[Solved] Plex stopped scanning NFS drive

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.41.4.9463
Player Version#: Not applicable
<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>

This problem appears to have started about the beginning of the year (2025). My configuration consists of several QNAP devices. The QNAP in question has been in the network for a couple of years now and has been scanned without incident. However as of the beginning of the year, its like when Plex performs its scan of the devices, the QNAP in question is completely bypassed. The drive is raid 5 and I have checked that the drive is mounted. I can access it from the Ubuntu server hosting the Plex Media app and I can also access it from another desktop in the network. It is possible to write files to the drive from the desktop computer and I can view and display files from the Plex Media host server. As far as I can determine, it is only the Plex Media app that is having problems as the its host can access the files.

Help!

2

Can you please show me the NFS settings for the shared folder (screenshot from where you set it)

and also please show the NFS mount in /etc/fstab

Lastly, with the filesystem unmounted, ls -la of the mount-point dir.

3

Here is the info you have requested (hopefully I have the right pieces)
NFS settings:

Folderpermissions
Folderpermissions902×557 31.4 KB

the fstab entry for the share:
pmedia:/Multimedia /mnt/PMediaNFS nfs rsize=24576,wsize=24576,user,vers=4.0,hard,intr,rw 0 0

(I have tried it with both the vers in the statement and with it removed - both have the same effect - the share is not seen by Plex)

The ls command output:
psd@UbuntuMediaV3:/mnt$ ls -la
total 88
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4096 Dec 11 06:59 .
drwxr-xr-x 23 root root 4096 Aug 30 11:09 …
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 29 2021 cdrom
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Jan 11 2022 DMediaV1
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Aug 30 2021 GMediaV1
drwxrwxrwx 9 root root 4096 Oct 8 07:55 LMediaNFS
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Oct 26 11:34 LP2Video
drwxrwxrwx 3 root root 4096 Jan 28 2023 lpvideo
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Aug 30 2021 MediaV1
drwxrwxrwx 6 root root 4096 Dec 30 14:12 NMediaNFS
drwxrwxrwx 7 root root 4096 May 7 2024 NVMEStor
drwxrwxrwx 5 root root 4096 Oct 12 10:17 OMediaNFS
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Aug 29 2021 PMediaNFS
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Aug 29 2021 QMediaNFS
drwxrwxrwx 9 root root 4096 Jul 1 2024 RMediaNFS
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Aug 30 2021 SMediaV1
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Aug 30 2021 TMediaV1
drwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4096 Dec 17 15:37 USBSea8TB
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Aug 29 2021 WMediaNFS
drwxrwxrwx 2 root root 4096 Feb 28 2024 X10Pro

4

You are using sec=sys on the QNAP.

Your mount

pmedia:/Multimedia /mnt/PMediaNFS nfs rsize=24576,wsize=24576,user,vers=4.0,hard,intr,rw 0 0

can be improved here.

  1. With sec=sys, don’t use user
  2. By default, Ubuntu & QNAP will negotiate the highest NFS level availble (4.2)
  3. ‘defaults’ first establishes the baseline options which you then customize
    – otherwise you get only what you ask for.

I recommend you use the same on Ubuntu (like I do) since you’re running linux<->linux

Feel free to adjust per your needs

192.168.0.20:/vol/media /glock/media nfs defaults,sec=sys,rw,auto,async,rsize=4194304,wsize=4194304,x-systemd.after=network-online.target,nofail,bg 0 0

My machine boots really fast so I have systemd hold back on mounting until after the network adapter is safely up.

I set ‘nofail,bg’ so it won’t interrupt boot if it can’t mount and then background the failed attempt if the NAS is off (shutdown)

One concern I have is user permissions on the QNAP.

I run with with everything as ‘admin’
This means Ubuntu, which mounts as root, gets uid 0 ↔ uid 0 access
Ubuntu then determines whether or not I can see the media.

I have this little shell script which will help you track down where access fails.
If you run as plex then you can easily confirm if any path is blocked.

Additionally, you can simply launch a shell as UID=plex and then attempt to ‘cd’ your way into the remote mounted locations. (the ones you can’t see)

5

Thanks for the feedback. Will try the suggestions in the morning. Just shutting down now for the night.

6

Modified my fstab entry for the problem share to:
pmedia:/Multimedia /mnt/PMediaNFS nfs defaults,rsize=24576,wsize=24576,sec=sys,hard,intr,rw 0 0

Although I can access the file in Dolphin or from the command line, Plex is not seeing the drive.

You mentioned a shell script for debugging but I did not see a link for it. Also not sure how to launch a “shell as UID=plex” UPDATE located the shell, I was clicking on the wrong part of the header.

7

I’m having problems with the “su” command (step 3 in the above tips). Whenever I try to execute it, I am getting an Authorization failure - I have tried using the password of the account logged in, the root password and the plex account password and each give the Authorization failure. To confirm it was the “su” portion of the command line, I ran the file containing the script and it worked fine. So not sure what I am doing wrong with the “su” portion.

8

IIRC, su should require the password of the account identity you’re assuming.

If you have sudo configured, you might try:

sudo su - -s /bin/bash plex

Change plex if necessary to the account your media server is running as. That will give you a full login shell as the media server account.

9

Thanks - the sudo suggestion worked. I see that there is a permission issue which I will dive deeper into. Knowing it is a permission issue, I am marking this as solved.

10

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