Plex can't find any media

ShipDaddy

Dabbler
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
13
I just built and installed a freenas server for my home with the primary goal of it being a media server and backup device. As far as I can tell Freenas is working the way it is supposed to. I created a new ZFS volume using RaidZ1 (I have 3-3TB WD Red disks).

I created a new ZFS dataset for my media /mnt/Drives/Media and underneath those I have a folder structure which I did to keep my media organized /mnt/Drives/Media/Videos/Movies/Action and Adventure/Movie name/movie name.mp4. Videos is also a ZFS dataset. All of the folders underneath that were created via CIFS through Windows.

I've set permissions on all of the folders to 777 to a user name PLEX that has full permissions (I don't necessarily want to do this but want to make sure that permissions are not the issue)

Using the WebGUI, I added storage to the jail where source was /mnt/Drives/Media and the destination is /media under the plex jail. The first three folders I have in the /mnt/Drives/Media folder show up (Videos, Photos, Music) however there is nothing in any of those 3 folders.

I've been reading the forums over the past couple of days trying to figure out what I am doing wrong but have not been successful. I've read about mount points and permissions and perhaps I am just not doing it right. This is my first experience with FreeNas and never have used unix commands until now. I did try chmod -R 777 to my media folder however I got the errors operation not permitted (so perhaps there is a permissions issue).

Any help would be greatly appreciated. So far this has been a very frustrating experience.

Thank you
 

ShipDaddy

Dabbler
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
13
It appears I am able to chmod my source Media folder in full by using chmod -R 777 * in my Media folder from the shell. However when I use the same approach for the destination media folder (or any of the jail folders for that matter) I get errors on every file with operation not permitted. I've done an ls -l command and the owner:group is root:wheel and I am performing the operation in the shell from root so I am not sure what the problem is. Perhaps this is what is causing the source of my problems.

Any ideas?
 

paleoN

Wizard
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
1,403
I created a new ZFS dataset for my media /mnt/Drives/Media and underneath those I have a folder structure which I did to keep my media organized /mnt/Drives/Media/Videos/Movies/Action and Adventure/Movie name/movie name.mp4. Videos is also a ZFS dataset.
Using the WebGUI, I added storage to the jail where source was /mnt/Drives/Media and the destination is /media under the plex jail. The first three folders I have in the /mnt/Drives/Media folder show up (Videos, Photos, Music) however there is nothing in any of those 3 folders.
Datasets are separate filesystems. You need to mount them individually. Inside the jail create the three folders under /media and mount each dataset to them. E.G. /mnt/Drives/Media/Videos to /media/videos, etc.
 

ShipDaddy

Dabbler
Joined
Oct 22, 2013
Messages
13
It looks like that did the trick! Thank you

Not sure how to mark the thread as resolved.
 

Sir Bogoff

Cadet
Joined
Nov 4, 2013
Messages
2
I read the above post and am not to sure how to go about this? Movies are streaming great.

I just wanted to thank everyone who has put so much work into this and producing such an awesome product. Anyway, here is my problem. I setup FreeNas no problem, I then followed this video (http://www.youtube.c...h?v=-WF0r36cxO0) to setup Plex. Worked like a charm and I can stream video to all of my devices. So, you may ask, what is my problem? I can not figure out how to setup multiple locations for different files i.e:- Movies, Music, TV-Shows, Pictures and alike. Any help would be gratefully appreciated. Again, thanks for all the hard work on this. My wife and kids love it almost as much as I do.

Waiting with baited breath. Oh and if there is a better way of doing this than the explanation in the YouTube video, I am all ears.
 

freshfeesh

Explorer
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
72
Sir B, to add an existing Freenas volume to Plex's scanned collection, go to the Jails tab, select the Plex jail, and use the "Add Storage" icon (black folder) in the lower left. To get additional media types (e.g. audio or images) in a folder that's already in Plex's collection to show up in the lists of available media, hit the "+" sign at the upper right of the "My Library" box on the Plex/Web home page.
 

ViciousXUSMC

Dabbler
Joined
May 12, 2014
Messages
49
I had to struggle with this tonight as I just got my FreeNas box and Plex Plugin going.
The solution for me was to analyze where the common ground was between the Jail Storage and the Plex Media Library.

Ends up there is a common overlap and this was all I had to do.

Browse the Jail Storage source as my main Media Folder (or what ever folder you want as a sorce.
Source: /mnt/Master/Media (my dataset on FreeNas)
Destination /var/db/plexdata/Plex Media Server/Media

That destination is the parent Media folder you see when browsing for Media to add to your library inside Plex.
 

danb35

Hall of Famer
Joined
Aug 16, 2011
Messages
15,464
Source: /mnt/Master/Media (my dataset on FreeNas)
Destination /var/db/plexdata/Plex Media Server/Media
1. You necro'd a four-year-old thread, which was dealing with quite a different problem, with very different versions of all the relevant software.
2. Your "solution" was completely unnecessary. It's true that (for reasons unknown, but it's come up here several times in recent months) recent versions of Plex (at least on FreeNAS; unknown if this applies to other FreeBSD installations, or to other OSs) doesn't let you use its GUI browser to go outside Plex's home directory. However, you can simply type in the path to the "Destination" location. So, if you set storage of /mnt/Master/Media with a destination of /media/video, you'd simply type in "/media/video" in Plex.

Of course, where you mount the storage in the Plex jail is somewhat arbitrary, but there's just no reason to bury it like this.
 

Jojosamoht

Cadet
Joined
Sep 27, 2019
Messages
1
I had to struggle with this tonight as I just got my FreeNas box and Plex Plugin going.
The solution for me was to analyze where the common ground was between the Jail Storage and the Plex Media Library.

Ends up there is a common overlap and this was all I had to do.

Browse the Jail Storage source as my main Media Folder (or what ever folder you want as a sorce.
Source: /mnt/Master/Media (my dataset on FreeNas)
Destination /var/db/plexdata/Plex Media Server/Media

That destination is the parent Media folder you see when browsing for Media to add to your library inside Plex.

sure, so far so good.

but when I browsing the folder i plex add library --> add folder - Im unable to select the Media to select the subcategory (movies or music etc) even they are created in the plexmedia SMB and have content inside.

any idea why?

or pointme to a indepth investigation. I followed this youtube description https://youtu.be/Lhd-OvUqNxQ to the very detail.
 
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