# Thumbnails - what else can I try? **URL:** \ **Category:** Metadata & Adding Files\ **Tags:** plex-web, server-truenas\ **Created:** [January 1, 2021, 8:38pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931 "2021-01-01T20:38:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 8:38pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/1 "2021-01-01T20:38:31Z")
Server Version#: 1.21.1.3830 release 11.3-RELEASE-p14 Player Version#: 4.47.3 - Most thumbnails for Movies are showing (but not all) - Thumbnails for TV Shows are blank - Video preview thumbnails for Other Videos are blank I searched the forums, and based on the advice I found, I already: - Restarted the server - Refreshed all metadata (Manage \> Libraries \> TV Shows \> vertical ellipses) - Enabled video preview thumbnails (Manage \> Libraries \> TV Shows \> Edit \> Advanced) - Scanned Library Files (Manage \> Libraries) - Enabled Scan my library automatically (Settings \> Library) - Ran generate video preview thumbnails (Settings \> Library) But my TV and Other Video thumbnails are still blank. What else can I try to get them to show up? ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 9:57pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/2 "2021-01-01T21:57:06Z")
Does Plex write to a log file? Perhaps it contains error messages that shed some light on the issue. ---
**Author:** ![BigWheel](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/bigwheel/32/78783_2.png) [@BigWheel](https://forums.plex.tv/u/BigWheel)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 10:02pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/3 "2021-01-01T22:02:51Z")
Info on accessing server logs can be found here. [https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/](https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/) ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 10:45pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/4 "2021-01-01T22:45:44Z")
Thanks. Found the log files. No interesting errors except many occurrences of this: Exception caught while attempting to match metadata on item 6651: Error parsing file ---
**Author:** ![TeknoJunky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/teknojunky/32/165055_2.png) [@TeknoJunky](https://forums.plex.tv/u/TeknoJunky)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 10:57pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/5 "2021-01-01T22:57:16Z")
that sounds like a matching error (doesn’t seem to like the filename/path), it would not affect all the other thumbnails. to find unmatched content, go to each library and choose the unmatched filter, from there you can navigate to the item (movie/show/artist/album/whatever) and attempt to ‘match’ it via the 3 dot context menu. ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/4/5/45fc75fa3ab7dd5a41c839de177e4d45e7b8f18b.jpeg) as far as the video thumbs, make sure the server options are set to your preferences: ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/a/1/a18a659b63dad266d86181b3c7a5b36276cdc523.jpeg) AFAIR, the thumb generation is not user triggerable, only happens automatically during the background tasks window. (or when new content is added, if so configured) ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/8/1/81f6bb4c56d6f45c9b1185496320f7998055edf5.jpeg) * * * you can view the main system logs real time via the plex web \> settings \> console you can download all the logs from plex web \> settings \> troubleshooting \> download logs I don’t know if all the thumbs are logged there, but there is a 'scanner chapter thumbsnails.log` log you can review within the zip ![image](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/c/3/c314ac45d05688a5009b544b836b40b8b9c09c07.png) ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 11:38pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/6 "2021-01-01T23:38:56Z")
Thanks. Filtering by “Unmatched” in TV Shows leaves only two foreign language shows, the rest are hidden presumably because they were matched. But still no thumbnails. I do see a bunch of these: > Dec 31, 2020 02:55:26.922 [0x809616000] ERROR - Error creating directory “/Plex Media Server/Media/localhost/2”: Permission denied > Dec 31, 2020 02:55:26.922 [0x809616000] ERROR - Error creating directory “/Plex Media Server/Media/localhost/2/8b1109ab733aafc440f704579f6bfdea6189479.bundle/Contents”: Permission denied …but they are all from yesterday 2:55 a.m, and yesterday I was still wrestling with FreeNAS, users, groups, permissions, and ACLs. ---
**Author:** ![TeknoJunky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/teknojunky/32/165055_2.png) [@TeknoJunky](https://forums.plex.tv/u/TeknoJunky)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2021, 11:41pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/7 "2021-01-01T23:41:41Z")
Bingo, I think you have identified the problem, permissions. Make sure whatever user that pms runs as, owns the plex application and data folders. > **[Where is the Plex Media Server data directory located? | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/202915258-where-is-the-plex-media-server-data-directory-located/)** > > The main Plex Media Server data directory location will vary based on your operating system. Below are the default locations.... ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 12:45am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/8 "2021-01-02T00:45:31Z")
The “\Plex Media Server” directory exists, and it has several subdirectories and many files. That suggests that permissions are not lacking. ---
**Author:** ![TeknoJunky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/teknojunky/32/165055_2.png) [@TeknoJunky](https://forums.plex.tv/u/TeknoJunky)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/9 "2021-01-02T00:55:34Z")
there are 2 plex directory tree’s. there is the application and binaries, typically at - `/usr/lib/plexmediaserver` and then there is the plex data, typically at - `/var/lib/plexmediaserver` make sure the plex data folder is owned by user `plex`. assuming you are not running a container or running some kind of custom over ride, try `sudo chown -R plex:plex /var/lib/plexmediaserver` (or wherever the plex data folder is located on your server) it may take a little while if your plex data is large. in any case, the log is law… the running plex process cannot create the folder (which is the folder for your thumbs), because access is denied. so fix the permissions however you need to. ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:51am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/10 "2021-01-02T01:51:19Z")
Well it looks like everything under /Plex Media Server/ is owned by user plex. How do I get Plex to retry those “Permission denied” operations? ---
**Author:** ![TeknoJunky](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/teknojunky/32/165055_2.png) [@TeknoJunky](https://forums.plex.tv/u/TeknoJunky)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 1:56am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/11 "2021-01-02T01:56:31Z")
i’d suggest making the background schedule 23 hours (ie 2 am to 1 am), then restart pms. after your thumbs start/finish getting generated, you can reset the schedule to whatever is best for your server. ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 4:33am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/12 "2021-01-02T04:33:58Z")
I changed the schedule as you said, and it seems to be working. It’s generating thumbnails, albeit very slowly. About 14 secs per video thumbnail. is that normal? So the problem appears to have been that after I fixed permissions, a scheduled thumbnail task needed to run to see the change. I’ll leave it crunching overnight, and report back. ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2021, 10:29pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/13 "2021-01-02T22:29:26Z")
…18h and still going… ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2021, 7:45pm UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/14 "2021-01-03T19:45:05Z")
It’s done. Took a while. I now have video thumbnails… for about 90% of the videos. ---
**Author:** ![Volts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a5b964/32.png) [@Volts](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Volts)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 2:40am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/15 "2021-01-04T02:40:29Z")
That’s not unexpected. The VPT generation process decodes the entire movie, extracting a frame every 2 seconds. You are talking about Video Preview Thumbnails, right? The way you describe them in your first post made me think you were referring to Posters. VPTs appear in video players, during playback, while you are scrubbing/seeking to a new location: > **[Video Preview Thumbnails | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/202197528-video-preview-thumbnails/)** > > Using Video Preview Thumbnails Video Preview Thumbnails (also known sometimes as “media index files” or “BIF” index files) are basically... > **[What are video preview thumbnails in Plex? | Plex Support](https://support.plex.tv/articles/201725267-what-are-video-preview-thumbnails-in-plex/)** > > Video Preview Thumbnails (also known sometimes as “media index files” or “BIF” index files) are basically a series of low-resolution... Posters are what you see while browsing your library, looking for something to play. If you had a permissions problem, you may have fixed both. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 3:04am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/16 "2021-01-04T03:04:26Z")
> [@Volts](#): > > You are talking about Video Preview Thumbnails, right? The way you describe them in your first post made me think you were referring to Posters. I’m talking about the still video frame used to represent a video in the library view. ---
**Author:** ![Volts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a5b964/32.png) [@Volts](https://forums.plex.tv/u/Volts)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 3:13am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/17 "2021-01-04T03:13:39Z")
Those are Posters! Is everything working now, after fixing permissions and giving it a day? ---
**Author:** ![rpieket](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/plex/user_avatar/forums.plex.tv/rpieket/32/221641_2.png) [@rpieket](https://forums.plex.tv/u/rpieket)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2021, 3:20am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/18 "2021-01-04T03:20:38Z")
It’s mostly working. I’m missing about 10% of the generated posters. But that sounds like different problem. I will do some research (reading the logs) and open another thread if I can’t figure it out. Thanks all! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/plex/original/3X/2/a/2acb9765406f63293d357b4ec509ec39aa28f2ad.png) [@system](https://forums.plex.tv/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2021, 3:20am UTC](https://forums.plex.tv/t/thumbnails-what-else-can-i-try/672931/19 "2021-04-04T03:20:41Z")
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