Can't connect Plex Web UI, but docker is running

[ithius]

My docker container for Plex (plexinc/pms-docker) is running, shows no issues, but I can't connect to the UI. When Plex was set up, I was not having this issue. One morning, our power went out for several hours (longer than the backup PSU could run for), so my unRAID server was shut down. Since coming up, I can't connect to Plex. I can connect to every other docker container, like Radarr, Sonarr, etc., but not Plex.

 

I've tried rebooting several times or manually stopping/starting the Plex docker container, but it's not working. I've confirmed that the IP address of the unRAID server has not changed, and Plex is still using the same IP as before. I've confirmed that the port forward on the router is still set to 32400. I'm new to unRAID, so I'm at a loss. Any help would be appreciated!

[trurl]

Do you mean none of your plex clients can connect? Or do you just mean you can't access plex from your Unraid webUI?

 

19 minutes ago, ithius said:

running, shows no issues

What do you mean by that? Are you looking at plex log or what?

 

16 minutes ago, ithius said:

power went out for several hours (longer than the backup PSU could run for)

Do you mean you have UPS on your server? You aren't using it right.

 

The purpose of UPS is to allow your server to continue to run for a very brief power outage, and to allow your server to shutdown cleanly after a slightly longer than brief power outage (minutes, not hours). You don't want to drain your UPS battery, and you don't want to restart your server when the UPS isn't charged.

[ithius]

Quote

What do you mean by that? Are you looking at plex log or what?

Yes, Plex logs show the following:

[s6-init] making user provided files available at /var/run/s6/etc...exited 0.
[s6-init] ensuring user provided files have correct perms...exited 0.
[fix-attrs.d] applying ownership & permissions fixes...
[fix-attrs.d] done.
[cont-init.d] executing container initialization scripts...
[cont-init.d] 40-plex-first-run: executing... 
[cont-init.d] 40-plex-first-run: exited 0.
[cont-init.d] 45-plex-hw-transcode-and-connected-tuner: executing... 
[cont-init.d] 45-plex-hw-transcode-and-connected-tuner: exited 0.
[cont-init.d] 50-plex-update: executing... 
[cont-init.d] 50-plex-update: exited 0.
[cont-init.d] done.
[services.d] starting services
Starting Plex Media Server.
[services.d] done.

 

Quote

Do you mean you have UPS on your server? You aren't using it right.

That's exactly what I did. Power company said the power would be down for 6 hours. I shut down the server cleanly. Didn't think I needed to add that part, but I guess I did.

[guy2545]

Are you able to connect to the Plex web interface directly from the IP address? 

 

Either: ip_for_plex:32400 or ip_for_unraid:32400 depending on how you have the docker container setup.  

[ithius]

16 minutes ago, guy2545 said:

Are you able to connect to the Plex web interface directly from the IP address? 

 

Either: ip_for_plex:32400 or ip_for_unraid:32400 depending on how you have the docker container setup.  

No, I'm not. Tells me:

 

Hmmm… can't reach this page10.0.0.3 refused to connect.

 

[guy2545]

I'm out of ideas, since the docker is starting up correctly.  Just a purely random thought, but I assume you are on the same 10.0.0.0/24 subnet for whatever you are trying to connect to plex on?  

Outside of that, I would start looking at the plex specific logs.  Mine are located here and I assume yours would be similar?  

/mnt/user/appdata/plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Logs

 

Specifically within there, probably look at "Plex Media Servier.log".  I assume that the start of that log will/should give some indication of what is going on.  

 

If it is any help, this is the start of mine.  (The [XXXX] is a hex code that I don't know if is server specific, and the [some token blah blah] maybe server specific).  After this it jump immediately into scanning the library for any changes.  

Quote

Aug 10, 2022 11:24:40.412 [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX] INFO - Plex Media Server v1.28.1.6018-c1f308c6a - Docker Docker Container (LinuxServer.io) x86_64 - build: linux-x86_64 debian - GMT -06:00
Aug 10, 2022 11:24:40.412 [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX] INFO - Linux version: 5.15.46-Unraid, language: en-US
Aug 10, 2022 11:24:40.412 [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX] INFO - Processor: 16-core AMD Ryzen 7 1700 Eight-Core Processor          
Aug 10, 2022 11:24:40.413 [XXXXXXXXXXXXXX] INFO - Compiler is - Clang 11.0.1 (https://plex.tv (some token blah blah))

 

[ithius]

12 hours ago, guy2545 said:

I'm out of ideas, since the docker is starting up correctly.  Just a purely random thought, but I assume you are on the same 10.0.0.0/24 subnet for whatever you are trying to connect to plex on?  

Outside of that, I would start looking at the plex specific logs.  Mine are located here and I assume yours would be similar?  

/mnt/user/appdata/plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Logs

 

Specifically within there, probably look at "Plex Media Servier.log".  I assume that the start of that log will/should give some indication of what is going on.  

 

If it is any help, this is the start of mine.  (The [XXXX] is a hex code that I don't know if is server specific, and the [some token blah blah] maybe server specific).  After this it jump immediately into scanning the library for any changes.  

 

 

Is the auto-generated folder structure supposed to look like this?

 

[ithius]

Here's something weird. My newest Plex Media Server.log file is from 2 days ago. The Startup Crash.log file lists this:

 

root@Tower:/mnt/user/appdata/Plex-Media-Server/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Logs# cat Startup\ Crash.log 
Aug 10, 2022 08:31:45: Failed to initialize logging: Empty or non-existant file.

 

Edited August 11, 2022 by ithius

[guy2545]

My structure looks just like that, however I do not have the "Startup Crash.log".  I'm guessing its a permissions issue and Plex can't write to the logging folder.  

[ithius]

28 minutes ago, guy2545 said:

My structure looks just like that, however I do not have the "Startup Crash.log".  I'm guessing its a permissions issue and Plex can't write to the logging folder.  

 

How would I fix that?

[guy2545]

This is how I would do it.  Not sure if it is the right way thought.  

 

chown nobody:users /mnt/user/appdata/plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/*

 

That will set the owner to "nobody" and the group to "users", which is the same as mine currently: 

[ithius]

3 hours ago, guy2545 said:

This is how I would do it.  Not sure if it is the right way thought.  

 

chown nobody:users /mnt/user/appdata/plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/*

 

That will set the owner to "nobody" and the group to "users", which is the same as mine currently: 

 

unfortunately it's still not working

[guy2545]

Pretty much out of ideas.  What is the output of 

ls -l /mnt/user/appdata/plex/Library/

If it is not nobody:users, then maybe try running: 

chown -R nobody:users /mnt/user/appdata/plex/*

This will step into each sub folder and set the permission to nobody:users.  Shouldn't blow anything up, but can't make any promises

 

Also, found this reddit thread that one user seems to indicate the preferences.xml file was empty.  They were able to recover it from a backup and got the server up again.  

 

[ithius]

Quote

 What is the output of 

ls -l /mnt/user/appdata/plex/Library/

 

total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 31 Jul 21 13:00 Application\ Support/

 

 

Quote

Also, found this reddit thread that one user seems to indicate the preferences.xml file was empty.  They were able to recover it from a backup and got the server up again.  

 

my Preferences.xml file is also empty. How would I restore it from a backup?

[ithius]

I'm getting this error now in the Plex logs after deleting and recreating the container:

Failed to load preferences at /config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml

Failed to load preferences at /config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml

 

[puzzled-retinue5500]

I have the same problem, i had no power for several hours and now when i start unraid i cant access ple gui.

And i have the same error.

On 8/16/2022 at 4:43 PM, ithius said:

I'm getting this error now in the Plex logs after deleting and recreating the container:

Failed to load preferences at /config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml

Failed to load preferences at /config/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml

How do i fix it?

[greyday]

On 9/16/2023 at 10:09 PM, puzzled-retinue5500 said:

I have the same problem, i had no power for several hours and now when i start unraid i cant access ple gui.

And i have the same error.

How do i fix it?

 

Since I hate it when these things go unanswered (especially when I had the same problem and searching led me to a thread with no solution), here's what worked for me: I deleted the preferences file from appdata and then restarted the docker image. I had to "set up" the docker again, but this took like ten seconds, and all my library data was still there, no need to rescan. Steps:

 

stop docker

open terminal in-browser (or ssh in if you prefer)

navigate to mnt/user/appdata/Plex-Media-Server/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server

rm Preferences.xml

start docker

open webui

 

That was it. I ended up just deleting the file as trying to copy it gave me the same not found error, and trying to view or edit it in nano resulted in an empty document. I have not found any issues thus far with this method, but note that I only use Plex for local access, other settings MAY be effected by this.

 

ALSO--if like me the reason for your hard shutdown was the UPS shutting off without sending a kill signal (thanks to the standard UPS settings not recognizing my model and the previous build of NUT being deprecated) I HIGHLY recommend Rysz's current rebuild of NUT; it's in the app tab if you search for NUT, then choose "Network UPS Tools (NUT) for UNRAID". It's working flawlessly so far...

[eight-hour-enclosure5156]

On 9/20/2023 at 5:19 AM, greyday said:

 

Since I hate it when these things go unanswered (especially when I had the same problem and searching led me to a thread with no solution), here's what worked for me: I deleted the preferences file from appdata and then restarted the docker image. I had to "set up" the docker again, but this took like ten seconds, and all my library data was still there, no need to rescan. Steps:

 

stop docker

open terminal in-browser (or ssh in if you prefer)

navigate to mnt/user/appdata/Plex-Media-Server/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server

rm Preferences.xml

start docker

open webui

 

That was it. I ended up just deleting the file as trying to copy it gave me the same not found error, and trying to view or edit it in nano resulted in an empty document. I have not found any issues thus far with this method, but note that I only use Plex for local access, other settings MAY be effected by this.

 

ALSO--if like me the reason for your hard shutdown was the UPS shutting off without sending a kill signal (thanks to the standard UPS settings not recognizing my model and the previous build of NUT being deprecated) I HIGHLY recommend Rysz's current rebuild of NUT; it's in the app tab if you search for NUT, then choose "Network UPS Tools (NUT) for UNRAID". It's working flawlessly so far...

 

I was having this issue and your suggestion of deleting the preferences file worked!  Thanks!

[Dave001]

I also followed the instructions deleting the preference file, which did get it working again, but also required restoring all my settings in Plex.

 

In my instance, it was the "Secure connections" setting being set to "Required", that was stopping me from connecting to the IP address directly, either by typing the address into a browser "192.168.0.2:32400/" or by clicking on the "WebUI" link for Plex in the Docker section of Unraid.

 

When you delete the Preferences file, it resets "Secure connections" back to "prefered", which will allow unsecure connections.

 

If you need to connect to Plex with "Secure connections" setting being set to "Required", you can use this address "https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/".

[Deadalus]

On 9/20/2023 at 4:19 AM, greyday said:

 

Since I hate it when these things go unanswered (especially when I had the same problem and searching led me to a thread with no solution), here's what worked for me: I deleted the preferences file from appdata and then restarted the docker image. I had to "set up" the docker again, but this took like ten seconds, and all my library data was still there, no need to rescan. Steps:

 

stop docker

open terminal in-browser (or ssh in if you prefer)

navigate to mnt/user/appdata/Plex-Media-Server/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server

rm Preferences.xml

start docker

open webui

 

That was it. I ended up just deleting the file as trying to copy it gave me the same not found error, and trying to view or edit it in nano resulted in an empty document. I have not found any issues thus far with this method, but note that I only use Plex for local access, other settings MAY be effected by this.

 

ALSO--if like me the reason for your hard shutdown was the UPS shutting off without sending a kill signal (thanks to the standard UPS settings not recognizing my model and the previous build of NUT being deprecated) I HIGHLY recommend Rysz's current rebuild of NUT; it's in the app tab if you search for NUT, then choose "Network UPS Tools (NUT) for UNRAID". It's working flawlessly so far...

This worked for me as well! Except my Preferences was in a different location,  /Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml

Thanks for the HELP!!!!!

[Darcy Bell]

On 9/20/2023 at 2:19 AM, greyday said:

 

Since I hate it when these things go unanswered (especially when I had the same problem and searching led me to a thread with no solution), here's what worked for me: I deleted the preferences file from appdata and then restarted the docker image. I had to "set up" the docker again, but this took like ten seconds, and all my library data was still there, no need to rescan. Steps:

 

stop docker

open terminal in-browser (or ssh in if you prefer)

navigate to mnt/user/appdata/Plex-Media-Server/Library/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server

rm Preferences.xml

start docker

open webui

 

That was it. I ended up just deleting the file as trying to copy it gave me the same not found error, and trying to view or edit it in nano resulted in an empty document. I have not found any issues thus far with this method, but note that I only use Plex for local access, other settings MAY be effected by this.

 

ALSO--if like me the reason for your hard shutdown was the UPS shutting off without sending a kill signal (thanks to the standard UPS settings not recognizing my model and the previous build of NUT being deprecated) I HIGHLY recommend Rysz's current rebuild of NUT; it's in the app tab if you search for NUT, then choose "Network UPS Tools (NUT) for UNRAID". It's working flawlessly so far...

I am having the same issue, but when I do this I get the error "No such file or directory" i don't understand what I am doing wrong?