Help convince Plex developers to support unRAID

[christuf]

Good point

[christuf]

OK - so I tried just downloading it and running, and get the following message:

./Plex Media Serve: error while loading shared libraries: libldap-2.4.so.2: can not open shared object file: No such file or directory

 

I'm on 4.7 - not sure where to go from here... appreciate any assistance.

 

Thank you!

[BRiT]

From the one write-up on Plex Media Server, they're targeting the unRAID 5.x by going for a Slackware 13.1 version.

 

From http://elan.plexapp.com/2011/05/14/the-plex-penguin-friendly-media-server/:

We’re targeting three Linux flavors with this initial version: Ubuntu 10.01, Slackware 13.1 (unRAID), and ReadyNAS (Intel CPUs). Because of the way we’ve built with minimal external dependencies, it’s quite likely that these will run on a wider range of systems (say, Ubuntu 11.x). The only known external dependency it has is Avahi, which is required to provide Bonjour-based discovery. Unless you install and run Avahi, the server will not show up automatically in all Plex clients.

[X4n]

Just unpacked it on the cache drive (5.0b6a), used start.sh and opened http://tower:32400/manage. Works like a charm.

Imports everything very nicely, but my stuff is pre-sorted with sickbeard and couchpotato

[christuf]

Finally something pushing me to upgrade to 5.0...

[smoldersonline]

Just unpacked it on the cache drive (5.0b6a), used start.sh and opened http://tower:32400/manage. Works like a charm.

Imports everything very nicely, but my stuff is pre-sorted with sickbeard and couchpotato

 

I thought I could do this, but again overestimated my linux knowledge. I would be very grateful if you could step-by-step walk me (and maybe others) through your install?

[BRiT]

From an unRAID telnet/ssh session prompt and a non-flash drive directory (such as /mnt/cache/plex):

 

wget http://www.plexapp.com/releases/PlexMediaServer-v0.9.2.8-34480ac-slackware.tar.bz2
tar xf PlexMediaServer-v0.9.2.8-34480ac-slackware.tar.bz2
cd PlexMediaServer-v0.9.2.8-34480ac
./start.sh

 

Then in your pc click on: http://tower:32400/manage/index.html

 

 

[smoldersonline]

@ BRIT: Thank you so much! I'm already scanning my Movies share. Awesome!

[christuf]

Booo... I seem to be really struggling here

 

I've upgraded to 5.0b6a, and got that all working.  I've followed @BRIT's steps below, but when I run start.sh, I get this message:

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::runtime_error'
  what():  locale::facet::_S_create_c_locale name not valid
./start.sh:  line 7:  27118 Aborted       ./Plex\ Media\ Server

 

Any ideas?

[christuf]

Booo... I seem to be really struggling here

 

I've upgraded to 5.0b6a, and got that all working.  I've followed @BRIT's steps below, but when I run start.sh, I get this message:

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::runtime_error'
  what():  locale::facet::_S_create_c_locale name not valid
./start.sh:  line 7:  27118 Aborted       ./Plex\ Media\ Server

 

Any ideas?

 

Figured it out... need to uninstall the ""C" compiler & development tools" in UnMenu

[christuf]

Where is /root stored?  Is it on the flash drive?

 

If so, the Plex app as it's currently configured might cause a bit of a problem... it stores the library files in /root/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/

[Chris Pollard]

Hmm so I need version 5.  yay beta software

[BRiT]

In normal environments, Plex uses the home directory of the account used to launch it, in this case it's "root" whose home directory is /root/. I'm not certain where unRAID has the home directory setup as, it's possible it's using the In Memory filesystem so your information will be wiped out upon reboot.

 

I suggest you try moving the the Plex directory to a persistent store location then symlink to it. Maybe something like this, after stopping PlexMediaServer, should be invoked ONCE.

 

cd ~
mkdir /mnt/cache/.Plex/
mv ~/Library/ /mnt/cache/.Plex/
ln -s /mnt/cache/.Plex/Library Library
echo "ln -s /mnt/cache/.Plex/Library /root/Library" >> /flash/config/go

 

Then if/when you reboot, you should see ~/Library as a symlink to your persistent store. Feel free to switch up /mnt/cache/ with wherever you want your files to be.

[christuf]

In normal environments, Plex uses the home directory of the account used to launch it, in this case it's "root" whose home directory is /root/. I'm not certain where unRAID has the home directory setup as, it's possible it's using the In Memory filesystem so your information will be wiped out upon reboot.

 

I suggest you try moving the the Plex directory to a persistent store location then symlink to it. Maybe something like this, after stopping PlexMediaServer, should be invoked ONCE.

 

cd ~
mkdir /mnt/cache/.Plex/
mv ~/Library/ /mnt/cache/Plex/
ln -s /mnt/cache/Plex/Library Library
echo "ln -s /mnt/cache/Plex/Library /root/Library" >> /flash/config/go

 

Then if/when you reboot, you should see ~/Library as a symlink to your persistent store. Feel free to switch up /mnt/cache/ with wherever you want your files to be.

 

Excellent - thank you very much @BRIT... that works great!

 

Another question - I wanted to put the "start.sh" into my go file also so that it would launch automatically on a reboot, but it occupies the terminal when I run it, so guess it's not running as a daemon.  Is there a way to daemon-ize the PMS process so it can be put into the go file for boot?

[BRiT]

Try something like this:

 

/mnt/cache/.Plex/start.sh >> ~/Library/Logs/Plex\ Media\ Server.log 2>&1 &

[smoldersonline]

Thanks gents! Probably the most silly question of the weekend: how do I stop Plex?

[christuf]

Thanks gents! Probably the most silly question of the weekend: how do I stop Plex?

 

Why would you ever want to do that?

 

Find out the process ID by typing (e.g. 123456)

ps -A

 

Then kill the process with:

kill 123456

[Chris Pollard]

Also up and running following your instructions BRiT.  Thanks

 

Now to figure out how to copy my library database from my Mac to unRAID.

 

( Instructions here : http://wiki.plexapp.com/index.php/PlexNine_PMS_TipsTricks#Moving_a_Database_from_one_Server_to_another )

 

( EDIT2 : My Library data is 12gb and nearly 200000 files, gonna take some time to copy methinks  )

[mazma]

anyone getting memory errors? pms is getting metadata but no artwork. If I hae a telnet session open to I can pms's activity eventually it will disconnect the session and I won't be able to establish a new one. This was the last entry in the log.

May 14 19:14:18 Tower kernel: Out of memory: Kill process 2333 (smbd) score 2 or sacrifice child
May 14 19:14:18 Tower kernel: Killed process 2333 (smbd) total-vm:16308kB, anon-rss:876kB, file-rss:3272kB

 

[Joe L.]

anyone getting memory errors? pms is getting metadata but no artwork. If I hae a telnet session open to I can pms's activity eventually it will disconnect the session and I won't be able to establish a new one. This was the last entry in the log.

May 14 19:14:18 Tower kernel: Out of memory: Kill process 2333 (smbd) score 2 or sacrifice child
May 14 19:14:18 Tower kernel: Killed process 2333 (smbd) total-vm:16308kB, anon-rss:876kB, file-rss:3272kB

 

It summed it up.  You are out of memory.  Are you perhaps creating your library in RAM... that would eat it up quickly.

 

Joe L.

[BRiT]

Without performing the symlink steps I posted, everyone is indeed creating their libraries in memory on a standard unRAID distro.

[dirrtyjoe]

Is anyone getting errors on starting PMS?

 

I get:

  File "/mnt/cache/_custom/plex/PMS/Resources/Python/lib/python2.7/logging/handlers.py", line 77, in emit
  File "/mnt/cache/_custom/plex/PMS/Resources/Python/lib/python2.7/logging/handlers.py", line 155, in shouldRollover
  File "/mnt/cache/_custom/plex/PMS/Resources/Python/lib/python2.7/logging/__init__.py", line 719, in format
  File "/mnt/cache/_custom/plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/core.py", line 43, in format
  File "/mnt/cache/_custom/plex/PMS/Resources/Python/lib/python2.7/logging/__init__.py", line 464, in format
  File "/mnt/cache/_custom/plex/PMS/Resources/Python/lib/python2.7/logging/__init__.py", line 324, in getMessage
  File "/mnt/cache/_custom/plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/networking.py", line 144, in __str__
  File "/mnt/cache/_custom/plex/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Versions/2/Python/Framework/components/networking.py", line 99, in load
  File "/root/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 438, in open
    response = self._open(req, data)
  File "/root/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 456, in _open
    '_open', req)
  File "/root/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 416, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "/root/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 1217, in http_open
    return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
  File "/root/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins/Framework.bundle/Contents/Resources/Platforms/Shared/Libraries/urllib2_new.py", line 1192, in do_open
    raise URLError(err)
URLError: <urlopen error [Errno -2] Name or service not known>
Logged from file core.py, line 224

 

But I am still able to get to the web manager. When trying to stream, I get an error also (referring to ffmpeg) - does anyone know anything about this?

[mazma]

Without performing the symlink steps I posted, everyone is indeed creating their libraries in memory on a standard unRAID distro.

I'd had missed that info. The instructions you posted re symlink, is that something that should be placed in the go file or just a one time deal from the cmd line?

[smoldersonline]

Mmm, everything seems to run fine. One problem though, after rebooting, Plex is not recognizing previously created Library Sections. The data is present in the Library on my cache drive and I'm pretty sure that the symlink is correctly created in /root. Anybody else having this problem?

 

edit: it seems that when starting Plex from the go script (on my system anyway) the media data is stored in /Library (so not /root/Library)

 

edit2: with this in my go script it is working properly after a reboot

 

# Create symlink for Plex Library
ln -s /mnt/cache/_Usenet/Plex/Library /Library

# Start Plex Media Server
cd /mnt/cache/_Usenet/Plex
./start.sh

 

Did I miss something?

 

[Chris Pollard]

So after much bad karma regarding permissions in v5 of unraid I seem to have managed to get my library copied across from my mac......  unfortunately it doesn't appear on the mac attached to the TV.  do I have to install Avahi for this to work does anyone know?