Server Version#: Version 1.19.1.2630
Player Version#: 4.31.1
I’m using OMV5 with a docker to load plex from a Debian Stretch. I’ve searched all the forums and have tried a ton of different fixes and I am at a loss at this point.
Would you mind sharing some more details about your setup?
I take it the media isn’t showing up in your Plex library in the first place – so it’s not about a client missing out on media that has already been cataloged by Plex, is it?
Do you experience this for a single library or generally.
Can you still play files previously added to Plex?
HI Tom,
What details would you like?
I will warn you I am below a novice at this- I was using the plex server to stream directly to my playstation from an external but was getting a conversion transcoder error so I followed videos to set up a Debian stretch platform on an old laptop to load OMV and Plex.
I do see the media in my Plex library, with thumbnails and everything, except when I go to play it, it will spin loading at either 13 or 33% then quit out.
All my video files are in a single library on an external drive hooked up to my Debian OS. Some will play and some won’t (I’m not quite sure why the difference).
If you’re experience level is “below novice”… my first thought goes to why you added all the extra layers of complexity?
Plex running as a container in docker which is running in OMV which is running in Debian. I’ve seen very experienced IT guys failing with less complex setups 
Generally speaking I like to recommend users to stick with a platform they feel comfortable with and with which they have a certain level of expertise (like don’t go riding a rally car if you just learned driving with an automatic car).
Given the many layers of your setup, there’s all kinds of things that can go wrong.:
- could be the laptop simply not being powerful enough to stream the media in a format supported by your clients
- could be the configuration of Debian and how it distributes resources of the notebook OMV
- could be the configuration of OMV
- could be the configuration of your Docker
- …
To get started… would you mind trying to play a video and after it fails get the server logs and upload them here?
Logs can be found under Settings > Server > Manage > Troubleshooting > Download Logs
Honestly, I wasn’t finding any super helpful ways of doing it that had step-by-step instructions. I’ve been banging my head against this for the better part of the last three days of quarantine. If you recommend a simpler way of doing it- I am all ears.
and okay there seems to be several problems - on my Roku, the files load and load and load and then quit statesing “Playback has stopped due to multiple playback errors, please check your connection.”
On my PC (Dell XPS 13) via Plexweb - the file will load (after a long time) just with audio, no video.
and on my PS4, it tries to load and then I get the “An error occurred trying to play “movietitle”.”
Here are the logs:
Plex Media Server Logs_2020-04-10_01-36-27.zip (2.8 MB)
If you already spent 3 days of your quarantine and are still willing to work it out… take a look at the general support articles and guides of Plex:
- https://support.plex.tv/articles/ (generic entry page)
- https://support.plex.tv/articles/200288586-installation/ (contains instructions on how to install Plex on a “bare OS”)
As for your current setup…
There seem to be some configuration issues. When a client cannot stream the media as it is stored on your HDD, Plex will try to “transcode” it to meet a format supported by the client. During that process, Plex will create a folder for that particular transcode.
In your case, this fails because Plex cannot find the folder it’s suppose to use (or write to it). Plex tries using a drive called E:\. That however is a Windows path-name which won’t be available/accessible from within your Docker (nor the surrounding OMV/Debian).
Can you check if that path is set in Settings > Server > Transcoder > Transcoder temporary directory (inside Plex; you might need to click on Show Advanced if the setting is not visible in the Transcoder section).
There also seem to be some issues with the connectivity inside your container. Plex tries to connect with the domain plex.direct which is refused
Honestly, I just want it to work, I’m not too set on making it work this way if there is an easier, more efficient way of doing it.
There is no path set in the transcoder.
I had previously tried setting the path, but could not get it to work (and also couldn’t tell it was actually doing anything). How would I set that to connect to the OMV/Debian path and how would I get the domain plex.direct to connect?
I will read the articles while we’re discussing.
Also would it be better to strip OMV and just run plex directly off Debian?
I won’t be the judge about “better”.
It’ll most certainly be easier… peeling off some layer of complexity and possible misconfigurations…
You should be able to simply install the Plex app on the Debian level.
To make things easier in the long run you can enable “repository updating”:
- download the latest Plex Media Server version for your platform
https://www.plex.tv/media-server-downloads/- select
Linuxon the left - click
Choose Distribution - select the file applicable for your platform
if you’re not sure, you can runlscpuon your Debian’s terminal; that’ll show the architecture ->x86_64orarmand the available modes -> only32-bitvs.32-bit+64-bit(=64-bit)
- select
- open your terminal/shell and navigate to the folder to which you downloaded the file
- run
sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver_1.19.1.2645-ccb6eb67e_amd64.deb- replacing the last filename with the name of the actual installer
- running this will ask you for your password (assuming your user is allowed to run
sudocommands
- run the following 2 commands to enable automatic repository updates
(from https://support.plex.tv/articles/235974187-enable-repository-updating-for-supported-linux-server-distributions/):echo deb https://downloads.plex.tv/repo/deb public main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plexmediaserver.listcurl https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-keys/PlexSign.key | sudo apt-key add -
- Plex will be running under its own user on your Debian (
plex). Make sureplexhas read and execute permissions to your media directories and files! - Open a browser on the notebook and open
http://127.0.0.1:32400/web– this will bring up the built-in version of Plex Web to complete the setup
(from https://support.plex.tv/articles/200288896-basic-setup-wizard/)- make sure to give the server a new friendly name to avoid it from colliding with your old setup
Steps from https://support.plex.tv/articles/200288586-installation/
Okay, I have gotten down to permissions, however I can’t give permissions to access media because I need to mount my external hard drive that has all my files. I tried to run “sudo fdisk -1” to mount it but it is not recognizing fdisk as a command, am I doing it wrong?
Check out the Linux tips & tricks.
Those contain examples on how to mount different types of drives in order to ensure they’re visible/accessible to Plex (e.g. for regular internal/external drives, network drives…).
Okay, so I have plex running directly through Debian. Now, the files will play but there is only audio, no video at all. I have disabled subtitles on all of them and they still won’t load.
Here are the logs:
Plex Media Server Logs_2020-04-10_22-30-16.zip (2.4 MB)
Is this happening on the Playstation 4 or also on other devices?
do the files play ok in some other player (either from within your Plex environment or e.g. using VLC to play the file itself)?
From the logs it looks like Plex has an issue recognizing the content of the file. This can happen if the file is oddly shaped.
Could you pick one example that didn’t work, go to the video’s pre-play screen in Plex (details page) – click on ... > Get Info; this should open a dialog – click on View XML at the bottom of that dialog. Can you copy the content between <Media> and </Media> to see what technical details of that file Plex got?
Ok… that at least explains why there’s no video playing… Plex doesn’t recognize it.
Does the video play properly when you play it e.g. with VLC?
The size of the file (<60 MB) implies the video part might actually be missing.
It… actually does not. On windows media player it shows frame by frame images, but not a video.
The good news is… that’s nothing that Plex broke
The bad news is, you’ll still need to identify if you just got a bad file or if something in your process is broken, leaving you with videos without actual video track 
Okay, I’m working to figure out why the files are broken. I’ll get back to you once I figure it out or am just out of ideas. Thank you for all your help!
