Plex Web GUI - Management will not load

[Hawkins]

System stats:
OS Version:
FreeNAS-11.2-U7
(Build Date: Nov 19, 2019 0:4)

Processor:
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 v6 @ 3.50GHz (8 cores)

Memory:
32 GiB

This is being run on a Dell T130 Server and a 32GB Flash Drive houses the O/S

I had FreeNAS up and running and I made the mistake of playing with the user. Now the Web Browser GUI will not work (I can still access the Plex media files through "File Explorer" on my desktop. The issue with the web browser only occured after playing around with permissions of users and adding/deleted/swapping between a "plexuser" and "plex" user name based on advice from the forums. Plex not now long works.

Note that I've searched around on the forums and cannot find a solution to my problems. I can successfully ping the ip of the server from my desktop PC. Can anyone offer some help on how to remedy. I'd even be willing to "gift" someone something to get this server up and running again. I am newer to FreeNAS/PMS and now feel I am in way over my head.

Thanks for your help. Happy to provide whatever information I can.

 

[Kris Moore]

Just to be clear, this is the Plex user interface that no longer works, not the FreeNAS Web Interface, right?

If you mucked with it too much, it may be worth just deleting and re-installing the plex plugin from scratch, unless you can recall step-by-step what you did to the user / permissions.

 

[Hawkins]

Just to be clear, this is the Plex user interface that no longer works, not the FreeNAS Web Interface, right?

If you mucked with it too much, it may be worth just deleting and re-installing the plex plugin from scratch, unless you can recall step-by-step what you did to the user / permissions.

I believe this is correct. When I go into my browser to find the plex server--- 192.168.XX.XX:32400, nothing shows up. Plex was working fine and I shouldn't have mucked with it but it all started when I added a HD Homerun and tried to set up LiveTV/DVR. My DVR wasn't recording (it said it didn't have permission to write). This caused me to mess with permissions which fixed the DVR issue but created an issue where any new folders added to my PlexShare/Plex Media folders was not immediately being recognized by Plex (it was shown by grayed out). Basically, any time I had to add more media to Plex, I had to go to FreeNAS and re-apply permissions recursively and it would work.

I was given advice that to fix this, I should change my user structure from plexuser to plex. This is where the disasters happened. You can find the detail of what I was experiencing at the following thread (I included Screenshots) https://www.ixsystems.com/community/threads/help-with-permissions.81428/#post-564420

One additional note --- I've been wanted to upgrade from the Plex plugin to the PlexPass Plugin for some time. The problem is I have so much customized metadata within Plex that I don't want to go through and re-do this which is why I avoided doing this. I am happy to reinstall (I tried a few times last night but each time, it failed to download the PlexPass plugin) but would like to know if it's possible to keep metadata (ie. Specifically, it is my "Sort names")

 

[Kris Moore]

Its possible to copy the Plex Data from one jail to another, if you want to start fresh and still keep all your plex metadata / config.

Where is the Plex Media Server data directory located?

The main Plex Media Server data directory location will vary based on your operating system. Below are the default locations....

support.plex.tv

I believe in iocage the location is /usr/local/plexdata/Plex Media Server, you could spin up a fresh instance and then try copying that to the new one and validating its working before you destroy anything from the old.

 

[Hawkins]

Its possible to copy the Plex Data from one jail to another, if you want to start fresh and still keep all your plex metadata / config.

Where is the Plex Media Server data directory located?

The main Plex Media Server data directory location will vary based on your operating system. Below are the default locations....

support.plex.tv

I believe in iocage the location is /usr/local/plexdata/Plex Media Server, you could spin up a fresh instance and then try copying that to the new one and validating its working before you destroy anything from the old.

I will try this tonight. So if I understand you right, create a new jail, make it a replica of the old plex jail, verify it copied/works, and delete the old plex jail. I have about 3 TB of data on these so nothing is quick but I am happy to try it out. Anything to avoid spending another 2-3 hrs doing sorting on all my files.

 

[Kris Moore]

Well, ideally your media doesn't live inside the jail, but is mapped in as a nullfs mount to the host NAS. If that is the case, then the meta-data and plex config is usually under a GB.

But yes, that is the right process, then you can test it moving to plexpass as well.