I run a nightly server backup to an external drive with Hyper Backup that includes the Plex share. The backup always completes successfully, but in checking the Synology log, it has thousands of warnings (over 59k) each time on the Plex share. The warnings are metadata related and all reference “The file is a symbolic link”, and all seem to be contained to the …/Contents/_combined/art or …/Contents/_combined/posters subdirectories.
Most importantly I want to make sure I am backing up all the important Plex data, but I also imagine this is needlessly adding to the time it takes to complete the backup task. Is there something I should be un-checking from the Plex share in the backup task, or is there some other way I should handle this?
Here’s a sample of one of the warning entries from the log…
(Warning,2020/12/11 13:45:50,SYSTEM,[Local to share][Local Copy 2] Incomplete file backup. (The file is a symbolic link.) [/volume1/Plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Metadata/Movies/8/2a315bae4ab91ce5c8d870906d53c154e57d041.bundle/Contents/_combined/art/com.plexapp.agents.imdb_69f40772cc9831e520a902f2fa4b3d147dbb107d])
Thanks, trumpy. Unfortunately, my NAS skill level is somewhat below rudimentary (and linux knowledge is below that), so I kind of need to do the best I can with Hyper Backup for now. I wouldn’t even know how to begin writing my own script for the NAS.
I’m sure I could stumble through manually zipping the Plex share, but then it would only be backed up when I remembered to do it, so certainly not ideal. Of course, if there’s no way past the symbolic link issue with Hyper Backup, I don’t know that it is doing me any good to even include the Plex share in the backup task. In many years of having a NAS, I’ve been fortunate in never having needed to access something from the backup apart from a file here or there. Basically, I have no idea if the Plex data I have backed up is even useful if something were to go wrong. Ugh.
Thanks, again. Is it safe to assume there is no benefit in keeping the Plex share in the Hyper Backup task? I will, of course, put the manual zip on a share that is in the task.
Just wanted to offer one more note of thanks, trumpy. I removed the Plex share from the Hyper Backup task, stopped Plex, zipped the share and moved the zip to the share I use for my home PC backup info, and re-ran the Hyper Backup task.
The end result was a backup task that ran substantially faster, left a log file that only had a start task and end task entry, rather than multi-thousands of warnings, and hopefully left me with a usable backup of my Plex data should disaster occur.
One of these days I need to figure out the scripting, because I have a substantial physical media collection that I am slowing working towards digitizing, so I am adding to my Plex setup regularly. I also extensively modify posters and metadata, so that is why I wanted to be sure to back things up rather than relying on rebuilding, if necessary. Regardless, you gave me a way to do things manually until I figure out how to properly automate it, and I appreciate it.
