Tried everything, I just cannot add media because I think the server cannot be seen

Plex Media Server
1

I can connect to localhost Plex server, I can login and access the home page, settings, etc.
But when I go to add media I get this message to “Get the plex media server” which is obviously installed.

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I reinstalled the latest versions, waited a few months for more updates and installed those, googled up and down, couldn’t find any solution.

It broke for me about 6 months or so ago, used to work just fine.

Halp?

Server Version#: latest
Player Version#: didn’t get there

2

Anyone?

3

Which MacOS version?

4

MacOS 10.14.6

5

help?

6

is this a new server on this machine or was one previously installed? have you ever had another account?

7

I had Plex installed about 1 year ago, it worked fine, until one moment when it didn’t.

I tried to debug, I updated everything, created a new user using the admin account, tried to use that to add media, nothing. I abandoned it thinking it was a bug.

Now, a few months later (4-5), tried again, updated everything again, some thing.

8

maybe it’s worth noting that even a longer while ago, I had another machine with plex installed and it worked fine.

9

This often means that the instance of Plex running on your machine is “claimed” by a different account than what you have logged in as.

If you know that other account info, you can try logging in to Plex with it.

Otherwise you can re-claim the Plex Server.

https://support.plex.tv/articles/204281528-why-am-i-locked-out-of-server-settings-and-how-do-i-get-in/

10

So I followed the steps in that document (closed plex, deleted the 4 entries using the terminal), started plex again, went to http://127.0.0.1:32400/web, where I saw this new entry with an exclamation.
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On it, got this, and clicked Claim now

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On this page

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I clicked Claim now, and saw this for about a minute,
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and then it went back to the Claim Server button, which now does nothing.

Went home, where now I have ths new entry that I normally don’t see (Cosin macbook)
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But when I click it, I see only this
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I repeated the process 2 times, same results

11

You can look in the logs to see what account the server signs it self into when it starts up.
What I would do is

  1. Quit the server so it is not running
  2. go to ~/Library/Preferences and delete the com.plexapp.plexmediaserver.plist file
  3. reboot computer
  4. start up Plex Media Server