I have a NVIDIA - SHIELD Android TV Pro, the old one, and it works great. I am thinking about getting a new NVIDIA - SHIELD Android TV Pro, and was wondering if there is a way to move over the library w/o losing things like “last played” dates.
I have the library on an external hard drive. Just to be clear, I know how to use the same hard drive as external storage on the new device, and how to set up a new library on the new device, but ideally I’d like the play counts to stay the same, the playlists to stay the same, not to reset every movie to "unplayed, for my plex friends not to have to make any changes to continue streaming my content, etc.
I don’t know what’s possible, but was curious if anyone had the fix!
Firstly, user-accessible “Internal Storage” or a removable drive would be better to back up? I use a WD MyCloud as an external storage mounted onto the NVIDIA Shield.
Then, how do you replace this data with the backup?
Thank you! What is the specific file(s) that needs to be moved though? Presumably, when I plug the new device into the external HDD and tell the new device to store server directory data to the external HDD, it’s going to overwrite the server directory data currently on the HDD?
As an aside: holy geez. Is there really not a “click here to migrate” type button? Or a way to store a single library file in the cloud, so that all your devices that may be Plex servers can access it? As in, if I move the HDD to my desktop, and run Plex server there, and that instance is signed into the same Plex account, isn’t there a way that it just uses the same play count data, and such?
That’s a very “in the weeds” process, for what ought to be a “you bought a new box; we have made it so easy to upgrade” type process . . . though that’s perhaps a grouse for Nvidia
SanDisk ultra fit 128GB flash drive connected to the NVIDIA Shield
With the instructions, I want to store the data onto removable drive (SanDisk flash drive). When I select the Storage Location as the external drive (SanDisk flash drive), the ‘please be patient msg…’ keeps spinning for 2-3 hours. I click back and my PMS has stopped and unable to ‘start’. I am only able to restart the PMS when I remove the external flash drive.
What am I doing wrong? I am not able to transfer the data directory to the external drive.
Looks like something failed during the process. Flash drives are horrible for holding large number of small files, which is what PMS uses. I would recommend against using a flash drive. Using your MyCloud would be better.
Since the transfer failed, it won’t work with that drive. You’ll need to format it if you want to try again.
I thought a 128GB would be sufficient. If recommend against a flash drive (assuming it’s too ‘small’ to handle), what capacity external drive would be sufficient to store all the PMS library database?
I can’t use the MyCloud as it is already connected to my 6TB WD Essentials external drive as a backup, so there is no additional USB port to connect to the Shield TV. MyCloud is wired to my router, same as the Shield TV, which is how the MyCloud is mounted to the Shield TV. Any other alternatives? I really thought the flash drive would work
Is there a particular format of the external drive that the Plex needs to be able to save the PMS library data?
It’s not the size. PMS’s data includes 1,000s of small files. In my experience, flash drives are not good/fast at handling lot’s of small files. If you don’t have another drive handy, I would suggest the following:
move data to a user accessible portion of the internal drive
mount your Shield to a computer
copy the data manually to your computer
once you’ve confirmed the data was copied correctly, clear the app data for PMS, this will clean PMS back to the original with no data
now you can move the appdata to the flash drive, there will be a lot less data so this should work fine
take the flash drive to your computer and overwrite the new appdata with the backup you made from before
put the flash drive back on the Shield
Done. Your PMS should now be able to run off the flash drive.
This was my issue from the start as I was not able to access Shield via file explorer in Windows. Apparently something to do with recent Windows 10 and SMB restrictions, which is frustrating. Hence I thought of using the flash drive.
I will try to reformat my flash drive and see if it works.
OMG! After reformatting the Flash Drive (2nd attempt), it finally worked and I have now successfully moved the PMS data to the removable drive. It actually used up 40GB of the flash drive.
So I now want to transfer it to a new Shield. Do I just put the Flash Drive into the new Shield, and change the server data directory location to the removable drive? As simple as this?
Yea, this is extremely bizarre and not able to see my Shield through Windows Explorer. I tried to troubleshoot this, but it is just not discoverable. I am trying to get NVIDIA to troubleshoot this.
1 - put the flash drive into your computer
2 - rename the Plex folder to something else, this is temporary so the name doesn’t matter
3 - put the flash drive into the new Shield
4 - start PMS on the new Shield, do not bother configuring it
5 - move the data for PMS to the flash drive
6 - stop PMS
7 - put the flash drive into your computer again, you will see the Plex folder like you had before and your old renamed folder
8 - change the names of the folders
9 - put the drive back onto the new Shield
10 - restart PMS
Done. Your new Shield should now be using the old data
Assuming change the name of the original folder of the PMS data (from old Shield) to the new folder of the PMS data, and just delete the new folder that has no files in it?
