Version 3.7.0 update - Plex no longer works with AppleTV or Web App

I just updated to 3.7.0 and when I go to the Web Interface, I get the error message “There was an unexpected error loading the dashboard Please visit our forums if you continue to experience problems” Attempting to connect to the Plex server from the Apple TV results in a similar situation where it can’t find the server. Attempting to go to server settings on the Web interface reports “Server settings are unavailable”. However, I was able to go to the library and play a video, so I know that the server is somewhat alive.

My configuration: Plex on QNAT TS-439 Pro II+.

What logs can I get to to diagnose the issue or get it working again to keep my wife happy?

I had a similar problem when i started to use the Plex Pass version 1.7 (Plex-Media-Server-1.7.2.3878-8088811b8). Nothing i did sorted the issue,not an update, repair (reboot inclusive) or a fresh install. For me the solution was around reverting to the Non Plex Pass ver 1.5 etc.

Since this sounds like the 1.7 version is broken, does this mean someone at Plex might actually be fixing it or needs logs to understand what is wrong?

Unfortunately downloading PlexMediaServer_1.5.6.3790-4613ce077_x86 results in the same problem. Any other suggestions? My wife is starting to get a bit unhappy with the situation…

I have also tried PlexMediaServer_1.5.5.3634-995f1dead_x86.qkpg which I had lying around from 2 months ago and I get the same results. Are there any other suggestions?

1.7.3 was just released for Plex Pass. Maybe try that one?

I just downloaded and installed the latest (PlexMediaServer_1.7.3.3937-70f781325_x86.qpkg) and it does the same thing.

“There was an unexpected error loading the dashboard
Please visit our forums if you continue to experience problems”

I can get to the list of the movies on the Web interface but not on the AppleTV.

Any ideas as to how I can diagnose the problem?

Close the Plex Server app, wait one minute, restart the app, wait two minutes (I’m guessing you’ll get the dashboard error during this time), go to the server settings -> help, click download logs, then upload them here.

I’ve done as instructed. I also rebooted the server for good measure after closing the app. Unfortunately I can’t go to server settings, “Server settings are unavailable” but I did download the logs by SSHing to the QNAP. It wouldn’t let me attach it, so I uploaded it to http://john.toebes.com/plexlogs-15Jun07.tar

Some additional behaviors that it now has:

  1. When I reconnected with the web app, instead of telling me I had a dashboard error, it indicated that I had nothing in my library so I added back some of the directories. Unfortunately it means it lost all of the customization I had done for the > 1000 disks that I had.
  2. if I go to settings/Devices, it reports that I have not one but two Toebes servers which appear to have the same id. (Screenshot below)
  3. When I reconnect with the ROKU, it also reports two servers (one disconnected, the other occasionally connected) but is unable to show me anything that I can actually play (it does show a button for refresh, but there doesn’t appear to be any way to select it in the app).

The Web Application is back to the “There was an unexpected error loading the dashboard
Please visit our forums if you continue to experience problems” situation." I managed to get to the help page to download the logs and attached them here. I’m starting to get some really tough looks from my wife at this point…

Are there any other suggestions to get my server working again?

Not an expert here, but your server log has a lot of errors accessing local data. I’ve seen a lot of threads that imply this is a symptom of a permissions issue on the NAS. You may have had them correct in the past, but an update on your PC/NAS/PLEX may have changed them. I’d check your permissions from the root all the way to your media directories.

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/46104/new-to-linux-use-these-guides-how-to-set-permissions-how-to-add-ntfs-drives-on-linux#top

I’ve looked through the log and I must be missing seeing where it has permissions problems, all of the local data it is missing seems to be wanting to (re)generate meta data for my library. Perhaps I missed that, would you mind pointing out the lines you are seeing?

I did try watching what happens when it attempts to load the dashboard and from the logs I see this sequence
From the web interface where it says
There was an unexpected error loading the dashboard
Please visit our forums if you continue to experience problems
Go to Forums
Retry

When I click on retry, I get the following log entries generated. Note the three in bold, they seem to be the suspicious parts, but I am not seeing anything else writing to the other logs which correspond to that.

Jun 18, 2017 17:23:58.868 [0xf1e23b90] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Jun 18, 2017 17:23:58.869 [0xf1e23b90] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as jtoebes
Jun 18, 2017 17:23:58.869 [0xf1e23b90] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
Jun 18, 2017 17:23:58.870 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.0.4:49637 (Subnet)] GET /hubs?excludeFields=summary&count=12&includeEmpty=1&excludePlaylists=1 (5 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (jtoebes)
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:01.854 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - It took 170.000000 ms to retrieve 75 items.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:02.559 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - Requesting more shows since stacking only returned 5 items.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:07.691 [0xf2111b90] DEBUG - handleStreamRead code 335544539: short read
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:07.839 [0xf2111b90] DEBUG - Auth: We found auth token (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx), enabling token-based authentication.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:07.839 [0xf2111b90] DEBUG - Auth: authenticated user 1 as jtoebes
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:07.839 [0xf2111b90] DEBUG - Auth: Came in with a super-token, authorization succeeded.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:07.840 [0xe9f35b90] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.0.4:49638 (Subnet)] GET /player/proxy/poll?deviceClass=pc&protocolVersion=1&protocolCapabilities=timeline%2Cplayback%2Cnavigation%2Cmirror%2Cplayqueues&timeout=1 (4 live) TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (jtoebes)
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:07.844 [0xe9f35b90] DEBUG - Beginning read from two-way stream.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:11.257 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - It took 1130.000000 ms to retrieve 500 items.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:16.749 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - There were 1 top-level paths for Star Trek: Voyager.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:17.077 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - There were 1 top-level paths for The Big Bang Theory.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:17.132 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - There were 1 top-level paths for The Last Man on Earth.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:17.640 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - There were 1 top-level paths for The Simpsons.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:17.930 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - There were 1 top-level paths for Castle (2009).
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:17.992 [0xecc8eb90] DEBUG - There were 1 top-level paths for Rick and Morty.
Jun 18, 2017 17:24:18.223 [0xf2111b90] DEBUG - Completed after connection close: [192.168.0.4:49637] 200 GET /hubs?excludeFields=summary&count=12&includeEmpty=1&excludePlaylists=1 (4 live) TLS GZIP 19354ms 31 bytes (pipelined: 1)

Other details
Model:TS-439 Pro II+
Firmware version 4.2.6 Build 20170607

With that being said, I decided to reboot the server and restart Plex (like I have for the past several days) and this time I was able to play on the Apple TV

Sounds like a corrupted install to me. Did you check disk integrity (smart status at least) lately?

Yes no problems with disk integrity, RAID 6 across 4 volumes. SMART status says no problems.

Now that the system is no longer generating the dashboard errors, how do I get back all the customization I have done on the media (metadata, poster choices, etc)?

You logs indicate it cannot find any of the xml files for metadata.

Jun 16, 2017 19:29:58.601 [0xf23ffb90] DEBUG -  * Season 2 (-1) Episode 23 (-1) (1900-01-01)
Jun 16, 2017 19:29:58.601 [0xf23ffb90] DEBUG - Looking up season and index for an episode, indexKey=S02E23 dateKey=.
Jun 16, 2017 19:29:58.602 [0xf23ffb90] DEBUG -    * Found episode with key S02E23
Jun 16, 2017 19:29:58.602 [0xf23ffb90] DEBUG -  * Found episode s02e23
Jun 16, 2017 19:29:58.602 [0xf23ffb90] WARN - Unable to load episode file [/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server/Metadata/TV Shows/3/52342a0c7ab55dfd5bb1abfeccc7b8a9710ee7b.bundle/Contents/_combined/seasons/2/episodes/23.xml]
Jun 16, 2017 19:29:58.606 [0xf23ffb90] DEBUG - Item 4828 (Episode 23) Scanning metadata graphic elements in XML file seasons/2/episodes/23.xml
Jun 16, 2017 19:29:58.607 [0xf23ffb90] WARN - XML file for scan didn't exist [/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server/Metadata/TV Shows/3/52342a0c7ab55dfd5bb1abfeccc7b8a9710ee7b.bundle/Contents/_combined/seasons/2/episodes/23.xml]
Jun 16, 2017 19:29:58.628 [0xf23ffb90] DEBUG - Item 4828 (Episode 23) Scanning metadata graphic elements in XML file seasons/2/episodes/23.xml
Jun 16, 2017 19:29:58.628 [0xf23ffb90] WARN - XML file for scan didn't exist [/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server/Metadata/TV Shows/3/52342a0c7ab55dfd5bb1abfeccc7b8a9710ee7b.bundle/Contents/_combined/seasons/2/episodes/23.xml]

does the user Plex have permissions to the Plex Media Server folder/files?

Yes. the permissions on those directories are WIDE open. You can see that they are 777 with world write access.

[/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server/Metadata/TV Shows/3/52342a0c7ab55dfd5bb1abfeccc7b8a9710ee7b.bundle] # pwd
/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server/Metadata/TV Shows/3/52342a0c7ab55dfd5bb1abfeccc7b8a9710ee7b.bundle
[/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server/Metadata/TV Shows/3/52342a0c7ab55dfd5bb1abfeccc7b8a9710ee7b.bundle] # ls -alt .
drwxrwxrwx 6 admin administ 4096 Jun 16 10:53 Contents/
drwxrwxrwx 8 admin administ 4096 Jun 14 22:05 …/
drwxrwxrwx 3 admin administ 4096 Jun 14 22:05 ./
[/share/MD0_DATA/.qpkg/PlexMediaServer/Library/Plex Media Server/Metadata/TV Shows/3/52342a0c7ab55dfd5bb1abfeccc7b8a9710ee7b.bundle] #

Hello? Any comments? This has been going on for a REALLY long time and I would like to get back to where things were…