Plex Media Server

[joeschmuck]

Looking into the automatic scanner problem so I'm trying to figure out how to invoke the Plex Scanner from within the jail via command line. I was able to locate some commands for an older version of Plex but I'm not having much luck finding stuff about this version. The older version of Plex Scanner the command line was "Scanner -s" to force a rescan.

Of course I was planning to modify my MiniDLNA script to meet this need since I'm not a programmer and simple scripts are just easy. I would really like to see the plugin just use Kqueue to monitor the library files but that is an update to the code that I'm definitely not currently capable of doing.


EDIT: I was able to locate the command which I think starts up the Plex Media Server located at "/usr/pbi/plexmediaserver-amd64/share/plexmediaserver/start.sh" but I run into some errors of course. But maybe this isn't what I'm really looking for.

 

[Jeren]

I had some trouble with streaming playback so I had to change my /etc/group within the jail for it to work.

Code:

jls
JID  IP Address      Hostname                      Path
  1  -              plex_1                        /mnt/tank/jails/plex_1

to get the jail id, then

Code:

jexec 1 csh

to get into the jail.

Code:

vi /etc/group

to edit the groups file and add plex to the wheel group so that it looks like:

Code:

wheel:whatever_you_had_here_before:plex

 

[joeschmuck]

I had some trouble with streaming playback so I had to change my /etc/group within the jail for it to work.

What kind of trouble?

 

[Jeren]

What kind of trouble?

Something on the order of the video never playing back any videos. I think it was because the remuxing process saved a local copy but the plex user didn't have write privileges in the eyes of freenas.

 

[amen]

hi!
ok, i have plex running but if i restart FreeNAS, i loses all mountpoints check, i need to turn off plex plugin and check all mountpoints on to work again is this normal?
l

 

[paleoN]

ok, i have plex running but if i restart FreeNAS, i loses all mountpoints check, i need to turn off plex plugin and check all mountpoints on to work again is this normal?

Are there spaces in the path? If yes, then this is already fixed in the master branch.

 

[enemy85]

Hi all again....
after solving my problems with FTP I discovered the plugins world...and Plex Plugin!
I setted everything as freenas guide says and the plugin itself seems to work properly, but i have just 2 couple of questions:

1) Can somebody please explane me why i can only see and create a movies library and not a music library, even if in the media folder i have both .avi and .mp3 files???

2) There's a way to acces plex out of the LAN network (as i do with FTP with DDNS)?

Thanks

 

[loesje]

Hope you can inform me because I am missing the point.
There already is the running FreeNas server with all the sharing stuff.
Why the need for a running streamingserver more?
You can access FreeNas music, video from anywhere with Xbmc (what Plex is).

 

[amires]

Hope you can inform me because I am missing the point.
There already is the running FreeNas server with all the sharing stuff.
Why the need for a running streamingserver more?
You can access FreeNas music, video from anywhere with Xbmc (what Plex is).

Plex is not just a streaming server, it is a complete media solution. Here is a quote from wikipedia :

Plex Media Server is the back-end media server component of Plex, which is closed source as proprietary software. Introduced in 2009, Plex Media Server is used to host the content and plugins that are then streamed to Plex Home Theater or Plex Media Center and Plex mobile app clients, either on the same machine, the same local area network, or over the Internet. In addition to the platforms supported by the front end, the server is also available for Linux. Plex Media Server can be configured to index content in any directory on the machine it's run on, as well as automatically acquiring iTunes, iPhoto, and Aperture content. Content may be transcoded by the server before it's streamed in order to reduce bandwidth requirements, or for compatibility with the device being streamed to.
Plex Media Server allows extensibility through the addition of plug-ins. Many of these plug-ins are available through the built-in Plex Online digital distribution service. This service can be used directly within Plex Home Theater or Plex Media Center's GUI.[3][14][15]
Plex Media Server is a robust network media streaming software that enhances user's ability to host their media library. Plex uses the metadata from several free open-source online libraries to automatically find all artwork, media descriptions and theme music for your entire library.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plex_(software)

 

[loesje]

Thank you amires for answering.
Sofar as I can understand, is Plex consisting of two main elements, the streamingserver and the mediaplayer.
The mediaplayer can be anything even a upnp television.
That leaves us only the streaming server.

When I use the Plex mediaserver to arrange my library I get the feeling, this is familiar to me. I have seen this before. Yes because it is already done in Freenas.
And as of Plex, Freenas also pops up in the mediaplayer to wach or listen video and music.

Plex (as of Xbmc) does remind me of the former C++ interfaces for programs in the time where gui-ing was only for Unix, well much more glossy for sure nowadays.

 

[amires]

Yes plex supports upnp clients however to take full advantage of plex capabilities you must use either Plex Home Theatre on a PC/Mac, Plex Web (via browser), Plex Mobile (iOS). You can also use appletv with plex however a little hacking needs to be done for this.

I am not sure what you mean by freenas pops up in the mediaplayer. Here is a screenshot of my plex gui :

 

[interpeix]

If somebody have the subtitles problem, here is finally one temporary solution
https://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/78552-srt-subtitles-crash-the-transcoder-idx-works-fine/

 

[amires]

If somebody have the subtitles problem, here is finally one temporary solution
https://forums.plexapp.com/index.php/topic/78552-srt-subtitles-crash-the-transcoder-idx-works-fine/

Thanks a lot for this, I have to try it. Is it possible to copy Arial.ttf from a Mac system to plex jail instead of renaming Dejavu font to arial?

 

[interpeix]

I really don't know if it is. The fix works.

 

[amires]

I really don't know if it is. The fix works.

Ok, thanks I will try it later tonight when I get home and post the results here. To be honest I dont like dirty hacks so I was thinking if it is looking for Arial lets give it Arial :)

UPDATE : Ok I tried the solution from your post and it worked perfectly. I also copied Arial.ttf and Arial Unicode.ttf from a MacOS system and moved them to my plex jail and copied them to /Library/Fonts. In my opinion Arial fonts from MacOS looks a lot better than DejaVu font and have cleaner letters edges. Since these fonts are Microsoft owned I wont upload them however it can easily be copied from a mac system if anyone is interested in trying those.

 

[raidflex]

Has anyone had issues with Plex 0.9.8.10.215 and it not seeing the subfolders in a linked storage folder? I had the previous version and recently did a clean install of Plex into a new jail using the same settings I had and now Plex cannot see the content in my linked storage folders. I also noticed that when I go to add content I can access the linked storage folder, but none of its subfolders show up. This feels like it is a permissions issue but I have triple checked the permissions, in and outside the jail. The proper user is created inside the jail and that user has access to my media content. Also that same user has an account in Freenas, with the same permissions. The storage folders in question have the proper permissions set.

I have also verified that all of the GID's/UID's are correct and matching both inside/outside the jail.
I am using Freenas 9.2-RC2
Any help is appreciated. Thanks.