Don’t you just LOVE DSM 7? 
It’s my first experience with having a server so it’s all a learning curve for me.
I hope it’s going well.
DSM 7, while nice and friendly on the surface, is a pain underneath to make happy. It has a lot of little ‘gotcha’ in it.
Before DSM 7, Plex was MUCH easier to install, maintain, and use. Now, in this restricted environment which was created, it is much more difficult. It took me 8 months to get Plex running on DSM 7 and now, nearly a year later, we’re still seeing strange behaviors.
1 Like
Hi there, I’m hoping that you can help guide me. I’ve made the same mistakes mentioned here (Updated to DSM 7, then "Repair"ed Plex), but then I Uninstalled Plex without the Erase option before finding this thread. So now I don’t have the Uninstall+Erase option anymore, and I can’t reinstall an older DSM 6 version of PMS on DSM 7 to get this option back. Any ideas? Thank you!
When you get out of sync with the process, it will take an extra Install - Uninstall/Erase cycle to get it going again.
- Install – don’t start – then uninstall + Erase
- Now that one should be cleared out
- Install again
- If you don’t have the migration kick in (warnings / instructions / Protracted “Installing” ) – then
- verify your metadata is still in the “Plex” shared folder
- If it is – Uninstall + ERASE again
-
Install again
-
It should now start the migration process.
The key to all this is
For as long as you have your metadata in the “Plex” shared folder after installing – Uninstall + erase
By “Metadata in the Plex share” – I expressly mean
Plex / Library / Application Support / Plex Media Server
still exists.
Thank you
Now I see
- Uninstall + Erase (to remove the rogue PlexMediaServer installation – again)
- Install again
- It should start to pick up and migrate ( Either errors + instructions -or- “Installing”)
- Follow the instructions from the popups if any are given
-or- - Let it sit at “Installing” until it’s done changing everything for DSM 7.
If you want to monitor its progress:
- Open a new tab to DSM desktop
- In the Plex shared folder,
- You will find “Migration.log”
- Open in the Synology Text Editor app
- You’ll see where it’s at in the process
- “Cleaning” is the last step.
I’ve seen erase mentioned before but how do I do it, I can only uninstall Plex from the Package Center.
1 Like
Have you read this full thread which details all the changes made in DSM 7 plus includes the migration instructions ( How-To do what the installer is telling you to do ) ?
If you are using DSM 7, when you uninstall,
-
It will ask if you wish to uninstall the package – You continue
-
On the next page, you will be presented with options about how to Uninstall.
-
Do you see this? This is the “Erase” option I am referring to. It removes the installed DSM 7 installation . It does not remove any DSM 6 files. We need those files.
If you do not. I MUST ASK – Are you using DSM 6 or DSM 7 ?
Yeah, sorry, dumb question, it was obvious, proceeding with migration.
I’m using DSM7. Plex is installing now, taking its sweet time as expected.
Thank you very much for your help, sir, I don’t think I would have upgraded DSM were it not for your assistance on this forum.
1 Like
it’s alive, it’s alive, the files, the metadata, everything’s working, it’s beautiful, thanks again.
1 Like
@ChuckPa knows his onions
1 Like
one minor glitch, tho, not necessarily DSM7 related as it was sometimes a problem on DSM6 too: say we have an item called The PlexPass Files (2021) with the file called The.Plexpass.Files.2021.1080p.BluRay.x265-VXT. I name the folder The PlexPass Files (2021) and change the filename and subs to this. Plex desktop and iOS app, however, will retain the original file name and still list the item as such thus making searching for items a tad trickier and even after I edit the item within the app it will sometimes revert the item to its original file name. For some reason reversions only seem to happen with items starting with ‘The’. A small thing, obviously, but perhaps it can be addressed in future updates.
That is due to embedded metadata in the file and not related to DSM. Either remove the embedded info from the file or move your local asset agent down in the library settings.
I use mp3tag to remove that info (it works on video files too despite the name)
1 Like
thank you, sir, will do.
I just want to confirm that it’s totally safe to delete the Plex Shared folder? I know it says that it is, but I’m suspicious because it claims my PlexMediaServer shared folder size is 68.54GB, meanwhile my Plex shared folder is 475.08GB. Most of it appears to be in the MetaData folder but all the original folders are still there as well.
The migration and everything worked fine, I have it running on DSM7 with all my metadata intact, everything is normal, etc, but I have this itch that says if I delete the old Plex folder it’s going to be a catastrophe since it’s supposedly that much larger than the new one. I would just leave it to be safe if it was smaller, however I could definitely use the 500GB back.
If you still have 475 GB of “stuff” in the Plex shared folder, I think you really need to identify what it is.
475 GB sounds like media - not metadata.
What does your “Migration.log” show? (“Plex” shared folder)
Thank you so much for the help. I installed DSM 7 then Uninstalled+Erase. Upon reinstalling DSM 7, I got the attached failure/upgrade notification. I followed those instructions and then reinstalled DSM 7.
The installation took a long time then failed as shown here:
The PMS app then showed an error. See here:
I then Uninstalled+Erased again, and tried reinstalling again with the same error. I then repeated this a third time and got the same error. I restarted after each uninstall and reinstall. I seem to be stuck in a loop.
This is the current state of my Plex share (still not migrated, I believe):
Can you please advise further? Thanks so much.
Is DSM “Idle timeout” security – Ignore it.
I don’t see you reference how you’re correcting the permissions so the install can complete.
Scroll down to:
Here is the installation and migration instructions.
NOTE: If all your metadata is in the Plex shared folder (IMPORTANT)
- Uninstall + ERASE (to remove any potential rogue DSM 7 data)
- Install again – using these instructions which GRANT the needed permision for it to complete in DSM 7 (We don’t have admin privs any more so must rely on you to grant the permissions needed)
Edit: The “Media” folder is 8GB, the MetaData one is 34 GB, seems like there’s stuff in all of them. I’m scanning them one by one looking for the large one.
This is all the Migration.log shows
Plex Media Server migration to DSM 7 started: Sat Oct 30 00:54:38 PDT 2021
=== Sat Oct 30 00:54:38 PDT 2021 === Start: Change ownership
chown: changing ownership of ‘/volume2/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Codecs/EasyAudioEncoder-1591-linux-x86_64/EasyAudioEncoder/EasyAudioEncoder’: Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of ‘/volume2/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/fontconfig/CACHEDIR.TAG’: Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of ‘/volume2/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/fontconfig/c429ffb88890bcb354413df10c99c62e-le32d4.cache-6’: Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of ‘/volume2/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/fontconfig/c429ffb88890bcb354413df10c99c62e-le32d4.cache-7’: Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of ‘/volume2/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/fontconfig/c429ffb88890bcb354413df10c99c62e-le64.cache-7’: Operation not permitted
chown: changing ownership of ‘/volume2/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Cache/fontconfig’: Operation not permitted
=== Sat Oct 30 01:17:54 PDT 2021 === Completed: Change ownership
=== Sat Oct 30 01:17:54 PDT 2021 === Start: Convert symbolic links
=== Sat Oct 30 01:34:25 PDT 2021 === Completed: Convert symbolic links
=== Sat Oct 30 01:34:25 PDT 2021 === Start: Migrate Plex Media Server
