Server Version#:20.04.5 LTS (Focal Fossa)
Player Version#: current
Over the last few months my server has been giving me no end of frustration. The following is some of the issues:
1- The server will start but I cannot connect to it on any player.
2- The server will run but won’t be available online.
3- The server will not connect to my NAS.
4- The remote connection says available but I cannot connect, but I can connect to my NAS.
5- On the host machine, when I try to access the server I have to login every time, which is not normal.
6- Today, 1/10/25, I tried watching a tv show and it played one and a quarter episodes on my Xbox before the Xbox app froze. I then tried to watch it on my phone (iOS) and it played for about 15 minutes then through a “transcode runner appears to have died” observed using Plex Dash app.
I have had this server up and running for years and had minimal problems, just lately there is an issue every other day. For a while it was just restarting the server and resetting my network till it came back online, now I can’t even finish a tv episode.
At this point I don’t know if I should start over, or just reinstall Ubuntu, or maybe switch to opemediavault and try docker? I am a novice Linux person and almost just want to go back to a windows host machine… The host machine is a Z230 workstation with a i7 cpu. I got it from a university surplus.
I tried the http://lan.ip.of.server:32400/identity, and I learned that it cannot connect, or the server cannot be reached. I also noticed that the main computer I normally use to access the server shows an indirect connection…
That looks right to me. It was working this morning and by this afternoon it was unresponsive. I noticed it was stuck at 50% updating metadata on one movie.
I did have to go through a Ubuntu self repair process about 2 months ago, there were some
Bad sectors preventing the OS from loading. Once I ran the repair a couple times it started loading up again.
If you have bad sectors being reported, the entire storage device is dying.
It’s only a matter of time, which is usually very short, until it dies completelt.
Older drives can tolerate a bad sector or two
–PROVIDED –
The SMART data returned does not show any PENDING sector repairs
When you start accumulating Pending repairs, it means all the spares which the manufacturer provided have been used up with other replacements.
I would grab a full tar of the Plex Library directory tree and put it somewhere safe then replace the bad media & reinstall the OS fresh
Mmm, ok. I guess that would explain why Ubuntu is sluggish at times and takes a long time to boot.
Would this also be why the server is acting so sporadic?
Would you suggest installing plex through the terminal or through the software center?
Would you stick with Ubuntu or would openmediavault be better with plex running in docker?
What is the path typically for the plex library? I assume this is so once the new install is done my library watchlist and stuff will be retained? Or is there another reason to backup the plex library tree?
when the OS drive is failing, EVERYTHING becomes unpredictable.
If you look in sudo dmesg, I’m sure you’ll find tons of device errors.
After you replace the device, install a fresh copy of the OS on that media,
I would download and install the Plex package from Plex.tv
I say this because installing from Ubuntu gives you a SNAP package.
SNAP packages are severely limited. They are isolated from the hardware.
You won’t have hardware transcoding.
If you’re buying a new SSD, make certain to look at the TBW value. You want the highest value you can find/afford. 1200TBW and even 2400TBW are the best. You won’t worry for several years. 600TBW are decent values. I would not bother with less than 600 TBW. ( TBW = TeraBytes Written)
Ok, I’m just waiting to get a new drive delivered and I’ll reinstall everything.
However, yesterday I was trying to play a movie and I got an error saying I didn’t have the bandwidth or the cpu power to play the movie. I have never seen this error before. Could it be related to the failing drive?
I have restarted on a new hard drive. I was not able to backup a tar of the plex Library. It failed multiple times backing up and just copying it was going to take more than 40 hours.
So now I have a new server, can I just copy and paste the plugins / database folder contents from my old server into the new one and retain the view state and watch history? Or will that break it, ( are those files somehow tied to the previous server)? I like have the statistics of what was watched and how many time by who… https://support.plex.tv/articles/201539237-backing-up-plex-media-server-data/ indicates that just the preferences.xml file needs to be copied…
Should I remove the old server? It still shows up but obviously doesn’t connect?
