Plex - Please check that the file exists and the necessary drive is mounted

[Chamrajnagar]

Hi all, I tried installing the Plex plugin on my FreeNAS box last night. I installed through the Plugins tab.

After installing, I navigated to the Jails tab, clicked on storage, and edited the Plex Source and Destination.

I have the source set to "/mnt/spiderpig/FreeNAS/Video/TV"

This folder is visible from both my computers with media on them. I want to be able to add my media to this folder.

I set the Destination folder to "/Media" within the Plex jail. The "Create Directory" and" Mounted?" boxes are both checked.

I had added 34 files to the "TV" folder before I set this up. I went into Plex, and pointed it to the Media folder. It scanned and picked up all 34 files I added. I then added 6 more files, 5 from the same computer and 1 from a different computer. Plex won't detect these files when it scans, despite them being of the same file type as the original 34. I then noticed that I cannot play any of the 34 original files, I get the error message mentioned in the thread title.

Here are the debug logs from Plex if I launch it from the FreeNAS GUI in a web browser and try to play one of the videos: http://pastebin.com/kAuS6qXi

 

[Apollo]

I think the issue may be related to Plex not having the proper permission to be able to play the files.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

OK, thanks for the insight Apollo. I'll look into that.

Hopefully it's the same issue stopping Plex from finding new files.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

I'm not sure what to do about the permissions and I've changed so many settings trying to get it to work I think I may uninstall the plugin and try installing as a jail.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

I'm not sure what to do about the permissions and I've changed so many settings trying to get it to work I think I may uninstall the plugin and try installing as a jail.

that won't change the fact that the 'plex' user can't read your media files.

 

[Apollo]

I'm not sure what to do about the permissions and I've changed so many settings trying to get it to work I think I may uninstall the plugin and try installing as a jail.

When you try to watch your media, do you get the "unavailable" red label such as the screen capture?
In your dataset permission, the one you want to share with the jail, you need to have the following settings under "Mode":
Other => Read => enabled.
Other=> Execute => enabled.

Enable "Set permission recursively:" to update the files that are already in the dataset.
I don't know of any other way to provide proper permission to the jail.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

that won't change the fact that the 'plex' user can't read your media files.

Do I need to create a user 'plex'? When I installed the plugin it did not create such a user. If I view volumes, the Plex jail is owned by 'root' - it was configured this way upon install. I'm still working on wrapping my head around unix groups and permissions, but I was under the impression that 'root' was the admin user and should give Plex all the permissions it needs. I could create user 'plex' but I can't see where I would tie that in with the plugin.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Do I need to create a user 'plex'? When I installed the plugin it did not create such a user. If I view volumes, the Plex jail is owned by 'root' - it was configured this way upon install. I'm still working on wrapping my head around unix groups and permissions, but I was under the impression that 'root' was the admin user and should give Plex all the permissions it needs. I could create user 'plex' but I can't see where I would tie that in with the plugin.

By default, plexmediaserver uses the 'plex' user (UID=972), which exists in the jail.

Jails have completely different users/groups then the FreeNAS host. They don't necessarily associate UIDs/GIDs with the same user.

Do not change the ownership/permissions of the jail/plugin datasets or they'll stop working properly. Only ever change the ownership/permissions of datasets you mount into the jail.

####

This post I wrote shows how to give a plugin write permissions to a dataset, gives some solutions to solve your issue.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...plugins-write-permissions-to-your-data.27273/

 

[Chamrajnagar]

When you try to watch your media, do you get the "unavailable" red label such as the screen capture?

Yes.

In your dataset permission, the one you want to share with the jail, you need to have the following settings under "Mode":
Other => Read => enabled.
Other=> Execute => enabled.

Enable "Set permission recursively:" to update the files that are already in the dataset.
I don't know of any other way to provide proper permission to the jail.

That is exactly how I set it up. However, the folder I want to share with the jail is a subfolder of an existing volume, 'FREENAS'. Thus, I can't view it directly to set permissions, only 'FREENAS'. I set the permissions on 'FREENAS' thinking the same permissions would apply to the subfolder. Is it posisble this would cause problems? Do I need to create a separate volume for the share folder?

I've actually taken a step back at this point. I attempted restarting FreeNAS, but it wouldn't boot up again. I had to move the boot flash drive from a USB3 port to a USB2 port. The box had been booting fine on the USB3 port, but installing Plex appears to have broken that functionality. Now that I'm booting from a USB2 port again FreeNAS will boot, but I can't start Plex. I'm able to ping its IP, but if I try to launch it the page cannot be displayed.

If you're wondering why I bothered with the USB3 port in the first place, it's an internal port and the USB2 ports are on the back panel. I liked the idea of moving the boot drive inside the case.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

By default, plexmediaserver uses the 'plex' user (UID=972), which exists in the jail.

Jails have completely different users/groups then the FreeNAS host. They don't necessarily associate UIDs/GIDs with the same user.

Do not change the ownership/permissions of the jail/plugin datasets or they'll stop working properly. Only ever change the ownership/permissions of datasets you mount into the jail.

Thank you, that is good information. I believe I did change some permissions of the jail/plugin dataset, so that might explain why I can no longer launch Plex.

I had looked to see if I could find separate users/groups for the jail, but was unable to turn anything up. I'll look into this.

This post I wrote shows how to give a plugin write permissions to a dataset, gives some solutions to solve your issue.
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...plugins-write-permissions-to-your-data.27273/

Excellent, I'll review your post and see if I can figure it out.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

These are my current permissions.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

These are my current permissions.

based on those pictures it shouldn't be a permission issue with Plex not being able to read the files.

If you did change the owncership/permissions of the jail/plugin_jail dataset they probably won't even be able to stop/start plex. In this case I would recommend you install plex again and never change permissions of those datasets again.

You could try installing a second instance of plex, add the storage, and see if it works as expected.

 

[Apollo]

These are my current permissions.

I do not set my Dataset to Windows permission. Instead I am setting it as Unix.
You may have ACL issues preventing Plex from Accessing the files.
Create a dataset and set permission for Unix and apply the permission as I did on the screen shot I provided.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

I removed Plex and the jails datasets, then reconfigured jails with a new root. I also created a new media dataset (unix) for the share folder. I rebooted and installed Plex, then set up the storage for the shared folder. Everything is working smoothly now as far as I can tell. I probably damaged the permissions in the jails datasets, and may have complicated by having a Windows shared folder.

Thanks for the help. I'm slowly starting to figure things out and get everything up and running.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

One thing I'm not yet clear on is if I make changes to the share folder, will they be reflected in the Plex media folder? For example, I've noticed that I had two slightly different versions of the same file, so I deleted one from the share folder, leaving the other. Plex seems to update if I add new files to the shared folder, but is sluggish to reflect changes to files or deleted files, not picking up changes if I tell it to rescan.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

One thing I'm not yet clear on is if I make changes to the share folder, will they be reflected in the Plex media folder? For example, I've noticed that I had two slightly different versions of the same file, so I deleted one from the share folder, leaving the other. Plex seems to update if I add new files to the shared folder, but is sluggish to reflect changes to files or deleted files, not picking up changes if I tell it to rescan.

That is a plex specific thing and I bet someone on their support forums would know this. I know with MediaBrowser there's an option to occasionally scan for added/deleted files so I'm guessing Plex has that too.
That is a plex specific thing and I bet someone on their support forums would know this. I know with MediaBrowser there's an option to occasionally scan for added/deleted files so I'm guessing Plex has that too.

 

[Chamrajnagar]

That is a plex specific thing and I bet someone on their support forums would know this. I know with MediaBrowser there's an option to occasionally scan for added/deleted files so I'm guessing Plex has that too.

It does, and I have that feature enabled, but it's still pretty sluggish. It picks up new files right away, but even scanning doesn't alert it to removed files. I'll take a look over on the Plex forums and see what I can dig up. Plex is still perfectly usable, so I'm happy.