Plex Crashes on Clean Install with no Media in Library

  • I just did a clean install of OMV using the latest iso, performed updates, and installed Plex. There is no media in the Plex library yet, nor is there any on the drive, so "bad" media files cannot be causing the service to crash. When I boot, the Plex service starts as it should. It runs for a few minutes and then dies. I have not been able to figure out what the cause of the error is. I'm not accessing the Plex UI, not loading the server, and not streaming/transcoding any content.


    Something simple must be wrong because the service is crashing consistently and, weirdly, while the system is idle.


    Suggestions for troubleshooting?

  • In another forum one of the Mods told me that using aufs with Plex was a bad idea. I have switched, per their suggestion, to mergerfs and Plex has been running idle for over 2 hours now without a crash.


    The issue appears to be resolved.

  • Just kidding! Still broken.


    It took about 10 hours this time (which is a lot longer than before), but my Plex service still crashes unexpectedly after being left at idle. Still no media in the library. Just a clean OMV install with a clean Plex install. I'm using a mergerfs pool with SnapRAID on the array, and Plex as well as it's database is stored on the boot drive.


    Any help?
    How do I check the Plex crash logs to see what they say?

  • Still nothing from the OMV community on this issue?


    I've done some searching and there are many people having this issue with Debian in the last three or four days. Something is weird here with Plex and I'm not sure what it is...

  • You're right, sorry. I went back and reviewed the last thread and you said AUFS was likely my problem when Plex was crashing then. It was Rye who recommended I switch to Mergerfs here.


    In any case, it is still dying reliably. If I launch it manually it comes on, but normally crashes within 24 hours. I've started it again using the command above and will report back if it goes down.

  • If it does not crash when manually starting it is likely a small perms issue on the plexmediaserver folder. It might be due to mergerfs, I don't know. I have not tested any of the union filesystems. I know the aufs was causing issues for some people. Crashing after adding media share would be an issues with that share or the media placed in it.

  • Also, an OMV-Extra Plex update showed up in update manager today. I've brought myself up to the latest version. I know changing two variables at one time is not good troubleshooting, I'm just being overly confident that one of the two will have resolved my issue :)


    I'll report back if there are any further issues (sounds like permissions may be the culprit). Thanks for your advice so far. Much appreciated!

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