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I’m using Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. I installed Plex Media Server to access my Google Drive shared folders. To do this, I installed and configured Rclone. Once the GDrive directory (cloud in my case) is mounted, I can see all the folders and files perfectly.
However, when I try to create a library with Plex, I only see the directory (cloud).
And if I choose it, the contents appear empty.
I suspect a permissions issue that I haven’t been able to resolve for three days.
Your advice would be welcome.
pierre@pierre-GB-BKi7-H-A-7500:~/cloud$ ls -la
total 4
drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre pierre 0 juil. 11 11:30 .
drwxr-x— 18 pierre pierre 4096 juil. 9 07:51 ..
drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre pierre 0 sept. 4 2024 ‘_A TERMINER’
drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre pierre 0 sept. 14 2022 _CULTES
drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre pierre 0 janv. 30 2023 ‘_EN COURS’
drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre pierre 0 avril 26 2021 .freedownloadmanager
drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre pierre 0 oct. 4 2021 _RESERVE
drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre pierre 0 janv. 5 2023 _VUS
pierre@pierre-GB-BKi7-H-A-7500:~/cloud$
pierre@pierre-GB-BKi7-H-A-7500:~/cloud/_EN COURS/GILDED AGE saison 3$ ls -la
total 883139
drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre pierre 0 juin 24 09:28 .
drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre pierre 0 janv. 30 2023 ..
-rw-rw-r-- 1 pierre pierre 904334322 juin 24 09:27 The.Gilded.Age.S03E01.MULTi.1080p.WEB.H265-TFA.mkv
pierre@pierre-GB-BKi7-H-A-7500:~/cloud/_EN COURS/GILDED AGE saison 3$
You might need to change group permissions to plex. So have the directories and files be: drwxrwxr-x 1 pierre plex 0 juin 24 09:28, etc.
Also, include your user (pierre) in the plex group.
If I may add,
Changing the group is not required if the last set of permissions is r-x
The important step (often missed) is to set the 755 permissions on the directory where rclone mounts before mounting.
If the base filesystem doesn’t allow PMS to get into the mount point then nothing will work.
1 Like
Thank you for your answers. I think I did what you advised and it doesn’t work any better. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the rclone directory does not exist on my system. So I think I did a bad installation by running a .deb file. I will try again from scratch with a command line installation.
On Linux,
Everyone’s home directory is usually kept private to that user.
Since Plex runs as a different user on Linux, by default, it won’t have permission to read anything in your home directory (which is the ~/... path prefix you specified.
It is usually best practice to setup a directory as follows:
-
Pick a location which won’t conflict with anything else
sudo mkdir /rclone -
Set the ownership and permissions of that location
sudo chown pierre.pierre /rclone
sudo chmod 755 /rclone -
Now setup and mount your rclone to use
/rclonedirectory (or any sub-directories you wish you create.
Server Version#: Version 4.146.0
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Hello,
Has anyone installed rclone on Ubuntu successfully used Plex with videos stored on Google Drive?
I’ve been struggling for a week without success.
So, if one of these people could be kind enough to tell me how they managed to use Plex, I would be infinitely grateful.
Otherwise, I’m going back to my Plex installed on Windows 11, where everything works perfectly and without any installation difficulties.<If providing server logs please do NOT turn on verbose logging, only debug logging should be enabled>
Did you follow the instructions Chuck gave you?
It should definitely work. All I did was give 755 permissions, then add my user to the Plex group and vice versa. I’m not using rclone to Google Drive, but I’m still using a network mount.
Can we see the results of ls -al again?
I have stored all my videos, movies and series on Google Drive, which is very convenient and allows, for example, to watch my videos in the same way wherever I am. Having an excellent fiber connection, I have no problems even with 4K.
I ran the three suggested commands. I’m not sure I managed to add plex to my user (pierre) and vice versa correctly.
If you could give me the commands to run, that would be great.
Here’s the ls -al
pierre@pierre-GB-BKi7-H-A-7500:/rclone$ ls -al
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 pierre pierre 4096 juil. 12 17:34 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 juil. 12 17:34 ..
pierre@pierre-GB-BKi7-H-A-7500:/rclone$
Maybe there is a problem with these groups?
pierre@pierre-GB-BKi7-H-A-7500:~$ getent group pierre
pierre:x:1000:plex
pierre@pierre-GB-BKi7-H-A-7500:~$ getent group plex
plex:x:984:pierre
pierre@pierre-GB-BKi7-H-A-7500:~$
I just tried rclone again.
- The rclone version in the Ubuntu distribution is too old for Google.
- The SNAP version is ok but you cannot ‘mount’ in snap.
AFAICT, — this will go nowhere.
Can’t they just use the version directly from Rclone?
Release v1.70.3 OS requirements
| OS | Minimum Version |
|---|---|
| Linux | Kernel 3.2 |
| macOS | 11 (Big Sur) |
| Windows | 10, Server 2016 |
| FreeBSD | 12.2 |
| OpenBSD | 6.9 |
Google drive API is what rejected the rclone client
This is the exact message.
I just got it to configure once but it was non-functional.
The next attempt failed completely.
It never got to actually asking me to authenticate. OAuth errors like this are almost always tied to a version mismatch
Text returned in the popup:
Error 401: invalid_client
Request details: flowName=GeneralOAuthFlow
This is why I built a NAS for my media.
Thank you for all your replies.
I conclude that Plex is incompatible with Ubuntu / Google Drive.
So I’m giving up and going back to Windows 11, where Plex runs like clockwork.
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