Plex transcoder temporary directory

[Robert Boutette]

To say I am new to freenas would be a understatement. I also am not familiar with unix code unfortunatly.
Here's my question. I have freenas on a 12GB flash drive and on the new plex update it checks for disk space before transcoding. So I want it to point to a temp file on my HDD where there is space but I don't think I'm putting in the address right. How do I find out what the file address should be?

 

[melloa]

Here, as I run on a VM outside FreeNAS, I point to a dataset I've created, as the disk for the VM is small. Performance is great, I must say, as I can stream Blu-ray quality without any issues.

You can do the same, but you have to create a SMB share and point to it. In my case, I called "trans" and FreeNAS would mount it @ /mnt/trans, so:

Again, each case is a case.

The above might not apply depending on how you have Plex installed (jail, plugin, etc). Please provide information on your configuration and how you've installed Plex.

 

[Robert Boutette]

Here, as I run on a VM outside FreeNAS, I point to a dataset I've created, as the disk for the VM is small. Performance is great, I must say, as I can stream Blu-ray quality without any issues.

You can do the same, but you have to create a SMB share and point to it. In my case, I called "trans" and FreeNAS would mount it @ /mnt/trans, so:

View attachment 15668

Again, each case is a case.

The above might not apply depending on how you have Plex installed (jail, plugin, etc). Please provide information on your configuration and how you've installed Plex.

I have the plex plugin installed in a jail. Not sure if that's the answer you were looking for. I will try and see if it works for me. Why a SMB share and not a CIFS share ? Thank you for your help

 

[melloa]

I have the plex plugin installed in a jail. Not sure if that's the answer you were looking for. I will try and see if it works for me. Why a SMB share and not a CIFS share ? Thank you for your help

If on a jail, it should "see" your entire volume, so I think not needed in your case. To where are you pointing your transcode?

For your reading pleasure :)

SMB: https://www.samba.org/cifs/docs/what-is-smb.html
CIF: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc939973.aspx

 

[Robert Boutette]

I am pointing to /var/db/PlexMediaServer/media/FILES/transcode I simply found this address by trying to add it as a library on plex and then cancelling it once I thought I found my file address. I noticed that you were pointing to a /mnt file which is why I think I'm not pointing to the proper place

 

[melloa]

Robert,

My setup was an example and it depends on each situation.

I've installed Plex plugin to check and that path - /var/db/PlexMediaServer/media/FILES/transcode - doesn't exist on my install, so that might be your problem.

Drop in your shell and try to cd to it.

Click on jails, select the plex jail, click the shell icon on the bottom of the page.
There type: cd /var/db/PlexMediaServer/media/FILES/transcode
You probably will get an error

Code:

root@plexmediaserver_1:/ # cd /var/db/PlexMediaServer/media/FILES/transcode	
/var/db/PlexMediaServer/media/FILES/transcode: No such file or directory.

If you are pointing to an directory that doesn't exist, plex will fail transcode.

If you want to take the risk, I think the installation is under /usr/pbi/plexmediaserver-amd64. I saw a folder there named tests. You can try to point to it for an quick test (/usr/pbi/plexmediaserver-amd64/tests). Be aware that it might disappear in the future with a plugin update, so plan to get your own transcode outside your jail.

 

[melloa]

Here's what I'd do:

Create a data set

Add that to your Plex

You can now use /mnt/transcode in your setting.

In case you reinstall the plugin you will have created and only need to change in your plex configuration. Also this is also a best practice for your media files. Don't have them inside your jail, as you might need to reinstall someday. The only difference is that for the media you might also want to export as SMB to be able to access from another computer and copy files to it.

Try and let me know.

 

[Robert Boutette]

Awesome thank you so much... I won't be able to try it until Monday but I will definitely let you know... thanks so much . Very helpful

 

[Robert Boutette]

Did not work unfortunately I am going to attempt to boot off of a external hard drive to prove it is actually a temp file space issue or maybe something else. any ideas?

 

[Robert Boutette]

actually one question. I know that every setup is different but in your second picture for adding the dataset to plex the destination reads /mnt/transcode ... For mine I browsed and went to media and transcode and my destination said /media/transcode . I notice you simply have mnt selected . did I do that correctly?

 

[bigzaj]

Is there a benefit to having the transcode dataset on a different drive / pool to avoid concurrent reads and writes? I was thinking about putting in a spare 120gb flash drive as a single drive with a transcode datatset to mount in Plex?