New SCALE install; PleX randomly not recognizing some media files

Apps and Virtualization
1

I’m migrating everything from an old FreeNAS server that’s so far out of date I can’t update PleX or half the software, so I built a brand new machine (identical disk sizes etc) and I’ve copied all my media across.

After installing PleX and mapping the appropriate paths, I found that only a little over half of my movies (that I’ve checked so far) appear in the new PleX server.

First, let’s get some versions out of the way:

TrueNAS Scale: 25.04.0

PleX:
App Version: 1.41.6.9685-d301f511a
Version: 1.1.22

I have a lifetime PleX Pass, and installed the PlexPass Image.

Once I completed the PleX installation, I migrated the files from the old FreeNAS to the TrueNAS Scale machine.

All files were copied successfully and show up in the respective directories, however my old PleX server (“tera”) shows 908 titles; the new server (“bertha”) shows only 583. Running re-scan does not change the count.

I went through the library and found some gaps; for example these files on the new server:

kuyper@bertha:/mnt/pool01/media/00-Handbrake/A-B$ ls -l An*m4v
-rwxrwx--- 1 kuyper 972  1601514568 Aug 28  2012 'Angel Heart (1987).m4v'
-rwxrwx--- 1 kuyper 972  2349248587 Aug 28  2012 'AngelasAshes (1999).m4v'
-rwxrwx--- 1 kuyper 972  1176309814 Sep  1  2012 'Antz (1998).m4v'
kuyper@bertha:/mnt/pool01/media/00-Handbrake/A-B$

As you can see, all 3 files have identical permissions, but only the first (Angel Heart) shows up in PleX on the new server.

The old server shows all 3. For completeness, the file listing on the old server:

tera% ls -l An*m4v
-rw-rw-rw-  1 kuyper  users   1601514568 Aug 28  2012 Angel Heart (1987).m4v
-rw-rw-rw-  1 kuyper  users   2349248587 Aug 28  2012 AngelasAshes (1999).m4v
-rw-rw-rw-  1 kuyper  users   1176309814 Sep  1  2012 Antz (1998).m4v
tera%

Even the timestamps are identical

To be clear, this was not a PleX “migration” - I did not attempt to migrate the database (too many changes; BSD->Linux, Jails->Docker, etc) rather a fresh rebuild. I copied all the files, and then asked PleX to rebuild a fresh database. Multiple scans have failed to change anything.

Again, there are files in the same directory, with the same permissions; some are showing up, however, 325 files are just not showing up…

Thanks for any assistance

Kuyper

2

What do the Plex logs show? Open them and ctrl+f for one of the ‘missing’ files.

I wasn’t expecting any of those to show up. I expected Plex on the new system to run under the user ‘apps’ (568:568), which would mean your current permissions would not work. The only reason I didn’t suggest that, is because you claimed some of them are showing up.

Are the visible movies actually playable? If you migrated your Plex metadata, I don’t believe it immediately removes movies that are no longer there.

If they aren’t playable, you will probably need to give user 568 permissions to the files, or add some permissions for ‘others’. As it is, only kuyper and “972” (Core “users” ?) have access to the files.

3

Thanks for the quick reply @Jorsher

The logs didn’t show anything for “Antz” aside from a few server searches for it:

kuyper@Ryzup:/mnt/c/Users/skype/Downloads/Bertha Plex Media Server Logs_2025-04-23_11-59-41$ grep -i Antz *
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:08:59.265 [139748197210936] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.10.18:56851 (Allowed Network (Subnet))] GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (11 live) #58b68 TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (kuyper) (Chrome)
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:09:03.974 [139748351548216] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.10.18:56851] 200 GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (10 live) #58b68 TLS GZIP 4708ms 482 bytes (pipelined: 1)
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:09:44.269 [139748211764024] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.10.18:56935 (Allowed Network (Subnet))] GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (9 live) #58b8f TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (kuyper) (Chrome)
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:09:46.796 [139748199320376] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.10.18:56963 (Allowed Network (Subnet))] GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (12 live) #58b95 TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (kuyper) (Chrome)
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:09:46.833 [139748353657656] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.10.18:56963] 200 GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (12 live) #58b95 TLS GZIP 37ms 482 bytes (pipelined: 1)
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:09:48.914 [139748351548216] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.10.18:56935] 200 GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (12 live) #58b8f TLS GZIP 4645ms 482 bytes (pipelined: 3)
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:12:53.549 [139748197210936] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.10.18:57178 (Allowed Network (Subnet))] GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (13 live) #58c4f TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (kuyper) (Chrome)
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:12:58.193 [139748353657656] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.10.18:57178] 200 GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (11 live) #58c4f TLS GZIP 4644ms 482 bytes (pipelined: 2)
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:25:45.917 [139748199320376] DEBUG - Request: [192.168.10.18:58529 (Allowed Network (Subnet))] GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (11 live) #58ee5 TLS GZIP Signed-in Token (kuyper) (Chrome)
Plex Media Server.log:Apr 23, 2025 10:25:50.551 [139748351548216] DEBUG - Completed: [192.168.10.18:58529] 200 GET /library/search?query=antz&limit=100&searchTypes=movies%2Cmusic%2CotherVideos%2Cpeople%2Cphotos%2Ctv&includeCollections=1&includeExternalMedia=1 (11 live) #58ee5 TLS GZIP 4634ms 482 bytes (pipelined: 1)
kuyper@Ryzup:/mnt/c/Users/skype/Downloads/Bertha Plex Media Server Logs_2025-04-23_11-59-41$

The permission issue is handled by the fact that the PleX user runs as user “578” (apps) by deafult, and I have given “apps” user FULL_CONTROL access to the media path.

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I agree, if not for that, no files would show up. And yes, those that are there play fine. I’m trying to do this whole install without messing about with “chmod” because that’s just not scalable. ACLs are meant to handle all of this.

The files are copied into the NAS by me, hence the “kuyper” ownership.

4

Just for giggles, I did the ownership change on the missing 2 files, to no avail:

kuyper@bertha:/mnt/pool01/media/00-Handbrake/A-B$ sudo chown 568:568  'AngelasAshes (1999).m4v'
kuyper@bertha:/mnt/pool01/media/00-Handbrake/A-B$ sudo chown 568:568 'Antz (1998).m4v'
kuyper@bertha:/mnt/pool01/media/00-Handbrake/A-B$ ls -l An*m4v
-rwxrwx--- 1 kuyper  972  1601514568 Aug 28  2012 'Angel Heart (1987).m4v'
-rwxrwx--- 1 apps   apps  2349248587 Aug 28  2012 'AngelasAshes (1999).m4v'
-rwxrwx--- 1 apps   apps  1176309814 Sep  1  2012 'Antz (1998).m4v'
kuyper@bertha:/mnt/pool01/media/00-Handbrake/A-B$

Still nothing in PleX on “bertha”

5

Can you see the files from the container’s shell ?

6

Yup; they appear fine

kuyper@bertha:~$ sudo docker exec -it ix-plex-plex-1 /bin/bash
root@bertha:/# ls -l /media/00-Handbrake/A-B/An*m4v
-rwxrwx--- 1 1000  972 11419350219 Oct 14  2012 '/media/00-Handbrake/A-B/Angel Heart (1987) - 1080p.m4v'
-rwxrwx--- 1 1000  972  1601514568 Aug 28  2012 '/media/00-Handbrake/A-B/Angel Heart (1987).m4v'
-rwxrwx--- 1 plex plex  2349248587 Aug 28  2012 '/media/00-Handbrake/A-B/AngelasAshes (1999).m4v'
-rwxrwx--- 1 plex plex  1176309814 Sep  1  2012 '/media/00-Handbrake/A-B/Antz (1998).m4v'
root@bertha:/#
7

Actually, not really sure what else you can check. I’ve never encountered this, from FreeNAS/Core/Scale and using Plex the last decade or so.

If it’s a permissions error, I believe it will show in the logs, which you checked. The files are visible.

Have you restricted resources for the Plex app? I had odd Plex issues recently when I restricted resources too much on my custom docker (not from the store).

8

OK, so how do I delete an entire topic/thread so that I don’t have to face public humiliation any further? :joy:

I had not added this entire folder/directory (00-Handbrake) to the mapping. I obviously have duplicate files (probably higher resolution than my (decade-ago) rip of my entire DVD collection. I have a different directory for higher resolution files, hence movies like Angel Heart showed up, but not Angela’s Ashes or Antz.

I am so sorry for wasting your time @Jorsher…

Catalog is rescanning and growing.

9

No problem. I like a good mystery…

This was not making sense, so glad you found the issue.

I’ve kept my file structure simple:
/mnt/video/movies
/mnt/video/shows
…etc

Thousands of items in each with 0 issues.

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