There was an unexpected error loading this library

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

New user to flex (lifetime pass). Nice product!

I loaded my media onto a Synology NAS, and also run run the Plex Server on the NAS.
All seemed to be fine for the first few days, but now I see error message when I try to view any library:

There was an unexpected error loading this library
Please visit our forums…

Most of the responses say to include a log, so I have done so.

The server is active (in that I see messages on the bottom of the web app like " Downloading metadata for ABC", or "Matching DEF on "

I do note that the Plex server takes 30-60% of NAS CPU time (but maybe the is the initial indexing, downloading metadata, etc.)

Thoughts? Next steps?

Thank you.

2

Note that server is running on Synology NAS (not Windows as the initial post says).
I’m using a Mac to access the Plex app on the Synology.

Thank you.

4

Hello,

Thanks for your quick reply, and apologies that I sent the wrong log earlier.

With respect, I decline to post the server logs here (on a semi-public forum), since they contain what consider private information (e.g., names of all my media).

The good news is that error does not seem to appear now.
My hypothesis is that the anemic CPU in the NAS (DS1511+) had too much to do (indexing initial media load) to respond in a timely way to a Plex request to show library.

My plan is to wait a few days (to see whether the indexing completes, and CPU usage on the NAS declines from the ~80%).
If not, I may consider more RAM for the existing NAS, a new (beefier) NAS, or perhaps dedicate a laptop or RPi for the task.

Again, I appreciate your offer of help.

Best,
S

6

I also have this error frequently with my DS-216j for my music collection.

I’ve tried several times to attach the 5MB zip of the server log via both upload dialog and drag and drop, but it won’t take.

9

Hi Andy

Thanks for the feedback.

In order:

  • I have automatic optimisation set up, and have now run it manually
  • I have no plugins
  • Secure Connections is already set to Preferred
  • My NAS DHCP address is remembered by my router
  • The only video files would be occasional short music videos. I don’t store my audio-books or other videos on this server
  • I’m not inclined to remove the underscores from folder names as that will cause my cloud backup to restart
  • Plex seems to do everything about 10x slower than Audiostation which is doing everything effortlessly. My only reason for using Plex really is to access music that Sonos can’t index , and I can’t do that with Audiostation.
  • When I launch Plex in the browser @ 32400/web, it ponders for about 20 seconds and then returns “unexpected error”. I have to refresh 2-3 times for it to display correctly
  • If I use https://app.plex.tv/desktop# it opens in about 10 seconds
  • I manually updated Plex to latest version - it seems that Synology auto-update doesn’t catch every new version. My installed version is 1.13.0.xxx whereas Synology reports newest as 1.12.2.xxx

Playback is generally quite responsive, it’s the database that is poor but that may be because it’s ignoring local metadata. So I’m looking into changing settings to preference file tags and embedded album-art via https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/227541/howto-configure-plex-to-use-embedded-metadata-music#top

STOP PRESS: Since doing the updates, I can’t edit Server settings: “Server settings are unavailable”

Mike

10

@memeweaver said:

STOP PRESS: Since doing the updates, I can’t edit Server settings: “Server settings are unavailable”

Fixed it by reading one of your posts (stop, delete Preferences.xml, start)

12

@trumpy81 said:

Then you have a lot of misnamed files in your music folder. Plex relies on proper naming of files and misnamed files can cause issues.

I don’t know by what criteria you say they are “misnamed”. A scan shows 98% of my files are FLAC , MP3, M4A or WMA. Most of what remains is album art and booklets, and a vanishingly small percentage are video formats. There are no audio-book formats.

Again, leading underscores can cause issues. It’s up to you, but if you have issues, I may not be able to help you with them.
I would like an example of an issue as I can’t find any listed elsewhere on this site. If Plex cannot handle well-formed character strings then there should be bugs recorded against it. Elsewhere on these forums, a leading underscore is recommended as a sorting character.

Do the following:

  1. Optimise Database
  2. Empty Trash
  3. Clean Bundles

I have performed this series of steps a few times now. Performance seems to have actually gotten worse! I can no longer search the Plex database from SONOS, although I can (slowly) browse files and play back without a problem from SONOS.