Symbolic Links using Plex

[abishur]

I'm using TrueNAS scale 22.02.2.1

I have a directory in a dataset that save all my movies to and a second directory on the same dataset for my TV shows. The full path for them are:

Code:

/mnt/LWM-64TB-Z3/Family\ Shares/Media/Videos/Movies
/mnt/LWM-64TB-Z3/Family\ Shares/Media/Videos/TV\ Shows

This works fine for my main library, but I like keeping a secondary Movies and TV Shows folder with content that is specifically okay for my kids to watch. In the past I've accomplished this by making a directory and then using symbolic links to the original folders. On my TrueNAS Scale box I made it like this:

Code:

/mnt/LWM-64TB-Z3/Family\ Shares/Media/Videos/.kids/Movies
/mnt/LWM-64TB-Z3/Family\ Shares/Media/Videos/.kids/TV\ Shows

Plex can see all the original files and folders and browse them without issue, but on the symbolic link folders it shows them as greyed out. This would make me think it's a permissions issue, but as you can see it's all in the same folder area and the .kids has the exact same permissions as the other folders.

I'm not sure if this would affect things but I am using samba to share this as well and use an ACL for permissions on this. I have added the kids folder as an additional storage option in the app settings and checked the box that says "automatic permissions"

Any idea what I'm doing wrong that would cause the symbolic link folders only to be greyed out?

 

[indivision]

What benefit does using symbolic links give over just having separate regular folders for this?

 

[abishur]

It lets me have a centralized main folder for all my movies for the main account and it means I don't have to be copying and pasting folders back and forth between folders. If I want to add a movie to the kids area a quick ln -s is all it takes.

Other people might do it other ways, but this is the way I've always done it. It worked just fine on my raspberry pi and my synology systems, but on TrueNAS something weird is going on and I'm trying to figure out what it is. I could understanding if it couldn't see the folders at all or if the folders were in two separate datasets and I had a permissions issue, but the folders are side by side and it's greyed out?

To me that says there's a setting I'm ignorant of.

 

[indivision]

In search, I found quite a few links about users having issues with symlinks and Plex.

This one has a workaround that might help?

Plex media server is not detecting symbolic link

I configured plex server in my Arch Linux. While setting the media folder the folder which contains a symbolic link content is not listing in media server. I added the current user to the plex gro...

superuser.com

 

[indivision]

This one suggests that they don't work within a docker container: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/bbgpzg/symbolic_links_not_working_with_plex/

 

[abishur]

This one suggests that they don't work within a docker container: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/bbgpzg/symbolic_links_not_working_with_plex/

YES! This did it! This is such an important random detail for people like me who use symbolic links for organizing media folders in plex! I doubt very much it would work across datasets or if the folder you needed to access tried to go through a pass higher than the base folder you shared (I.e. if you add /dataset/share_name/folder1/folder2 as a storage option, and needed to access something in /dataset/share_name/folder3).

But for me since I just wanted to access another folder in an area I had added as a storage location in my app it worked perfectly. For anyone coming here in the future the important command is this:

ln -rs

So for me I have my main folder:

Code:

/mnt/LWM-64TB-Z3/Family\ Shares/Media/Videos/Movies

and my folder I made for kid appropriate content

Code:

/mnt/LWM-64TB-Z3/Family\ Shares/Media/Videos/.kids/Movies

I went to the kids appropriate content folder in shell and entered:

Code:

ln -rs ../../Movies/101\ Dalmatians

the ../../ took me back to the Videos folder and then I can go to either my main movies folder or my main TV Shows folder.

Thanks Indivision, I bow to your superior web searching skills!

 

[indivision]

Thanks Indivision, I bow to your superior web searching skills!

Hah! Glad to hear it worked out.

don't concentrate on the finger

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