Plex Media Server: Utter Fail

[ewhac]

The other night, I installed the Plex Media server plugin to FreeNAS, with an eye toward finally making media available to all the devices in the household. The experience could not be described as successful.

Installing the plugin and launching the jail went well enough and, once I worked out what to click on, was able to get the Plex logo up in a browser window. Unfortunately, it never got beyond that. I run a secure browser (Firefox with NoScript plugin), which apparently Plex doesn't know how to cope with. I found a post in the Plex discussion fora describing the same problem I was having. However, applying the described fixes had no effect. Even disabling NoScript entirely had no effect; the Web page refused to do anything. The Web console reported an insecure operation was attempted -- my Web-fu is not strong enough to determine the exact nature of what it was objecting to.

Just before giving up, I decided to try using Chrome on my Android phone. After the thing thrashed around for a bit, I found myself confronted with a login page. I found this confusing, since I had configured no users in the FreeNAS jail. Nevertheless, I entered the login for one of the FreeNAS users, and was promptly informed that Plex never heard of them. It then dawned on me that the Plex page wanted me to enter a login ID created at Plex.tv's Web site.

So, let's review: A media server whose Web UI loads scripting components from outside my LAN (what, my disk wasn't big enough to hold them locally?), which in turn use insecure scripting practices, and which further demands login credentials be established at an external site, all so I can (allegedly) distribute and view my media inside my LAN.

Uh, no. Thank you for playing; please enjoy this lovely consolation rm -fr command. What's on my servers is none of your damned business.

 

[cyberjock]

You are complaining to the FREENAS forums because why again?

I think this should just be deleted out of hand because we just provide the plugin. We don't support the software at all, so your ranting is a waste of a thread on this forum.

 

[Shroom]

Idk, I kind of found it useful, as now I know not to try using Plex when I build a NAS.

 

[cyberjock]

Idk, I kind of found it useful, as now I know not to try using Plex when I build a NAS.

Well, I know about 100 people that use Plex on FreeNAS and love it.

 

[ser_rhaegar]

Idk, I kind of found it useful, as now I know not to try using Plex when I build a NAS.

The OPs rant is only about Plex, not about Plex as a plugin. Plex requires a login from their site to set it up, you can turn off logins after that. Plex also apparently did not work well with the OPs NoScript plugin, though I use the same plugin and had no issues.

Signing up on their site wasn't something I really wanted to do, but after looking at other options, Plex was by far the best user experience of any other platform for me. I never use that login anymore though, you can configure Plex to allow anyone on specific IP ranges full access.

 

[cyberjock]

News flash: You do not have to have a myplex account to use plex. The plex developers have said that myplex has always been optional, and will continue to be optional for the forseeable future.

 

[Shroom]

Thanks guys, I'll keep that in mind. Is Plex necessary to serve media to devices on a network, or can this be done by mapping network drives instead?

 

[ser_rhaegar]

News flash: You do not have to have a myplex account to use plex. The plex developers have said that myplex has always been optional, and will continue to be optional for the forseeable future.

No you don't need a plex pass (paid service), but you need to sign into Plex's website with one of their accounts to activate the server the first time.

Ok so maybe I'll eat my words.

Your Plex Account can also help local media Servers and player Apps find each other, so you should consider signing up (or signing in) even if you don't intend to share or stream outside your home.

https://plexapp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/200288896

I'll have to redo an install and see what I missed. It did not seem optional when I installed it.

 

[fracai]

Thanks guys, I'll keep that in mind. Is Plex necessary to serve media to devices on a network, or can this be done by mapping network drives instead?

Depending on the device you want to watch on, mapping can work. For example, many "smart" TVs will display media shared by a DLNA server. "WDTV Live" allows you to mount NFS, SMB, and NFS shares and will play whatever is in the shares.

 

[Shroom]

Depending on the device you want to watch on, mapping can work. For example, many "smart" TVs will display media shared by a DLNA server. "WDTV Live" allows you to mount NFS, SMB, and NFS shares and will play whatever is in the shares.

Awesome. I'm probably going to run an Intel NUC with OpenELEC in the future, for now I'm running a Windows 7 machine that is fully capable of decoding its own files, I just need them available on the machine. XBMC is a pain in the ass, and can't browse to network directories to setup a library, I believe it has to at least be a mapped networked drive.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Awesome. I'm probably going to run an Intel NUC with OpenELEC in the future, for now I'm running a Windows 7 machine that is fully capable of decoding its own files, I just need them available on the machine. XBMC is a pain in the ass, and can't browse to network directories to setup a library, I believe it has to at least be a mapped networked drive.

you don't know how to add a network share in xbmc? all my libraries are on an NFS share. and openelec can decode everything out of the box, unlike windows.

google 'jruehlig xbmc' I show how to do it.

 

[Shroom]

you don't know how to add a network share in xbmc? all my libraries are on an NFS share. and openelec can decode everything out of the box, unlike windows.

google 'jruehlig xbmc' I show how to do it.

Great, thanks, will do. I'm sure it's possible, I've just been having a hell of a time finding where to even add libraries to XBMC.. it's been a while

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

yeah, its easy for me.. probably cause I've had an xbmc system since 2010. I remember it was hell when I first started, you had to edit config files to use a network drive (including SMB).

 

[cpunlimited]

Not sure what you're doing wrong here.

Watch this video from the FreeNAS team itself on how to get everything set up exactly the way it should:

 

[joelmusicman]

The real point of Plex is the ability to share files across the internet, not just your internal LAN. For example, my FreeNAS server is in San Diego, I could watch a movie from anywhere in the country as long as I have a half-decent internet connection.

Yes, it gives up a bit of security, but you could at least do things like using strong passwords, mounting your media as read-only, etc.