Arch Linux User Repository

plexmediaplayer wouldn't start for me today as it couldn't find libmpv.so.1

ln -s /usr/lib/libmpv.so.2 /usr/lib/libmpv.so.1 was enough to get it running again. Not sure if such an ln hack should be added to this aur package?

should be auto updating with the other linux packages

@nai7ah: It sounds like you need regular old Plex support, I'd hunt down a forum or Disord as appropriate. If you figure out that it is somehow related to the package, feel free to bring that up here and we can get it sorted.

What you showed looks like the crash uploader not working to upload the crash, so probably totally unrelated to what ever issue you're having.

After using the wizard from http://localhost:32400/web , Plex hangs. I checked journalctl and see this error message.

systemd[1]: Started Plex Media Server.
plexmediaserver[8392]: Error in command line:the argument for option '--serverUuid' should follow immediately after the equal sign
plexmediaserver[8392]: Crash Uploader options (all are required):
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --directory arg       Directory to scan for crash reports
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --serverUuid arg      UUID of the server that crashed
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --userId arg          User that owns this product
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --platform arg        Platform string
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --platformVersion arg Platform version string
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --vendor arg          Vendor string
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --device arg          Device string
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --model arg           Device model string
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --sentryUrl arg       Sentry URL to upload to
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --sentryKey arg       Sentry Key for the project
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --version arg         Version of the product
plexmediaserver[8392]:   --allowRetries arg    Whether we will allow retries

Commit: ef9fdba0107b

Spoke too soon. After a few hours, Plex decides to become unresponsive. I will prune the sandbox and test long-term before potentially posting again.

[EDIT: Added DeviceAllow=bock-loop that I mistakenly missed when commenting]

Given plex is proprietary software, is there any interest in using systemd sandboxing features? I've had success with the following as a plexmediaserver.service.d/override.conf:

[Service]
UMask=0077
CapabilityBoundingSet=
NoNewPrivileges=true
SecureBits=
SecureBits=keep-caps-locked no-setuid-fixup no-setuid-fixup-locked noroot noroot-locked
DeviceAllow=block-loop
DevicePolicy=closed
## /var/log/plex is normally a symlink to "/var/lib/plex/Plex Media Server/Logs"
## But I prefer to delete the symlink and let systemd create /var/log/plex as a normal directory.
LogsDirectory=plex
StateDirectory=plex
## Without StateDirectory=plex, ProtectSystem=strict causes "PMS: failure detected. Read/write access is required for path: /var/lib/plex/Plex Media Server"
ProtectSystem=strict
## I believe this causes the following errors:
##  Error starting framework core for /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-c8bd13540/Musicbrainz.bundle.
##  Error starting framework core for /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-c8bd13540/HTbackdrops.bundle.
##  Error starting framework core for /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Resources/Plug-ins-c8bd13540/LocalMedia.bundle.
## Playback still works, so this appears to prove the sandbox is worthwhile.
ProtectHome=true
PrivateTmp=true
PrivateDevices=true
PrivateUsers=true
ProtectHostname=true
ProtectClock=true
ProtectKernelTunables=true
ProtectKernelModules=true
ProtectKernelLogs=true
ProtectControlGroups=true
ProtectProc=invisible
ProcSubset=pid
LockPersonality=true
## Causes plex startup to completely fail
#MemoryDenyWriteExecute=true
## I believe causes "Critical: libusb_init failed" which is fine by me.
RemoveIPC=true
## Fails without netlink (netlink(7) - communication between kernel and user space)
RestrictAddressFamilies=AF_INET AF_INET6 AF_UNIX AF_NETLINK
RestrictNamespaces=true
RestrictRealtime=true
RestrictSUIDSGID=true
SystemCallArchitectures=native
SystemCallFilter=@system-service
SystemCallFilter=~@privileged
SystemCallFilter=~@resources

Given I don't use all of plex's functionality, and I noted some errors that I could tolerate above, maybe strip the following entries from the above:

LogsDirectory
ProtectHome
RemoveIPC

ProtectHome=true would be great to keep, but I suspect it caused those framework errors in the log, so it might be prudent to dig into that first.

@fryfrog When you say your folder is pointed somewhere else, is that solely from the WebUI settings page, or are you pointing it via /etc/conf.d/plexmediaserver?

And I did start with Plex, but nobody wanted to help me there because "we don't package for Arch ... please contact the package maintainer." Granted, that was the forums; I can try Discord too.

Is 775 plex:plex not enough for the directory? (it is)

Edit: permissions solved. This came down to a basic linux permissions problem.

/mnt/ssd/ had ownership root:sddaccess, which I had apparently set up for group access to the additional drive. Once I added the plex user to sddaccess everything started working like butter.

Thanks for the help @fryfrog!

FWIW, I have my transcode folder pointed somewhere else and it works fine. I can go in that folder and see files/folders appearing and disappearing. Make sure you have ownership and permissions correct. Turn logging up and look at logs. You'll probably have better luck w/ support from a Plex place like their sub-reddit or Discord.

@tinycheese: it might not be the "correct" way to fix this, but I use a bind mount to redirect the transcoding cache directory elsewhere, e.g. in my /etc/fstab:

/volumes/plex/Transcode /var/lib/plex/Plex\040Media\040Server/Cache/Transcode bind bind 0 0

Try from the CLI using:

mount -o bind /volumes/plex/Transcode "/var/lib/plex/Plex Media Server/Cache/Transcode"

/volumes/plex/Transcode is owned by user & group plex.

This might not be the most idiomatic way of achieving this, but it works for me. Interested in knowing if there's a better way! :)

@fryfrog can you help with Transcoder temporary directory?

I am trying to use /mnt/ssd/plex (permissions 775 plex:plex) as my temporary directory, as it resides on a drive with much more space (and I've been running out as my server increases in use).

Simply changing the server's Transcoder temporary directory option to /mnt/ssd/plex does not seem to work, as transcoding files still show up in /tmp/Transcode after applying this setting.

I tried changing PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_TMPDIR and TMPDIR in /etc/conf.d/plexmediaserver, but this change prevents PMS from even starting (core dumped, signal=ABRT).

I also tried adding a ReadWritePaths line to the system file (in combination with the conf.d changes) as suggested in the wiki, but that did not appear to help either.

If this was covered previously, I'm sorry for the trouble (I read through 2.5 years of comments here). I can write an addendum to the wiki if we get it working :)

TIA for your help...