Plex Dlna Server

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Using a DLNA or Home Streaming server, like Plex, you can share video, music and pictures from a storage device, like a computer or media player, to your Oculus Quest, without using additional storage space on your headset. Home Streaming servers can be connected to your Quest using Gallery. To connect a Home Streaming server. Many Plex users love that the app can act as a regular DLNA server. For those that don't know, the DNLA functionality allows you to see Plex's content on other DLNA-enabled TVs and devices in your home, even if the official Plex app itself is not installed. Unfortunately, the feature is not turned on by default.

Bigscreen Videoplayer now supports Plex and other media server apps, via DLNA. Now you can stream video files and music over the network from your PC! Plex Crash Uploader.log; Plex DLNA Server.log; Plex DLNA Server Neptune.log; Plex (anonymous).log; Appendix: Plex Media Server and router status. Router forwarding includes Service Port 32400, IP Address XXX.XXX.X.X, TCP, Enabled; Router UPnP Enabled; Remote access 'fully.

Plex Media Server

Russell Bateman
November 2013
last update:

Table of Contents

Plex Media user's guide
Installing Plex Media Server
Determining if Plex is installed and running
How does Plex know where your server is (IP address)?
Adding a new Plex Media Server (bringing it up)
Updating Plex Media Server
Restoring to older version
How to get DVD or Blu-ray content using Handbrake
Examples of organizing media content
Television example 1: Inspector Lewis
Television example 2: Fires of Faith
Movie example: Errand of Angels
Movies with multiple parts
Getting ready to rip media content
Movies
Television
Episode-naming phenomena, specials,out-takes, bonus material
Subtitles and other things hard-to-ponder
Steps to getting 'after-market' subtitles
Content type (TV or movie?)
Updating Plex' record of your content
Fixing an incorrect match
Fixing an incorrect match (2)
Naming privately provided movie trailers
Blocking further changes by Plex
Fixing an incorrect match (television)
Splitting identical or similar titles
Handling DVD/Blu-ray 'extras'
Sharing your Plex server with others
Help others sign up for and use your content
Appendix: Plexifying (ingesting) ripped content
To change or set the image for the series
Appendix: Handheld displayable formats
Appendix: Migrating (moving) Plex media content
Appendix: Getting lists of your media
Appendix: Firefly: DVD order agent
Appendix: Creating collections of content
Appendix: Images for Plex metadata
Appendix: Music
Appendix: Miscellaneous
Appendix: Plex Media Server log files
Appendix: Plex Media Server and router status

Installing Plex Media Server

Join up with Plex. I enrolled for $75because I wanted in—grandfathering my paid membership (PlexPass)for less and for the later benefits that would establish. However, you caninstall and use the Plex server software free as well as view the content offriends' servers for free.

For me, Plex is two things: MyPlex, how I see Plex servers, and my own Plexserver itself. I use the former to view the content on the latter. My PlexPassgets me both. I also use MyPlex to see content on a nephew's and a son'sserver.

After paying, here's what I did to get Plex running on my Ubuntu Linuxwebserver:

  1. Go to http://www.plex.tv/and click on Downloads.
  2. There's a button that says, Show Plex Pass Downloads. You'll wantto use that because you get more features.
  3. I chose to download 64-bit Ubuntu (Debian) package,plexmediaserver_0.9.8.6.175-88ffbb2_amd64.deb.
  4. Because there's not a Debian repository with a reliable, latest versionof Plex Media Server, you can't use apt-get install. Instead,use the Debian package directly. I installed it:

To see my Plex server via browser after it's installed and running, I go tohttp://tol-eressea.site:32400/web/.

Trouble or the unexpected? See my last experience here.


Determining if Plex is installed and running

There are a number of commands you might use to determine if Plex is installedand/or actually running. Try these:


How does Plex know where your server is (IP address)?

You don't have to tell it! It's sort of magic. Even when your ISP changes yourIP address because it imposes DHCP on your (i.e.: you have no static IP address),your server quickly recovers its ability to serve up media content. This isbecause your Plex server broadcasts its IP to your plex.tv account.

Go to your Plex Media server management page, click on Settings andthen on Show Advanced under the Server section, it showsthe global IP port that it uses. This setting is what tells Plex which addressand port to use.


Adding a new Plex Media Server (bringing it up)

Once you're running the server software, you must access your server via abrowser and finish the job. Click here tosee my experience bringing a second new server up (but it's the same for afirst server).


Updating Plex Media Server (and restoring to older version)

Again, there's no apt-get-like involvement. Instead, repeat the installationinstructions to get a Debian package. Use that with dpkg which willreplace whatever is there as long as what you're offering is later. If yourbrowser was up looking at your Plex content, you'll see it go out to lunch fora while.

Warning: I never had any trouble with new packages produced by Plex until yearsafter just installing new ones when they came out. One day, the new package didnot work, so I had to back up to the previous version. I'll discuss this laterhere below.

Here's what new installation looked like for me one of the times I did it:

To benefit from advances or new features, you'll now need to UpdateLibrary of each group of content. Examine this illustration: seeUpdate Library in the upper-right of the page. There is anillustration of this below at Updating Plex' record of your content. However, I long agoabandoned seeing a need to do this.

Restoring a previous working version...

To install a (the) previous package, simply run dpkg just as aboveand the package manager will remove the one that's there and (re)installthe older one. At least with a Debian package, the only way to do this is ifyou have the earlier, working version. So, always keep a working packagein reserve in case the new one you install does not work.


How to get DVD or Blu-ray content using Handbrake

First, note that the 'digital copy' some disk sets comes with isn't worth the bother or the plasticthe disk is made from. Ignore it, rip the content yourself and put it up on Plex. Here's how.

  1. Please see StepsSteps to rip DVDs or Blu-rays with Handbrake.
  2. Copy the resulting media file to Plex server on the path you've set up,something like hostname:/plex-server/Movies/movie-name. To see howto set this up, examinePlex support, scrolldown to Media Preparation and read topics such asNaming your Movie media files,Naming and Organizing TV Shows andNaming and Organizing Music media.
    3. There's a lot to digest between these steps, but they are to explain howto get content to the Plex Media Server, not how to organize it.
  3. Go to Plex server in a browser and perform a deep scan to ensure the newcontent is picked up by Plex. It's rare that you have to type inSummary data as Plex' deep scan will usually bring something inincluding multiple images for the thumbnail, summary, dates, etc. You maywish to adjust it for spelling, grammar, content, etc.

Examples of organizing media content

Television example 1: Inspector Lewis

For episode names, season and episode numbers, I used these links:

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_(TV_series),but especially:
  • http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0874608/; for episode numbers,examine and follow the links for Seasons, e.g.:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0874608/episodes?season=1&ref_=tt_eps_sn_1.

Here's what the content looks like copied to my Plex server:

Television example 2: Fires of Faith

For this television series of three episodes and bonus short features, I wentto Fires of Faith. This didn't avail much more than the DVD had tooffer. Using Plex'Naming TV Show 'Specials' page example for Heroes, I decidedon the following arrangement which imitates Heroes and its special forthe peculiar numbering while using information on names for bonus material fromthe DVD cover and the names of the episodes.

To see what I did after this, please see Appendix: Ingesting ripped content.

Movie example: Errand of Angels

Movies are pretty much a no-brainer.

...except that if you want to rip and includes lots of extras from your disk, you'll wantto examine the section entitled, Organized in Subdirectories, at the bottom of thispage:


Movies with multiple parts

Some movies have multiple parts, especially older disks for longer movies likeRobin Hood, My Fair Lady and Fiddler on the Roof. These haveto be dropped into the same subdirectory and given names according to a specificscheme using - pt1, - pt2, etc.:


Getting ready to rip media content

Movies

For movies, I do nothing special except to ensure I've got a home in theserver's files sytem, by the same name as the movie, ready to receive it when Iwill copy it there.

There is one thing you could do if you wish to include bonus material from yourmovie. If you want to do that, and it's on the same disk, note that Handbrakehas the ability to enqueue ripping commands such that you can set upwhat will be ripped and how it will be ripped ahead of time, creating a queue,then launching it. That way, you don't have to sit there waiting for one thingto finish before setting up ripping for the next thing. It saves on babysittingthe rip.

Television

Here's where preparation will save on a) monotony and b) mistakes.

First, create a list in a text file of all the episodes. You can get theparticulars from IMDB or Wikipedia, but craft all the names carefully so youdon't have to agonize over your solution as you go.

For example, I created the following after doing research (during which Idiscovered that the sale of this series in the US had different and wrongseasonal divisions than those Plex would find when it went to get the metadatafor it):

Using this text file, I can:

  1. compare the titles easily and ensure that I have composed them accurately,uniformly and aesthetically,
  2. correct spelling and, especially, capitalization (which is done so poorlyin the English-speaking world now as to believe that speakers of thislanguage are all uneducated and illiterate),
  3. easily see what I've got to do to create a home in the server's filesystem,
  4. sweep the episode titles with my mouse to copy and paste them intoHandbrake's Destination → File: field.

Last, and this was not the case for the example series here, but as the(nominally two-hour) episodes were one per disk, I could not enqueue therip in Handbrake, but for usual, American half-hour series, this is often abenefit.


Episode-naming phenomena, specials, out-takes, bonus material

Typically, material that does not fall solidly in the category of an episode isplaced under Season 0 and given a title similar to how episodes arenamed. And it doesn't matter in what season's disk you get this material. Anexample of this is the season 0 list for Foyle's War in the exampleabove where the was an interview with the series script writer, AnthonyHorowitz, at the outset of season 1 and again several seasons later—hence'episodes' 1 and 2 with the same title in this example.

Typically, you cannot have an episode numbered as 0, but it might work. Realizethat if you're counting on Plex finding such a thing in a media contentdatabase, it likely will not. If you're hand-tweaking the content and use thisnaming scheme, you might get away with it even when choosing to view allepisodes.

Canonically, though, the system in use for bonus material is done as justexplained. You might get particular guidance on a television series by lookingat details by browsing to the database likely to cough up the information Plexuses.


Subtitles and other things hard-to-ponder

It's possible to acquire subtitles as separate files, for example, a rip ofThe Lord of the Rings might only subtitle Elf and Orc speech or TheWolverine Japanese bits and Thor: The Dark World the dialog betweendark elves, etc. Though you turn on subtitles in this case, you won't see anyuntil you reach those parts of the movie that are subtitled.

In other words, the movie you're copying and watching might not have, say,English subtitles while it does have separate subtitles in a separate file tohandle the bits you'd otherwise not get subtitles for. Thus your movie isn'tsubtitled per se, but it handles the bits that are incomprehensible to(English) speakers while the rest of the movie is just in their tongue.

For ripping full subtitles, please seehere.

Steps to get 'after-market' subtitles...

One place to get subtitles separate from the media file isYIFY Subtitles. You drop the downloadable .srt file into thesubdirectory with the movie you've already downloaded, ripped, etc.

  1. Go to YIFY Subtitles.
  2. Type the name of the movie you're looking to subtitle into the edit fieldat the top of the screen. (Note: in some browsers, this field is occludedby the top of the page. Just type accurately. After your first set ofsubtitles, that field will begin to display correctly.)
  3. Having typed in 'The Lord of the Rings' Yify starts to display all thepossibilities and I can choose the movie I'm looking for.

Maybe you'll need to refresh your movies before this will work. From yourbrowser, you'll see...

...that Plex offers you an 'unknown' subtitle file. Unless you have many, thisis what you want. Or Plex may tell you the language. It's supposed to.

By and large, I find subtitle work to be richly unrewarding.

Enable Dlna Server Plex


Content type (TV or movie?)

You can create as many 'libraries' on your Plex Media server as you like,Videos, TV shows, Movies, Music, etc. But let's say you found some content andyou can't decide whether it's a televsion show or a movie. How to decide?

If it's on thetvdb.com, put it in TV. If it'son imdb.com, put it in Movies. Otherwise, you'llneed to make a Home Videos section that you define the metadata yourself.

I wanted to separate out my episodes of Alton Brown Good Eats because mycopies were 'loose,' taped off-air years ago, and I didn't want to research thewhole season and episode thing.


Updating Plex' record of your content

Once you've ripped new content and uploaded it to the library of choice on yourserver (i.e.: television, movies, videos, specially named libraries, etc.), youjust need to pop your Plex Media content up in a browser and click UpdateLibrary:

At this point, Plex will use a list of popular databases for retrievingmetadata like disk-cover thumbnails, titles, dates, etc. If you're unhappy withthe choices, there is a way you can order its search of these databases andeven add or eliminate the list.

Here's a partial list of databases I'll add to as time goes on and I end upcaring about and using them directly. Often, especially when trying to puttogether season and episode lists for television shows, it's useful to go to adatabase and see what it's got. If you go to a database using your browser,there's a search engine you can use.


Fixing an incorrect match (movie)

With obscure movies, movies that are particularly public and moviessharing identical names with other, especially popular movies, it's frequentlypossible for Plex to corral the metadata during the Update Librarystep of the wrong movie and assign it to the one you just ripped.

For example, let's pretend that Plex mistook (as incredibly as that seems)a movie I just uploaded to my movies section attaliesin.site:/plex-server/Movies/Ronin for the more recent offering,47 Ronin. I go to the new movie, click the three-dots icon at the bottomof the pile of controls down the extreme left-hand side and choose FixIncorrect Match. This will negate the metadata including poster photoalready assigned and I'm free to figure out what to correct it.

Solutions include typing in my own metadata or changing the database used.


Fixing an incorrect match (movie-2)

Another situation is where no database has the correct metadata you want foryour movie because it's obscure, not a commercial movie, etc. What you want todo is enter the metadata by hand and thereafter you don't want Plex rethinkingit. You need to lock that data.

To do this, choose Unmatch from the pile of controls shown here.

Having done this, you can click on Edit (the pencil icon for thetitle), then fill out

  1. General stuff—Title, Sort Title, Original Title, Year, etc. As you edit each field, click the padlock icon so that it shows bright orange (for 'locked').
  2. Poster—these are the available images used as thumbnails for the title. You can supply your own .png, .jpg, .gif, etc. You'll quickly learn what aspect makes a good thumbnail as some images you paste in will turn up unsightly when you're done. No matter, you can choose another image, resize or crop the one you tried, etc. until you get something you want.

Naming privately provided movie trailers

These should be given the name -trailer just before the file extension.Put them in the movie subdirectory under a deeper subdirectory named,Trailers. Do this preferably before choosing to Scan LibraryFiles when ingesting a new movie.


Blocking further changes by Plex

Once you've labored over metadata in Plex by hand, that data isn't immune toPlex mucking it up all over again. Once solution is to go back in after you'vefinished making your changes (and before updating any Plex Library) and clickingon the orange padlock icon to the left of each field. During update library, Plexmay still say it's looking at the media associated with what you've locked it outof, but it won't actually change it.


Fixing an incorrect match (television)

Television shows don't benefit from the same interface as movies and there'sno easy way to prevent Plex from cocking it all up. For example, no amount ofcorrecting (via the pencil icon) Inspector Lewis Season 8 shows would do thetrick: during Library Update engaged for other, newly added televisionshows, Plex consistently returned these episodes to it mostly inexplicablywrong titles and metadata.

What appears to work is to tell Plex to leave everything alone and let you dothe naming, metadata, etc. The way to achive this appears to be to thwart itsplug-in database bundle for television. What I did was go to/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-insand rename TheTVDB.bundle to not-TheTVDB.bundle-not hoping Plexwould not find it or refuse to recognize it. It appeared to work: the next timeI ran the Library Update (clicked on the circular arrows) for televisionshows, checking Inspector Lewis Season 8 shows proved they had not changed.

Important: this must be done and done again, probably after Plex updates. I'veput a request into the forums for assistance on this.

Another option...

See and experiment with instructions from:

    Agents. Look for the top illustration and text, then scroll down to TV Show Agents.

Another option, if you've got lots of commercial television series that aremore than certainly in the television database, is to create a separatetelevision library to put your less well known or personal stuff into andturn off Plex' helpful attempts to ingest.

The idea I've followed is that I know better than Plex and I don't wantit mucking about with my lesser known television series.


Splitting identical or similar titles

Sometimes you get two movies by the same title—or near enough that Plexwill just toss them into the same bucket. For example, I have Pride andPrejudice, Pride and Prejudice and Pride & Prejudice. Tofix this (put them into their own buckets alone), once you see a sigle abovewith 2, 3, etc. (just as the one that says how many episodes are in atelevision series, see illustration below), click on the movie to get to itspage, then click the three-dots icon down the left column and choose SplitApart. You'll be asked to confirm after which Plex will split them, butyou'll see the same metadata for both as if duplicates except that the lengthswill be different.

You'll have to fix up the one that's wrong by choosing Fix IncorrectMatch, Unmatch etc., as covered elsewhere on this page.

Plex Dlna Server Settings


Handling DVD/Blu-ray 'extras'

Extra features obtained when ripping a disc can be placed under the title'ssubdirectory thus (before ingestion):

The list of recognized subdirectorieswas available here at one time, and consisted of:

  • Behind the Scenes
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Interviews
  • Scenes
  • Trailers

The name of the media file does not appear to make any difference to Plex.

Plex dlna server not working

Problems?

You've loaded in and done an Update Library to get Plex to ingestyour new uploads including lots of extra materials. However, none or onlysome of the extra material is shown. Click the ... icon andchoose Analyze.


Sharing your Plex server with others

Once set up, you can share your videos with family and friends.

  1. Browse to www.plexapp.com.
  2. Click myPlex.
  3. Click Servers.

    4. All the servers your friends or family have shared with you, plus your own, will be listed.

  4. Find your server (the one you want to share) and click on its name. This is probably your Linux server's hostname.
  5. Where it says 'Share with n others', click on n others.
  6. Add your family member's or friend's e-mail address (which is also his or her Plex username) where solicited and click Share.

Help others sign up for and use your content

See notes on this at Signing up for Plex. Also, see notes for other, end-user activitieson that page.


Appendix: Plexifying (ingesting) ripped content

After ripping, carefully naming and locating the content files (.mkv)for my television series on my Plex server, I went to my browser to go to theTV content and clicked Update Library:

After that operation finished, I went down into the new Fires of Faithcontent and clicked Refresh, which produces nothing because this DVDis of rather narrow interest and Plex cannot locate content, images,information, etc. to support it:

So, I'll have to populate the metadata for this series myself. I clickEdit:

...and fill in the detail taking care to a) click outside the field I've added,then b) click the padlock in the orange background to the left of the field inorder to make the lock go away. After I've finished, I click Save Changes:

If I get the message 'Your changes could not be saved,' it's likely that Ididn't clear the lock for a field and that edit may not have taken. (Thiswould be the case for the Rating field above if left in thatstate.)

To change or set the image for the series

How this works changes a little over time.

  1. Click the pencil (Edit) icon; you'll see an option to browse for an image, drag and drop one or type in a URL.
  2. Choose one of the methods. Dragging and dropping works well from Linux. Just open a Nautilus browser to the subdirectory where you have the image, double click the image to launch the Image Viewer application, click on the image and drag it over into the browser.

    You can also just drag the image file.

Please note that the displayable image is crucially predicated on aspect. Plexwill not modify it to fit, but it will clip to the center of the image (andyou'll lose plenty of it at least horizontally).

Note also that some of this may have you working blind because of apparent bugsin the Plex web application. You might drag the image over and drop it only tofail to see it there (another already there is still the only one visible).usually, when you dismiss the dialog, the one you just dropped is the oneyou'll see.


Appendix: Handheld displayable formats

Please see notes about this topic here.


Appendix: Migrating (moving) Plex media content from one server to another

Just links for now until I've done it. These notes are only for Linux. I wouldnever use Windows for anything except running TurboTax (period) and I wouldnever waste a Macintosh in a server role when it's really a glorious GUI (evenif I don't choose it myself). Linux is free, Linux server is lightweight yetperformant, Linux is ubiquitous (just Google for anything), Linux simply rulesfor running this sort of thing.

I'm followingMove an Install to Another System.

Steps

from 'Moving an Install[ation] to Another System'

—easier if migrating between the same OS platform.

Preparation of old (source) system and new (destination) system

  1. Disable automatic emptying of trash.

    On your source Plex Media Server, you'll want to disable automatically emptying the trash automatically after every scan preference for the server. See Plex Media Server → Managing the Server → Library.

    Click on Settings.

    Then uncheck the emptying of trash setting and save changes.

  2. Install Plex Media Server on the destination system.

    Install the Plex Media Server on the new computer/system. If the set-up wizard in the browser launches, just exit out. See Plex Media Server → Installation and Basic Setup

    (The best is just to install it using my personal instructions at the top of this page.)

  3. Stop the Plex Media Server on the destination system if running.
  4. After installation is complete, be sure to quit or exit the Plex Media Server so that it is no longer running.

Copy from source system

  1. You'll want to make a copy of all the content in the directory listed below for your operating system except for the Plug-ins subdirectory.

    Warning: Do not include the contents of the plug-ins directory when copying the content location mentioned for your operating system.

    Tip: In many cases, you may find it faster to 'zip up' (or tarball) the contents here before transferring them to the destination system. The larger your library, the more useful this may be for you as it could otherwise take a very long time to copy thousands of individual metadata files.

    In general, the location for the various Linux versions of Plex Media Server will be found on the following path. Please make a note of it.

    $PLEX_HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/

    In my case, $PLEX_HOME is the documentation's representation (since this environment variable isn't set for me) of /usr/lib/plexmediaserver. (But, don't stop here, read on!) The way to find this is to locate the most unordinary filename element I knew would be in the Plex Media Server filesystem. I chose 'DLNA' then I looked for a suitable path: Here, I had lots of paths located, but I happen to know that /usr/lib isn't a metadata path since it's where the software binaries and other, permanent data are kept. That's not the stuff I'll need to copy since the installation on the new server will put it all there. Instead, I know that /var/lib/plexmediaserver is the path I want because it's where Plex has kept all my variable data (hence /var) and that's what I want to preserve from my source host to the new destination.

    So, what did I do here exactly? I went to the path /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support and began copying the subdirectories from this location to tol-eressea. I could not copy them directly; instead, I have to copy them to my user's home directory first: Note: The Media appear to be images, thumbnails, subtitles, etc. e.g.: art1.jpg, art2.jpg, art3.jpg, Subtitles.xml, index-sd.bif, thumb3.jpg, thumb2.jpg, thumb1.jpg. This subdirectory takes forever to copy.

    The Metadata appear to lots of Info.xml and some other files like c5cc8a84436166c653adaa8b1eecdcd10940eeaa and com.plexapp.agents.themoviedb_a76702420550cb61dd9f69e34e83ebcc6f3ac038. This subdirectory takes forever to copy, but nothing like how long it takes to copy Media.

    The Cache appear to be stuff like

Place on destination system

  1. Using the copy of the content you previously made, place it in the location specified for your operating system.

    Note: You'll need to replace any of the existing files and subdirectories that will be there from the installation you performed earlier.

    Tip: If you zipped the content earlier, you'll want to unzip it on the destination system before placing it in the appropriate location.

    In general, the location for the various Linux versions of Plex Media Server will be found under:

    $PLEX_HOME/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/

    Make sure that the directories and contents are all owned by plex:plex.

Copy over media content, i.e.: the big copy

This is going to be successful, so...

  1. ...copy over the masses of movies, videos, television series, music, etc. you're going to want on your new server. Your tools are, in order of utility:
    1. scp -rp directoryhostname:destination-path
    2. rsync --progress -avhe ssh directory-or-file-to-be-copieduser@hostname:destination-path
    3. Create a tarball and use scp to copy it over.

Update Plex Media Server configuration

  1. Start the Plex Media Server.

    Once you start/launch the Plex Media Server on the destination system, you should notice that the contents of the plug-ins subdirectory that you did not copy over are now being populated.

  2. Launch Plex web application.

    Open your Plex Web App and you should see your libraries, though your content is unlikely to work yet. See Plex Media Server → Using Plex Web App → Opening Plex Web App

    I opened my browser to tol-eressea.site:32400/web/index.html#

    Uh, guess what? It actually came up with much of the same stuff I had seen on my old one:

    Old:

    New: ...including that I had actually been watching a movie while waiting for the big file copy above.
  3. Edit your libraries.

    In order to update the content location for your media, you'll need to Edit a library and then add the appropriate folder for where your content is located on the destination system. Leave the existing/previous folder location in there for now.

    You'll need to do this for each of your libraries, but you should probably complete the process for one at a time. See Plex Media Server → Libraries → Editing Libraries.

    Here's what I did, following the page at this link a little bit, but carefully using my head (because the last thing I want is to get this content screwed up somehow):

    1. Click on a library, like Good Eats (see illustrations above).
    2. Click on pencil Edit Library (pencil icon).
    3. Since I know the actual filesystem path is changing from taliesin:/plex-server/Good Eats to tol-eressea:/plex-television/Good Eats, I click on Folder (on the left-hand side).
    4. Seeing /plex-server/Good Eats (the old path), I change it to plex-television/Good Eats. This put is on my larger disk mirror where I want all the television and maybe some other stuff.
    5. I click the orange Save Changes button and Plex begins to ruminate for a while.
    6. Using the big, white back arrow icon, I return to the index page to do the same thing for other libraries including Videos and West Films. For example:

    Once I get this done, I need to copy over all the television to plex-television and movies to /plex-movies, which will take a long time, and the set up the other libraries I had on taliesin, to wit: TV, Movies and Mormon Cinema.

  4. Update the library.

    After adding the new content folder, an update for the library will probably start. If not, simply do an Update library. The Server will examine the contents of the new location and associate the content with the existing media items in your library. See Plex Media Server → Libraries → Library Actions.

    Of course, the update did start without me asking. This is the bit that I dread: Plex is real enthusiastic about making a pig's breakfast out of my carefully laid metadata usually. I don't want that to happen. It's why I'm being so fastidious about this.

  5. Remove old content location.

    Once everything is completed and you've verified that things are working correctly and you can access your content, you can remove the old content location for your libraries. To do so, Edit the library and remove the old/previous folder location. See Plex Media Server → Libraries → Editing Libraries.

    6. Done

Appendix: Getting lists of your media

This isn't as straightforward as you'd like unless you're a softwaredeveloper in which case it actually works just the way you'd best likein the sense that you get it as comma-separated values in a .csvfile ready for importing into a database, spreadsheet, etc. This workis free from a very nice Dane.

This utility runs as a 'Plex Channel plug-in' which means you must installit in Plex and run it from a browser. I'll explain this in a moment.

To get this, go to ukdtom/plex2csv.bundle. You can follow the doc there through or you can just follow myinstructions here. Note that this plug-in is updated from time to time.

Please note that, despite what you may have read elsewhere on this page, the realPLEX_HOME is /var/lib/plexmediaserver. This path is used in the instructionsfor this bundle.

  1. Download from here.
  2. You now have a zip file that you must put into the Plex Media server plug-ins subdirectory. On my Ubuntu Linux server installation, this path is /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins.
  3. Once you've copied it there, unzip it.
  4. Rename it because the product of unzip isn't the right name:
  5. Bounce your Plex Media server:
  6. Create a place for the output to go. It must be somewhere the Linux plex user has privileges. The easiest is: Please note that if you screw this up, you'll never see any indication that this plug-in is working, neither files on this path nor lists of libraries in your browser. And it won't give you an error. Simply put, you must get this instruction 100% and you must note this path exactly in all its spelling in the step below where you tell the plug-in where the files are to be put or you'll wonder why you wasted your time.
  7. Now bring a browser up on your Plex Media server.
  8. In the left column near the top, find Channels. If you can't find this, click the Home icon and look again.
  9. This will display all the channels you can get like PBS, Apple Move Trailers, Vimeo, etc. If you don't have any channels, you won't see any. Anyway, click the orange Install Channels button. You should see 'Export 2 csv' in the list. Click on it. You should see something like this (I happen to have the Plex PBS channel installed too):
  10. Now click on the new icon.
  11. Click on the gear icon at the upper right.
  12. Enter the filesystem path to where you want it to put lists it creates, i.e.: /tmp/PlexExport. Do not screw this up as there will be no error to help you if you do. (See earlier note on this.)
  13. You may wish to uncheck Wrap lines depending on what you plan to do with the CSV file.
  14. I bumped my Max lines length, but the previous step makes this unnecessary, I think.
  15. I set all the levels to Simple, which isn't the default, because I wanted only the minimum. Even this is more than I want. You can read about all the information you can get at the website link above.
  16. I don't use Home mode, but I entered my log-in information—no one can see it anyway.
  17. Click Save.
  18. You should see all your libraries listed. I have many beyond just Movies, TV, etc., something like this:
  19. Click on whichever one you want to give a list.
  20. Go to the export output directory, /tmp/PlexExport.
  21. Go underneath there to directory Plex2csv.
  22. You should start seeing files like:
  23. If you wanted only a list of the titles, try using Python's CSV parser (I'm doing this all on one command line) to excerpt only the second, delimited item: Or that and pipe it to wc to count the movies:

    Execute it thus:


    Appendix: Firefly: DVD order agent

    There are television shows that appear on-disk in a different order than the original broadcast orthat of the databases Plex consults when it ingests the media for these shows. Someone has createda special agent to fix that, i.e.: put them into the intended order (in the case where it'sdifferent). The prime example is Firefly. Seehere.

    I believe that the DVD/Blu-ray order of the Firefly episodes is the correct one. The plug-indiscussed here does more shows than Firefly including 24 and still others, but I onlyhave Firefly.

    On first inspection, even if you find a download link, there are no instructions. You have tosquint through a couple of forum posts to get this. I'll put it all right here.

    1. Find the link and download the agent bundle as a zip file.
    2. Unzip it to your Downloads folders, copy it to your server (which may also be your desktop—who am I to judge?). You may be confused as it's not only one file, but a whole filesystem of two Python scripts, a data file and an image in a complex hierarchy. Yup, something made by a programmer for other programmers. The answer is found by looking at the contents of Plex' Plug-ins subdirectory: it's all similar stuff with a .bundle suffix. So, the answer is to copy the top-level directory, DVD Order Agent.bundle (with everything under it, but leaving it all just as it is).
    3. Put it on the Plex Media server path for plug-ins. Depending on your host architecture (Windows, Macintosh OSX or Linux), this might be different. On Linux, it's /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Plug-ins.

      You'll need to fix ownership once it's in the filesystem:

    4. You might have to bounce your Plex server to see it show up.
    5. How to use it? Well, since it was written in 2010, the Plex browser interface has changed from the forum illustration. Here's how to do it in early 2015. (Click any image to see full size if you need to.)
      1. Go to Firefly on your server, right-click the ... control at the bottom of the left column and choose Fix Incorrect Match.
      2. (Please note from the count that I'm still awaiting the ripping of my last episode though I'm writing and illustrating these instructions. Don't be confused.)
      3. This will bring up a menu. Click on Auto Match, then select TheTVDBdvdorder. This is the plug-in you just added to your Plex Media server. By clicking and releasing your mouse button on TheTVDBdvdorder, you launch Plex off on this adventure.
      4. Click on the thumbnail for Season 1. You should find the Firefly episodes in a slightly different order than originally, like this:
        1. Serentiy
        2. The Train Job
        3. Bushwacked
        4. Shindig
        5. Safe
        6. Our Mrs. Reynolds
        7. Jaynestown
        8. Out of Gas
        9. Ariel
        10. War Stories
        11. Trash
        12. The Message
        13. Heart of Gold
        14. Objects in Space

    Appendix: Creating collections of content

    1. Drill down to the movie you wish to add to/create first item of a collection.
    2. Click its pencil (Edit) icon (edit metadata).
    3. Click the Tags icon in the left-hand column.
    4. Begin typing the collection name under Collections and,
      • if it already exists, select it. (You may need to scroll this line in the dialog box which is usually too short for it display especially if there are already existing collection names.)
      • if it doesn't already exist, finish typing the new collection name and click Add collection-name.
    5. Click Save changes.

    Appendix: Images for Plex metadata

    Many of the titles on my Plex Media server are nothing that exists in film or episode databases soI find myself obliged to ferret out images, synopses, etc.


    Appendix: Music

    As near as I've been able to figure, Plex offers support for music,but this support does not work.

    When I first set up my Plex Media server, I simply moved all my MP3s in the subdirectory structureI've been consuming on Windows (Winamp) and Linux (Audacious) over to my Plex Media server andcaused them to be ingested. The result was a big mess, most of my music wasn't available, much ofit inaccurately named if named at all.

    Thinking that this was going to be a lot of work, I set it aside for a couple of years beforehitting it again. In February, 2016, I tried again by removing the library, creating a new oneusing an empty subdirectory (folder) and carefully adding one artist with one album:

    Music/Natalie Cole/Natalie Cole - Unforgettable with Love with the following contents:

    On that day, I followed these links:

    • Creating a Premium Music Library. At the time I tried this, I was running Plex version 9.15.2.
    • Also, the last time I thought about working on the problem, December, 2014, I actually posted a question to the support forum and got a helpful answer, sort of. I was told that the subdirectory format was not as described in the Plex links (like the one above), but should follow this format instead (where Music is the name of the filesystem subdirectory being used as the Plex Music Library):

    However, clicking the Update Library control when looking at an empty library yields'The library has no content yet. Click here to add content to the library.'

    I played around with this several times also trying the documented filesystem format all to noavail. As I don't care at all for Plex' Premium music features, I tried the basic musiclibrary option too.


    Appendix: Miscellaneous

    Mid-November 2015 update.

    Plex has released a major update to the Plex Media Server, version 0.9.14.1. This release features

    • Upgraded transcoder
    • Improvements to high-quality files for Roku devices
    • Add support for generating chapter thumbnails

    Why these matter

    The transcoder is used when you watch the server on any device other than a computer. The newupgraded transcoder should be able to handle more file types as well as offer better subtitlesupport (such as the Elvish in LoTR that never seems to show up on half the devices).

    The Roku is the most popular device among Plex viewers around me. While this device is fantastic,using it to stream 1080p video encounters far more buffering unless it's on the local network withthe server (the case basically at my house since that's where the server is). This update may fixsome of those issues.

    Chapter thumbnails are a very desirable feature of DVDs and Blu-rays that most have been livingwithout when watching Plex (but also Netflix and Amazon). Chapters are useful for skipping pastintroduction sequences for television shows, skipping over scenes, etc.

    It's unclear whether and how well these will work and on what devices (like the Roku), but one canhope. It's unclear, for instance, whether all or which media on the server will have them. It maydepend on how it was ripped and what format it's been ripped to. It's expected that Matroska, themost common format on my server (especially because of how well it does subtitles and especiallybecause it keeps subtitle content inside the same file as the movie so it's not lost when copied),may be the most likely to benefit from chapter titles.


    Appendix: Plex Media Server log files

    These are on the path /var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Logs.The basic (current—immediate) logfile is named Plex Media Server.log. Older logfiles(on a rolling appender basis) are named Plex Media Server.N.log, where N isan integer. This subdirectory is complicated: there are various logfiles in use for other aspectsof Plex, all generally (rolling) revisioned as already noted:

    • Plex Media Scanner.log
    • Plex Media Scanner Analysis.log
    • Plex Media Scanner Deep Analysis.log
    • Plex Media Scanner Chapter Thumbnails.log
    • Plex Transcoder Statistics.log
    • Plex Tuner Service.log
    • Plex Crash Uploader.log
    • Plex DLNA Server.log
    • Plex DLNA Server Neptune.log
    • Plex (anonymous).log

    Appendix: Plex Media Server and router status

    • Router forwarding includes Service Port 32400, IP Address XXX.XXX.X.X, TCP, Enabled
    • Router UPnP Enabled
    • Remote access 'fully accessible outside your network'
    • Private XXX.XXX.X.X:32400 ← Public XX.XX.XX.XXX:32400 ← Internet
    • Manually specified public port

    Appendix: Plex Media Server and 2020-12-09 update

    I'm not certain what this is about or if it matters. Looks like it might havesomething to do with 4K HDR. I don't do 4K.


Sign up for BitLaunch today and quickly install Plex on Ubuntu 20.04.

If you have a large local media library you’ve probably heard of Plex – the platform that lets you quickly organize, curate, and stream your content to other devices. Though its used most commonly on local networks to seamlessly transcode and deliver TV and movies to different devices in the household, it’s also possible to use Plex to stream to a device when you’re away from home, or to your home from a remote Virtual Private Server (VPS).

Streaming Plex from a remote server has its disadvantages, namely that you’ll be using your internet bandwidth to download the content like any other streaming service rather than distribute it across your home network via your router. However, many consider the 24/7 uptime that a dedicated server enables to be well worth it, with VPS solutions even working out more affordable than home servers in some cases once you consider the electricity bill. You can check roughly how much power your PC would use here.

Whatever the use-case, we’re going to show you how to install Plex on Ubuntu 20.04, then configure it to your liking. Before you begin, you may want a few things to hand:

· An Ubuntu 20.04 machine, whether a VPS or local

· Your VPS credentials if relevant, including your server’s IP, username and password

· An SSH tool like PuTTy to connect to your VPS.

Install Plex on Ubuntu 20.04

In your console, download and install the latest Plex media server Ubuntu installer from the official site via wget. The versions below are the most recent at the time of writing, but you may want to check the website for the latest Plex media server download.

For Ubuntu 16.04+ machines with 64-bit Intel/AMD processors:

wget https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-media-server-new/1.19.5.3112-b23ab3896/debian/plexmediaserver_1.19.5.3112-b23ab3896_amd64.deb && sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver*.deb

For Ubuntu 16.04+ machines with 32-bit Intel/AMD processors:

wget https://downloads.plex.tv/plex-media-server-new/1.19.5.3112-b23ab3896/debian/plexmediaserver_1.19.5.3112-b23ab3896_i386.deb && sudo dpkg -i plexmediaserver*.deb

Once Plex Media Sever has downloaded and installed, you’ll probably want to set it to run when your server boots for ease of use:

sudo systemctl enable plexmediaserver.service

You can then start the service without rebooting with:

**sudo systemctl start plexmediaserver.service**

Configure Plex Media Server on a VPS

The initial Plex media server configuration is done through its web interface, which simplifies the process greatly. First, though, you need to open an SSH tunnel to your server. On your local PC, open command prompt on Windows or another CLI if you're on a different OS, and enter the following, replacing the IP address with the IP of your VPS server and root with its username:

ssh [email protected] -L 8888:localhost:32400

When prompted, enter your VPS password.

Now, in the browser on your local machine, enter:

http://localhost:8800/web

Once you're faced with the above screen, you should log in with your Plex account or click Continue with Email, then Sign up with email if you don't yet have an account.

You'll be met with a screen explaining how Plex works, which you can read before pressing Got it. Plex will prompt you to you buy a Plex pass, but you can just click the 'x' in the top-right corner for now.

On the next screen, make sure Allow me to access my media outside my home is ticked, give your server a nicer name, and click Next.

Create your Plex library and add files to Plex media server

Now that the basic setup is complete, Plex will prompt you to set up your library. Before you do so, switch back to your PuTTy window and set up some folders so you can add files to Plex media server later:

cd /home/

mkdir -p plex-media/movies && mkdir plex-media/television && mkdir plex-media/music && && mkdir plex-media/photos && mkdir plex-media/othervideos

Now, back on your local machine, click the Add Library button.

Choose your media type, in our case, Movies. Give a custom name if required and press Next.

Click Browse for media folder and navigate to the folder you made. In our case this is in/home/plex-media/movies. Click Add, then Add library.

Repeat the process for the other categories/folders and click Next.

On the final screen, click Done. By default, Plex will show a variety of copyright free content in these areas if you don't have any local files. To add files to Plex media server, simply upload them to the the relevant folder in your VPS via SFTP by [following our guide here](link to filezilla guide).

Disable DLNA and enable automatic library sync

For security reasons, you'll want to make sure DLNA is turned off on your server unless you plan to make use of it. Otherwise, it'll be open for connection to anyone who tries.

Start by clicking the wrench and screwdriver icon in the top-right corner of your browser.

Scroll down until you see the Settings heading in the left sidebar, then click DLNA and, in the main pane, untick Enable the DLNA server.

While we're here, there's a small quality of life change you may want to make: automatic library scanning. In the sidebar, click Library.

You can then tick the Scan my library automatically option, which will force Plex to check your folders for any new media once it detects that a file has been added to them.

You may also want to head to the Quality section under Plex web and set it to either Automatically adjust quality, or an option under the Video quality dropdown that suits your preferences.

Connect to your Plex Media Server from any device

Though you can currently access your Plex Media Server on your local PC, this is because we set up the SSH tunnel earlier. If you want to access it from any other device, you have a couple of options.

The recommended route it to download the Plex Media Player app, which can be found on the official website, under the Apps & Devices category. For convivence, here are the links for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.

Alternatively, you can watch Plex in your browser by visiting the server IP address, followed by :34200/web. For example:

http://12.34.567.89:32400/web

Log in with your Plex account, select your server, and watch as you would any other streaming service.