Plex ver1.18.4.2171 not start

[joecpu@gmail.com]

I received a plex update from the TOS applications app. Ran the update, after it installed it would not start. I have uninstalled, reinstalled, tried uninstalling, shutting down then rebooting and installing. The software says it is configuring and will stay on that page for hours. I have uninstalled several times and reinstalled several time. There is a cpu spike for a half a minute but the program never starts, it just remains on the configuration page. Not sure what else to check or do at this point. I cant be the only one having this issue. System software is 4.1.18_2001031451

[powerQ]

what is your last version before your update?
As Plex is a third party application, you better download a system log if you can, and report it to Plex.

[Cis]

Same here:

Plex was working in all previous versions.

I did a clean install with last TOS 4.1.21 on F4-220, now Plex is stuck in the same way than described in this thread.

Tried uninstall >install again (long processing), at the end Plex is not showing in installed application and you have to fetch it in all application, click on install so it detects it is already installed. From there you can push the shortcut to the desktop and access the app, then it is stuck on configuring forever...

This is very annoying, lot of applications are not working after the upgrades while they were working properly before.

[Cis]

To summarize and help reproductions:

I did a factory reset today on my Nas F4-220.
It installed latest TOS 4.1.21 properly.

Then I installed the Plex application from TOS.
Then launching Plex from desktop trigger a splash screen on the app "wait while configuration" that seems to loop and never end.

It is therefore impossible to use Plex. Which was working on previous versions.

[Cis]

Hello again,

I found a way to fix my issue, hence sharing it here to help others, and maybe to help fixing TOS upgrades if devs read this post.

Investigating further the root cause of the above issue, I ssh'd as root to my server and checked the plex media server install and noticed they returned an error related to plex user and group not existing[ /u].

Error visible by running

Code: Select all

./init.d/plex start

which is equivalent to starting the service from the UI.
The command would output error message such as 'unknown group plex' and 'user plex does not exist'

My guess is the upgrade of TOS failed the setting of plex media server by removing improperly plex users and group.

How to solve the issue (assuming your root cause is the same)?
You have to create plex group and user properly again.

But first you can verify that they are indeed missing to confirm this is the same issue:
try

Code: Select all

cat /etc/passwd | grep plex

and

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cat /etc/group | grep plex

and make sure nothing is returned, if so that means plex user and group are indeed missing.

Then the only important point is to know your previous plex home path, so you can keep your previous plex install settings.
The path looks like: <something>/lib/plexmediaserver

To make sure to re-use the former one, I searched for it on the server with found it was '/mnt/md0/application/lib/plexmediaserver' in my case.

Then you can create the group

Code: Select all

addgroup plex

and create the user with your proper plex home path

Code: Select all

adduser plex -S -s "/bin/bash" -h "/mnt/md0/application/lib/plexmediaserver" -G plex

after these 2 simple commands, I went in the TOS UI and installed Plex application again. Then it worked properly with my previous data. \o/
Cheers,
Cis

[TMroy]

hi Cis, thank you for your sharing.

[sports_wook]

I was having the same issue even though the plex user/group were both already active with the correct permissions.

The solution for me that got it working again was opening Applications -> Settings and manually selecting the "Application installation location". It was blank at first, but started working properly after I selected my Volume and hit Apply.

Hope this helps somebody else - or they could just, ya know, fix it. Updating Plex to the newest version would also be appreciated.