So far everything is going well until I get to the bottom “Edit Your Libraries” step. When I open the Plex Web App, all of my libraries show in the left sidebar but when I click the three dots to manage the library as instructed, the words “Manage Library” isn’t there. It only says “Unpin” and “Reorder”, nothing else. No library, no scan or share, nothing. In short, my libraries do show in the left sidebar but I can not manage (edit) them.
Now, although my libraries do show in the left sidebar, if I go to
Account > Server Name > Manage > Libraries > 0 libraries
is what I see. So, that’s confusing me because the server has no libraries but they’re showing in the left sidebar.
I’ve tried everything found on the internet, the Plex help articles and the forum topics that I’ve read. Maybe I’m missing something, please advise. The Windows 10 computer is old and slow but the Windows 11 computer is brand new with a fresh install and updated OS.
Is it possible that you did not export the registry branch from the old server
and import it on the new one?
I did not because it was not found. I opened Run on the Start menu of the Windows 10 source computer and inserted
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server
as instructed under the copy additional settings heading and got an error that it can’t be found. The wording of the instructions are “you may wish”, so I took that as optional.
How did you go about the [plex data folder]? Did you copy the data while the old and the
new server were stopped? If not, the copy would be corrupt.
I logged out of my profile on the web app and then clicked exit on the PMS icon in the system tray on both computers during (before) the move.
Did you copy it to the default location or did you create a dedicated location on a separate
drive? If so, how did you tell Plex that you did so?
This was strange, the Windows 10 source computer has the files in the
C:\Program Files (x86) > Plex > Server Name
and the Windows 11 destination computer has the files in the
C:\Program Files > Plex > Server Name
even though I installed the x86 version.
I completely uninstalled everything on the new computer last night and did the whole thing again from the start and it did the exact same thing, my libraries are in the left sidebar menu but the server shows zero libraries.
I don’t really care about my history or anything else for that matter and I have over 2,000 of them purchased on iTunes anyway but I’ve done a lot of work on my own versions (fan film) including artwork and descriptions in the metadata that I’d like to not lose.
Most of them I entered into the websites (TV database and Movie database) to populate across all users PMS. It’s been 5 years of work and the only thing forcing this change (update) for me is that my computer will only go up to Windows 10, so now I have no choice but to move to a Windows 11 computer.
Opps, I typed a very detailed reply that took 30 minutes and when I tried to edit it I accidently deleted it. So here is the quick version…
I could not do the registry part because
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server
could not be found.
Yes, I logged out of the web app and exited the PMS in the system tray before the copy.
I put it in the default location, although on the Windows 10 it’s in the Program Files (x86) folder and on the Windows 11 it’s in the Program Files folder although it’s an x86 install.
That’s not how you access the Windows registry.
Refer to a help article or video about regedit.exe
The program folder of Plex and the data folder of Plex are very different things. You must not confuse them.
What you named above is the program folder.
Don’t copy the Plex data into there, it won’t result in a working server.
There is no need to copy anything from or to Program Files.... The files in there are put there by the Plex server installer.
The data about your library and all your customized metadata are in the Plex data folder.
Have you actually found that one?
I have it working now, many thanks to OttoKerner for the help. However, I do feel that if those few tips that he gave me here were included in the support article then it would have been a lot easier for me.
The only thing that I could not figure out was how to change the drive letter of the hard drive that contains the media because on my old computer it was I and on the new computer it was E. I looked everywhere in the Plex Web settings to change the drive letter of my library files and could not find it. This was the only thing stopping it from working, so I just changed the drive letter of the hard drive from E to I and then it worked.
