installed apps)?
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My situation is this: My external drive is connected directly to my Shield TV Pro 2019. I AM able to locate my external drive when using the Plex web client, however the folder path has changed from the original location, it is now /storage/61BB-9901/NVIDIA_SHIELD/Movies. I CAN SMB into my Plex and see both internal and my external drive with all my movie files, however I cannot get Plex to see the external drive, I just see 2 options for “internal”, neither of which contain my files obviously. And yes, I have gone through the app permissions for Plex and PMS on the shield, both allowing access to the external storage.
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Plex server broken after Shield “upgrade”. Gonna wait on a real fix. Using backup PMS that’s on my pc.
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No he does not need to ask them questions. I understand what triks_melb is saying here mate. I am single user and running a dedicated PC or VM just for plex is an overkill here. I personally chose the NVIDIA SHIELD because the specs are fit for purpose and I use NAS for the media and USB3 SSD on SHIELD for the libraries(metadata). 100GB of metadata and will just grow bigger. I too take 3-4 days just to update this crap from scratch. The bottle neck is not the SHIELD box but the broadband speed. ADSL and low end VDSL type of speeds.
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Here’s a new wrinkle I just ran into… Shield Pro 2019 (Experience 9 + Hotfix) + USB SSD as Adopted Storage.
As soon as Plex Media Server on the Shield scans a new folder on Adopted Storage for the first time and adds the contents to your library, it then revokes Samba write permissions for that folder for all users.
I was beating my head against a wall trying to figure out why Sonarr would only import the first episode of Peacemaker onto my Shield over the network, and then the remaining episodes would fail.
I can’t say for sure if this is a Plex issue or an Nvidia issue. I also can’t say for sure how this will affect existing folders when a new episode gets added to them.
EDIT: I verified that this is not a Sonarr issue. Plex is preventing SMB write access on any new folders created in the Shield’s Adopted Storage. Files/folders that existed before taking the Experience 9 update are not affected.
- Using Samba in Windows, I copied a movie folder from my NAS to the Shield’s Adopted Storage, into the /internal/Movies folder which is monitored by my movie library.
- I verified that I have write permissions to this folder by creating a .txt file in it over SMB in Windows.
- I scanned for files in the Plex Movie library
- I verified that I no longer had write permissions in that folder over SMB in Windows (nor could I delete the duplicate folder I’d created on the Shield)
- I was able, however, to split the NAS/Shield copies of the movie in Plex, and delete the Shield copy using the Plex UI
Ubuntu with a fast processor. Or most versions of linux. Free, stable, well supported, easy to update. I have an Ubuntu machine solely for media serving. Plex, AssetUPnP, BubbleUPnP, Calibre, done. Movies, Music, Books.
Buy a dirt cheap case, a barebones motherboard, and a fast processor on the cheap (maybe like a generation or two old) and you’ll be golden on the server front.
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Do you keep all of your content on an internal drive, or an external one with a PC set-up? I’m not all that well versed in anything outside of Windows OS so Ubuntu and Linux setups might be a little confusing for me, but I’m sure I would get the hang of it eventually. Thanks for the advice!
This thread is about the shield Upgrade and the issue this comes with on Plex - please don’t Garbage the thread with “correct and perfect Plex server setup for me” and return to the OPs problem which we all have. 
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I know for a fact it was working on my Shield before an automatic update on Jan 5th killed it.
I have my subtitles set to always burn in so it was immediately noticeable when it started happening.
I can’t find an instance of a Plex dev acknowledging that one yet though, hopefully they notice it when they’re fixing the Shield Experience issues.
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I haven’t seen any acknowledgement of the transcoding regression on shield either.
I highly doubt that if/when they get Plex server working correctly on Experience 9 that this problem will be resolved too. One can dream.
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This works on Windows, but not sure about Shield. Go into the library and select the table view. On the left side of the list, click the first item you want to change, then shift-click the last item to select everything in between. Then click on ‘mark as played’ (the little check-mark icon) at the top.
I hope that helps!
I had to Factory Reset Shield. Starting over from scratch…but it’s been stuck on the “Plex Media Server is starting for the first time… Please wait” for about 40 minutes now.
NVIDIA just put the best explanation of what is going on to date in their “Known Issues” Thread.
"There are a lot of questions about how SHIELD Experience could be launched with Plex Media server not working correctly. The root of the issue with Plex Media Server on launch day of 9.0 is related to the changes in Android 11 for Storage. We worked closely with Plex during SHIELD Experience 9.0 development to make sure PMS was working and during all of our internal and external beta testing it was working. Plex wasn’t 100% ready for Android 11’s changes but we had it working. Unfortunately though on January 4th a new version of PMS was launched which changed the reported API level and that broke PMS on SHIELD Experience 9. All of our testing had been complete and the change went unnoticed until launch day.
We are working closely with Plex now to get a new PMS that has full Android 11 storage support and cleans up this experience. In the meantime, one can generally still get PMS working by using a combination of the HotFix image and the 1.24 version of PMS and enabling all of the storage privleges per the first item in the Known issues list."
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Is the Hotfix the final solution ? Or should I wait for a new PMS version in the Shield’s Play Store ?
Is this the main topic for this problem ?
Thanks for the help.
What’s the transcoding regression you speak of?
The fact that at the end of 2021 they released a version of Plex that broke hardware transcoding on the Shield.
Nice to finally have some explanation/real acknowledgement but they give no estimate for timeline, how hard can it be to fix it if they know exactly what the problem is and they make it seem like a minor thing… a “reported” version of an API.
They also need to provide guidance, exact steps, to users where to get the “working” PMS version and how to apply it. If you downgrade, will it screw up your database? What if you’re on the beta channel already? Anything else? Too much information is missing.
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So as we originally thought the issue lies squarely with Plex. No surprises there then.
We think we’ve identified the issues, 2 mainly.
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NVidia Shield Experience 9.0 has a bug that prevents PMS from writing to an attached usb drive. This is fixed with the hotfix 9.0.1
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Current version of PMS from the Google Play Store does not see the usb drive as an option for moving the data folder (or as an existing location if the data was already moved). We are working on a fix for this. It will come to the beta channel first. If you are not on the beta channel, you can sideload the apk using ADB. The apk will be available in our beta release thread when ready.
tl/dr. Install the 9.0.1 hotfix from NVidia, install the newest PMS when it’s available in the beta channel.
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