Plex directory in FreeNAS 11 not browsable (fix)

[dureal99d]

I spent about 2 days trying to figure thi out and figured i'd post the solution that (Patrick@ViciousComputers.com) posted on the plex website.

https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/2...and-easily-reproducible-in-freebsd-11-as-well

Hopefully this will help someone who is having a heck of a time getting it to work.

Browse the Jail Storage source as my main Media Folder (or what ever folder you want as a source.
for example:
Source: can be /mnt/Master/Media (my dataset on FreeNAS) or whatever you choose
Destination: has to be>>>> /var/db/plexdata/Plex Media Server/ then add >>>>>Media or whatever the folder you want and make sure create folder if it does not exist is selected.

open plex and you folder should be there.

Also if your media does not show up then go to the folder in FreeNAS gui and select set permissions recursively. don't worry you can always tweak the permissions settings later to read only which is all plex needs.

 

[nightshade00013]

There are actually a couple different places it could be based on your particular installation on FreeNAS.

I actually discussed the same thing you posted above here https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-plugin-cannot-add-folders.54138/#post-391087

But to reiterate for the newest versions of Plex in FreeNAS it would be:
A Plex jail should have the data in
/usr/local/plexdata/Plex Media Server/Media/(subfolder for media)

or for a PlexPass install it would be
/usr/local/plexdata-plexpass/Plex Media Server/Media/(subfolder for media)

and the plugin should have it located at
/var/db/plexdata/Plex Media Server/Media/(subfolder for media)

Or when you put the media in /mnt/(plex media folder) or /media/(plex media folder) just type in the full mount point in the box

 

[pschatz100]

As was suggested in the previous post, if you have mounted your media in a custom place, you can just type in the path. Strictly speaking, it is not necessary to use the browse function to add folders.

 

[dureal99d]

As was suggested in the previous post, if you have mounted your media in a custom place, you can just type in the path. Strictly speaking, it is not necessary to use the browse function to add folders.

I tried what you fellas suggested and it did not work for me. what I posted did work. But I am a newbie to freenas so I'm sure I missed something and will try as you have informed and report if I have success!!!

 

[nightshade00013]

I tried what you fellas suggested and it did not work for me. what I posted did work. But I am a newbie to freenas so I'm sure I missed something and will try as you have informed and report if I have success!!!

My guess is something has a space or punctuation or capitalization that you are not using when you type it in. In FreeNAS CASE MATTERS.

Hello ≠ hello ≠ heLLo

If you set the storage in a particular place and capitalize one letter and forget then put it into Plex as a lowercase it will not work correctly.

 

[pschatz100]

Where is your media currently mounted? Exactly what did you type in to the Plex "Add folder" dialogue?

 

[danb35]

Or when you put the media in /mnt/(plex media folder) or /media/(plex media folder) just type in the full mount point in the box

...which seems to be very difficult for some people. It's clearly a bug in Plex, but it's trivially easy to work around. Nonetheless, we seem to have a lot of threads about what a terrible thing this is, and there have been at least a couple where this proposed "solution" is provided.

 

[nightshade00013]

...which seems to be very difficult for some people. It's clearly a bug in Plex, but it's trivially easy to work around. Nonetheless, we seem to have a lot of threads about what a terrible thing this is, and there have been at least a couple where this proposed "solution" is provided.

I agree. Sadly even with a solution people complain it doesn't "work on their system." Most of the time it's typo or case but even then with a solution of mounting it in the media folder Plex provides someone seems to have an issue. There are a couple different ways to solve the issue though it's just getting the people on the other end of the conversation to follow the steps needed.

 

[dureal99d]

Where is your media currently mounted? Exactly what did you type in to the Plex "Add folder" dialogue?

currently it is mounted in "/var/db/plexdata/Plex Media Server/Media" it was the only way ive managed to have my drives visible to plex. I've been pretty busy so i have not had the chance to try the above solutions just yet. but I just bought a system that is capable of running Vm's in this software as it has 24 gigs of ram a i7 "8 Core"and supports the ept requirement that freenas needs. it is on this system that i will try to implement the strategy's aforementioned in this thread. I noticed something that i never knew about. this "PlexPass install" I am a plex pass memmber and i wonder is a plex pass install and different than a non plex pass install? anyways going to see. either way im content

 

[pschatz100]

I'm not certain what you mean by a Plexpass install, but if you want to use Plexpass instead of the public version of Plex, then you will have to do a manual install into a jail. While there is a plugin for Plex, there is no plugin for Plexpass.

It's not difficult to do a manual install into a jail, and I believe there is a pretty good guide in the Resources section. One big piece of advice: do not use directory names with spaces in them. from your example above, do not mount data to "/var/db/plexdata/Plex Media Server/Media". It would be OK to use "/var/db/plexdata/Plex_Media_Server/Media" (underscores instead of spaces) or "/var/db/plexdata/PlexMediaServer/Media" (no spaces).

 

[mammothgun]

I've had the same issues with a new system that I have just built, installed 11 then plex, with all the info from hear I still could not get plex to rip correct so after 5 days I have gin back to 9.10 last night and had it up and running in about 1hr, wish I had of done this last week


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[danb35]

I still could not get plex to rip correct

Plex doesn't rip anything, so I have no idea what you're talking about here. And apparently nothing you tried in those five days included asking for help. But I'm honestly mystified about the trouble people are having with respect to the subject of this thread. So just for S&G, I tried a brand new, clean install of the Plex plugin on a clean FN11-U1 (haven't gotten around to updating to -U2 yet) server.

• Starting condition: Existing dataset of tank/video, with subdirectories (not datasets) of tank/video/Movies, tank/video/TV, etc.
• Install the Plex plugin (currently at version 1.7.5.4035).
• Add storage to the newly-created jail. Source is /mnt/tank/video, destination is /mnt/video. Check the "Create Directory" box.
  
• Turn on the plugin under Plugins -> Installed
• Browse to the Plex installation, skip the sign in/sign up, add a library.
• Type in the directory for the movies, like this:
  
• Repeat for TV and other media types
• Done!

Edit: NOTE: As noted in other posts above, case matters. My movies are in a directory called Movies. That isn't the same thing as movies.

I didn't time myself, but I don't think it took more than 15 minutes. Metadata downloads just fine, movies play through the browser, etc. Yes, you should be able to browse throughout the jail's filesystem. Yes, IMO, it's a bug (in Plex, most likely) that you can't. But working around the bug really is trivially easy.

 

[pschatz100]

Did the same with a clean install of FN11.0-U2. No issues for me either.

 

[nightshade00013]

Yep for S&G I did the same thing myself. Only added movies and instead of doing a plugin I did a jail but made sure I updated all the packages to the latest version before installing plex. Once media began scanning I called it good.

It's really too simple and it took me six minutes and five seconds by the time I got my stopwatch app on my smartwatch to pull back up.

I think the hardest thing is typing the sysrc command that plex gives you to put in and then starting the service.

Plex doesn't rip anything, so I have no idea what you're talking about here. And apparently nothing you tried in those five days included asking for help. But I'm honestly mystified about the trouble people are having with respect to the subject of this thread. So just for S&G, I tried a brand new, clean install of the Plex plugin on a clean FN11-U1 (haven't gotten around to updating to -U2 yet) server.

• Starting condition: Existing dataset of tank/video, with subdirectories (not datasets) of tank/video/Movies, tank/video/TV, etc.
• Install the Plex plugin (currently at version 1.7.5.4035).
• Add storage to the newly-created jail. Source is /mnt/tank/video, destination is /mnt/video. Check the "Create Directory" box.
  
• Turn on the plugin under Plugins -> Installed
• Browse to the Plex installation, skip the sign in/sign up, add a library.
• Type in the directory for the movies, like this: View attachment 19890
• Repeat for TV and other media types
• Done!

I didn't time myself, but I don't think it took more than 15 minutes. Metadata downloads just fine, movies play through the browser, etc. Yes, you should be able to browse throughout the jail's filesystem. Yes, IMO, it's a bug (in Plex, most likely) that you can't. But working around the bug really is trivially easy.

 

[mammothgun]

Plex doesn't rip anything, so I have no idea what you're talking about here. And apparently nothing you tried in those five days included asking for help. But I'm honestly mystified about the trouble people are having with respect to the subject of this thread. So just for S&G, I tried a brand new, clean install of the Plex plugin on a clean FN11-U1 (haven't gotten around to updating to -U2 yet) server.

• Starting condition: Existing dataset of tank/video, with subdirectories (not datasets) of tank/video/Movies, tank/video/TV, etc.
• Install the Plex plugin (currently at version 1.7.5.4035).
• Add storage to the newly-created jail. Source is /mnt/tank/video, destination is /mnt/video. Check the "Create Directory" box.
  
• Turn on the plugin under Plugins -> Installed
• Browse to the Plex installation, skip the sign in/sign up, add a library.
• Type in the directory for the movies, like this: View attachment 19890
• Repeat for TV and other media types
• Done!

Edit: NOTE: As noted in other posts above, case matters. My movies are in a directory called Movies. That isn't the same thing as movies.

I didn't time myself, but I don't think it took more than 15 minutes. Metadata downloads just fine, movies play through the browser, etc. Yes, you should be able to browse throughout the jail's filesystem. Yes, IMO, it's a bug (in Plex, most likely) that you can't. But working around the bug really is trivially easy.

Oops stupid autocorrect "work correctly "


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Keller]

Plex doesn't rip anything, so I have no idea what you're talking about here. And apparently nothing you tried in those five days included asking for help. But I'm honestly mystified about the trouble people are having with respect to the subject of this thread. So just for S&G, I tried a brand new, clean install of the Plex plugin on a clean FN11-U1 (haven't gotten around to updating to -U2 yet) server.

• Starting condition: Existing dataset of tank/video, with subdirectories (not datasets) of tank/video/Movies, tank/video/TV, etc.
• Install the Plex plugin (currently at version 1.7.5.4035).
• Add storage to the newly-created jail. Source is /mnt/tank/video, destination is /mnt/video. Check the "Create Directory" box.
  
• Turn on the plugin under Plugins -> Installed
• Browse to the Plex installation, skip the sign in/sign up, add a library.
• Type in the directory for the movies, like this: View attachment 19890
• Repeat for TV and other media types
• Done!

Edit: NOTE: As noted in other posts above, case matters. My movies are in a directory called Movies. That isn't the same thing as movies.

I didn't time myself, but I don't think it took more than 15 minutes. Metadata downloads just fine, movies play through the browser, etc. Yes, you should be able to browse throughout the jail's filesystem. Yes, IMO, it's a bug (in Plex, most likely) that you can't. But working around the bug really is trivially easy.

What should be done to skip login? It simple forces me to login and if I do so, I won`t be able to setup the plex server :(

 

[danb35]

What should be done to skip login?

When I posted that four months ago, there was a link to skip the login. I haven't installed it recently to see if it's different now.

 

[nightshade00013]

If I remember right you can just click off of it or hit escape. If not try clicking the back button on the browser. There are big benefits to setting up an account and logging in though. Without it anyone who can access your network can setup the server and once that is done you could be locked out.