Upgrade Plex APP without redoing everything

[David Henrickson]

Hello,

I have searched numerous times on this and the question seems to be there, but no real answer is ever given. I have the APP for Plex. Yes, the App, not stored in the jail. The APP. I understand updates come out....well....every time Haley's Comet comes around. I'm fine with that. I can wait. I'm patient. However, I get that if it was in the jail, you could package in and update, so please do suggest that, its been over played. This question is for the people that actually use the APP and would much rather prefer the GUI system over the jail way. Question being, how do you update to the new version without resetting everything up. FreeNAS/Plex is finicky with this I've found out. I can go into the "app store" and click download the new version for PlexPass. But it literally recreates a while new App. So, now I have two. I can chose to run the older one that has all of my Jail links setup and poster artwork and organization. Or I can chose to use the new one...but then I literally have to reset it up (Organization, poster choices, jail links, etc you get the point). What is the method? Is there one? How is this not worked out? ALL OF THE APPs should be a quick "upgrade" choice once downloaded and utilized. I think if they stopped trying to change the GUI of the WHOLE thing and just worked on the foundation functional basics of this program, they would get farther. Every upgrade something breaks, but there is a "new look." Priorities should be function, not look, always.
So, any suggestions or answers as to how to accomplish this would be greatly appreciated. Just the App upgrade. No jail coding. We're passed the DOS age, and yes I'm comparing it to that.
Thank you all for your great support!

 

[dlavigne]

Did you decide upon a solution for this?

 

[David Henrickson]

Did you decide upon a solution for this?

Did I decide upon a solution? No, I have not received a solution for this question as of yet. I am still hopeful someone knows how to do this using the APP and not the Jail solution/method.

 

[danb35]

What "APP"? A jail is the only supported way there's ever been to run a Plex server under FreeNAS.

 

[David Henrickson]

Sorry, I didn't mean app. I meant plugin. The plugin and an app are the same thing to me. They are a smaller program within the larger that runs a service. So, in today's society, when everything is powered by a phone, app is the first word that comes to mind.

 

[garm]

Well if you let others build your server for you then you just have to wait for the comet to pass by..

The plugin in this case saves you the trouble of manually typing pkg and pkg install plexmediaserver. That’s it.

And from the Plex support site, migration looks fairly straight forward..
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201370363-move-an-install-to-another-system/

So in anticipation of the comet why don’t you spin up a new jail and try out pkg? If you like it you can migrate the database over and point what ever media you have to the new jail and turn off the plugin? You can always go back once the comet passes by..

 

[danb35]

Clearly this is a question of great importance to you. If you're unwilling to do anything at the command line, and incapable of distinguishing any text command-line interface from DOS, you need to wait for iX to release an update to the plugin (which, BTW, is a kind of a jail--so yes, your Plex installation is in a jail). Once they've done so, upgrade the plugin following the manual's instructions.

 

[garm]

I struggle to find an insult more harsh then comparing FreeBSD 11.2 with Quick and Dirty Operating System from 1980...

 

[ThreeDee]

If I can do CLI stuff .. anybody can ..there are plenty of other threads that walk you through updating plex whether it be the official plug-in or your own home grown from scratch setup. If you are going to run any kind of a server, you're probably going to have to get your "hands dirty" at some point at the command line ..

 

[saikee]

For years I ran FreeNAS 9.10 and had do use a script, just a couple of lines provided by this forum, to update Plex perhaps about 10 times.

My zpool and Plex libraries never need to be touched, let alone to redo everything.

Recently I had a problem of degrading USB boot drives so had to switched to 11.2 as 9.10 and 11.1 versions do seem to have Plex plugin.

The latest 11.2 seem to update the Plex automatically.

I can leave the zpool untouched, go to another PC to install FreeNAS 11.2 using a ssd as a boot drive, bring back to the existing FreenAS and boot it up. I can then add/attach my zpool in the new 11.2 version which automatically picks up the information of the jails and all Plex data. Plex in this instance is in "down" position. All I need is to click "start" and Plex is immediately available to locally as well as remotely.

In my case I did install Plex with the 11.2 previously once but the boot drives then went bad.

Without a doubt the 11.2 is getting a lot easier for Plex users.