I setup a new Plex on a new install of Ubuntu. I installed this time using the Snap from Ubuntu Software Apps. Everything went fine until I noticed that the server wasn’t detecting new media files. I went and changed the software setting in the Plex Media Server application to turn on Access USB hardware directly. I added a media file and nothing happened. Assuming I had to restart the Plex Media Server, I used terminal to execute
“sudo service plexmediaserver restart”
and received
"Unit plexmediaserver.service could not be found.
I did some more digging. Seems like none of the standard items installed by the deb package are installed with the Snap.
There is no plex user
plexmediaserver application is run by root
short of restarting the System, I see no other way to control the application.
I have a Windows Plex Media Server (that I am looking to replace with the Ubuntu VM) so I can leave it in this state for troubleshooting purposes. I saw a previous thread from 2 years ago that was closed and it appears this was never properly resolved.
As a note, I did have a previous server, working perfectly from the download, but I wanted all my apps to be able to be seen in the Show Applications section of the GUI instead of the just using the terminal. I had installed an App that would allow me to add all manually downloaded and compiled apps to this section but borked the entire OS and had to start over from scratch. Since I got 90% of the bugs worked out with the previous install, I figured I would use the Snap install instead.
Ah yes, one thing I missed was the # of directories. But my point is that the download for the deb performs the installation differently than the Snap installation. The service name is snap.plexmediaserver.plexmediaserver.service and is (by default) set to root control. not plex. There is no user plex.
This is the link to the previous thread that was closed.
