do the following –
- Upper right corner ( your avatar ) – SIGN OUT of Plex/web
- Open a new, incognito, browser window
- Open http://ip.addr.of.synology:32400/web (use the real LAN IP address)
- Now see if it responds and lets you ‘sign in and claim it’
There is ONE possibility I can foresee.
On VERY rare occasions , PMS ‘burps’ while writing Preferences.xml.
I would like to look at the one for your server.
I will open a PM and you can do the following
- Install the Synology Text Editor app if not installed.
- Open FileStation → PlexMediaServer/AppData/Plex Media Server
- Right-click “Preferences.xml” → Open with Text Editor
- Highlight & COPY all the text you see
- Paste it in the PM I send you.
Hi @ChuckPa ,
Like I said the second install waorked fine, just as expected. I just wanted to let you know in case there was something else to consider.
Oh also, I think it might be worth putting an extra instruction in to remind people to turn off any scheduled power down. I had one, and luckily remembered to disable it.
Thank you.
Extra note added in the migration instructions as part of the sequence.
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Hi to all, and especially to @ChuckPa.
I’m not new to Synology nas. Many years of use since 106j model.
First time that a DSM 7.0 update creates so many problems.
Last, this with Plex (used from 2017) and discovered thanks to this forum.
I uninstalled old Plex instance. Deleted Plex directory and made a fresh installation with package from Plex site.
Installation was fine. I follow instructions to check ACL permissions.
I’ve checked thousand times that permissions are right setted and that are the same for all my media directories.
Everything goes fine with “film” and “music” directory.
Indexed and playable.
No way to give access to “photo” directory.
PlexMediaServer internal user is correctly granted in ACL (Shared folders - Photo - Permissions - Internal User).
It works if I create a NEW directory (called PlexPhoto) and duplicate my “photo” directory. I suppose it is a bad workaround.
Any further suggestion?
Hi @ChuckPa,
It seems I have had a problem after all.
Tonight I’ve actually tried to watch a movie from the Plex, but it came back with a Media unavailable error:
Playback Error
Please check that the file exists and the necessary drive is mounted.
I checked a few others and they are having the same issue.
I had a long message all written up with everything I’ve tried to fix it, but I deleted it all when I worked it out.
Issue was I didn’t have any permissions set on my media folders for the PlexMediaServer user.
Not sure if I missed that in the instructions?
This is DSM 7. Synology has changed ‘photo’ and all their default shared folders.
You are correct that , for Plex to use them, you must move them to a new shared folder then delete the Synology-provided one.
It’s VERY unfortunate but DSM 6 was the same way but somewhat less strict about it.
In here –
scrolling down to –
This is how you change from having given user Plex permission to read the media to PlexMediaServer
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Thank you @ChuckPa.
I’ll proceed with the suggestion, but only for “photo” directory.
All other defautl media shared directories (video and music) still works fine with Plex, even with a clean installation.
Synology not only changes permissions on nas, but even the way to access Photo and shared folders from smartphone. Old DSPhoto, DSFile and DSCLoud are deprecated now, and upgraded to Photos app (an original name indeed…) and new apps (from desktop too), that uses completely different access method.
As told, DSM 7 is a BIG revolution, for better security. But it has e lot of little bit annoying “misfunctions”, especially for advanced users.
Hope this helps.
Yes, DSM 7 changed everything.
Synology has taken control of their product and are very strict in what they allow it to be used for.
@ChuckPa The smile on my face… thank you so much for the time and effort that you add these walk throughs. I hope you win the lotto!!!
Which one helped you the most ?
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It was response #2701.
There are three options when uninstalling, the last one says to “Erase all of Plex Media Server from this system (Not Recoverable)”. I read that and thought it was inclusive of my DSM 6 Plex Data (which I had made a backup of, but was still concerned about it being deleted in DSM7).
In your response you wrote:
Uninstall the Plex package – ERASE option to remove the errant/rogue DSM 7 installation.
In reading the bolded section that gave me relief that it was only the DSM 7 data inside the Plex Media Server folder.
You also wrote "Delete shared folder “PlexMediaServer”, sadly I was not able to do that, but it did not affect the re-installation.
I knew it worked when I reinstalled PSM from the download and the “Loading” section was spinning. Upon completion, Plex ran, I logged in, and all my data was there, including the last album I was listening to.
Please know that all your work is appreciated. Many users take the the information and forget to give thanks.
I hope you have Happy Holidays!!! Stay safe and thanks again.
It’s been a few days; I got tied up with work. Anyway, I’ve followed your 2nd set of directions, which referred me back to Step 18 of your 1st set of directions.
Everything went smoothly, up to and including the installation of Plex from the downloads page.
I installed PlexMediaServer-1.25.2.5319-c43dc0277-x86_64_DSM7.spk, but within 10-15 seconds it indicated “Installation Successful!”, and reminded me to check that user PlexMediaServer is granted permission in Control Panel. (I checked; it is)
However, there is no Migration.log in the Plex shared folder, which still has all the original files and folders intact.
The new PlexMediaServer shared folder is very small, only around 3.9MB. There are PlexMediaServer services listed in Resource Monitor, but they are all idle.
Where do we go from this point?
If your original files are still in the Plex share, then we have our proof that “repair” was somehow activated which created the errant server.
This is now an easy, potentially time consuming, fix (real migration)
-
Uninstall + ERASE option to remove the errant DSM 7 data sitting in the PlexMediaServer shared folder.
-
Confirm your DSM security timeout is set to a longer value (I use 65535 minutes since the NAS has no remote desktop connectivity. Sign out and back into DSM if you change this.
-
Reinstall the plex.tv/downloads package again.
-
Now it should sit at “Installing” – OR – give you instructions about setting permisions for the “Plex” shared folder to allow the migration.
I seem to have a non-functioning Plex system after upgrading. I did the upgrade much earlier this year, right after DSM 7 came out and did it without realizing that Plex would break without doing “just right.” I did the upgrade without uninstalling Plex, and then tried to use the repair function, followed by uninstalling Plex and re-installing.
What I have & versions:
Synology DS1019+ with 24 TB runing DSM 7.0.1-42218 / Phys Memory 8192 MB
Plex installed version 1.25.1.5286-7000
All media is under the folder /volume1/Media with separate folders for each of the subgroups under Media (Movies, Other Video, TV Shows, Photos, etc.). Each of these subgroups has further subgroups (such as under Other Video: Animation-Kids Shows, Animation-Movies, Instruction, etc.)
I have two test movies copied into the root of the Media folder, one is a test.MKV not in a folder, and the other is a full movie that is inside a folder.
I have given Plex and PlexMediaServer full permissions.
Under User & Group I only see Plex with a Status of Normal, along with the other expected users. When I edit the Plex group, I have both Plex and PlexMediaServer with custom permissions, giving all permissions.
My Plex folder is empty and my PlexMediaServer folder has a number of folders and files.
Symptoms when running Plex:
- I see all my titles when I open Plex along with my thumbnails. Some of the thumbnails were custom selected and these all show correctly.
- Plex can see and play the test.MKV file without any problems, but not the movie folder that is in the root of the Media folder.
- I get an error of: Playback Error Please check that the file exists and the necessary drive is mounted. with a checkbox that says “RETRY” for any file that is other than the test.MKV
- New files put into the Media folder in the subfolders will not show up on scans
- When trying to add a Library, it will not show anything lower down than the Media folder, even if I type the directory into the box.
I updated the DSM and Plex to current installations from when I messed up Plex. That didn’t help.
Do I need remove and re-install Plex? … or what will help fix what I messed up.
What is my risk to the Media files while uninstalling Plex, if I need to go that route. I have a backup, but as I have many movies (somewhere near 1000) and about 16TB of files, I don’t want to have to recopy it as it would take a very long time.
What is my risk of the meta data that Plex has on each of the files as I have custom put a number of thumbnails to many of the videos (many of which are home created videos)?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Awesome! Your advice was spot on; everything seems to be working properly at this time.
Thanks so much. I truly appreciate your help!
Mike
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Do you still have Metadata in the “Plex” shared folder ?
(Library / Application Support / Plex Media Server)
In the folder under Plex/Library/ I have two empty folders named Movies and TV Shows
