Easy fix for Linux users that have problems with Plex
seeing their media files.
Saturday, June 1, 2019
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Plex Can't Find My Files. Easy Fix!
Plex can't find my files!
This is a common complaint with Linux users and
many fixes aren't so easy.
Until now.
Mount your media drives so they can be accessed by Plex in a few simple steps.
After hours of wading through posts of how to get Plex to recognize your media drives I have come up with a simple solution that does not require changing your fstab file or changing permissions of your drive.
It also doesn't require you to change the user to root in the Plex config file. Instead I will show you how to change permissions of the folder where your hard drives are mounted.
This tutorial assumes that your hard drives are mounted in file system/media/(User Name) folder.
If your drives are mounted in a different folder then use that path with these instructions.
First we need to mount you hard drive(s) that contain your movie / tv files.
Next open the file system folder. You do this by clicking on File System in the side bar of your file browser.
Now right click on a blank area of that screen and select "Open as Administrator"
Enter your password in the permissions box.
A new window will open up. You are now in the File System folder and have root permissions.
Right click on the media folder and select Properties.
From the Properties window select the Permissions tab at the top.
Change the Owner to your user name. Change folder access to Create and Delete files.
Next change Group to your user name and in the Folder Access area change it to Access Files.
Under Others change Folder Access to Access Files.
Now click on Apply Permissions to Enclosed files.
Double click on the media folder to open it.
You will see a folder with your user name.
Do the same as you did above using the same steps.
When finished close the file browser windows.
Unmount you hard drives and restart your pc or you can use the following command to restart the Plex Media service;
sudo service plexmediaserver restart
Now mount your hard drive(s)
Open Plex and have it scan your media drive(s).
It should now recognize the drive and files and add them to your library.
Enjoy and hope this was helpful.
TaZ
This is a common complaint with Linux users and
many fixes aren't so easy.
Until now.
Mount your media drives so they can be accessed by Plex in a few simple steps.
After hours of wading through posts of how to get Plex to recognize your media drives I have come up with a simple solution that does not require changing your fstab file or changing permissions of your drive.
It also doesn't require you to change the user to root in the Plex config file. Instead I will show you how to change permissions of the folder where your hard drives are mounted.
This tutorial assumes that your hard drives are mounted in file system/media/(User Name) folder.
If your drives are mounted in a different folder then use that path with these instructions.
First we need to mount you hard drive(s) that contain your movie / tv files.
Next open the file system folder. You do this by clicking on File System in the side bar of your file browser.
Now right click on a blank area of that screen and select "Open as Administrator"
Enter your password in the permissions box.
A new window will open up. You are now in the File System folder and have root permissions.
Right click on the media folder and select Properties.
From the Properties window select the Permissions tab at the top.
Change the Owner to your user name. Change folder access to Create and Delete files.
Next change Group to your user name and in the Folder Access area change it to Access Files.
Under Others change Folder Access to Access Files.
Now click on Apply Permissions to Enclosed files.
Double click on the media folder to open it.
You will see a folder with your user name.
Do the same as you did above using the same steps.
When finished close the file browser windows.
Unmount you hard drives and restart your pc or you can use the following command to restart the Plex Media service;
sudo service plexmediaserver restart
Now mount your hard drive(s)
Open Plex and have it scan your media drive(s).
It should now recognize the drive and files and add them to your library.
Enjoy and hope this was helpful.
TaZ
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Censored!
I've censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet--a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/8578/uncensor
████ ████ is ████████ ████ ████ the ████████ ████ be if ████ is ██████.
██████ ████ ████ ███████████ or █████ him and ████ him to say NO to ████
████ ████ is ████████ ████ ████ the ████████ ████ be if ████ is ██████.
██████ ████ ████ ███████████ or █████ him and ████ him to say NO to ████
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Setup Raid 1 Using mdadm In Ubuntu
Sorry for the prolonged absence. Been very busy. I recently bought two 2 Tb hard drives and used mdadm to create a Raid 1 array for my new data drives in Ubuntu 10.04
Raid 1 uses 2 identical size hard drives and will mirror the data from one hard drive to the other automatically.
I tried several tutorials to set up mdadm but several of them either missed a few steps or were lacking good instructions. But then I found this site and followed the instructions. Working fine now!
http://lummie.co.uk/ubuntu-server-setting-up-and-managing-raid1/
I can use the Gnome Disk Utility available in the repo's to check the SMART Status of each disk in the array as well as checking the health of the array.
I usually use Western Digital hard drives as they have been very reliable for me but for this project I used a set of Samsung's.
The Samsung's required a firmware fix to repair a flaw that caused lost data.
I had to create a Dos based bootable flash drive and throw the firmware on it then boot to it to flash the hard drive firmware. Talk about the retro 90's!
I have been running the array for a month and everything has been flawless.
Read and write speeds have been what I expected for a software based Raid array. And I have not had to rebuild the array except the one time I had an unexpected power outage when a tree took down a power line.
Software based Raid setups have their advantages and disadvantages.
Many of the motherboard based Raid controllers are actually considered fake Raid and don't work well with Linux. They also have disadvantages that surpass those of a software Raid.
One advantage of using software such as mdadm is the ability to use any model of Western Digital hard drives. I didn't know this fact until after I ordered the Samsung's.
A while back Western Digital pulled a fast one on it's customers. They decided they needed to increase their revenues on their higher cost 'Enterprise' models of hard drives. No one was buying them. Instead everyone was purchasing their Black edition and using them for their Raid setups.
So Western Digital went and disabled the TLER feature in all of their hard drives except for the Enterpise editions.
TLER is an abbreviation for Time Limited Error Recovery. Essentially a hardware Raid controller queries the hard drive every so often and the hard drive responds back. If the controller does not get a response in a predetermined time it marks the hard drive as bad and drops it from the array. This requires you to rebuild the array which takes quite awhile.
Since WD disabled TLER in their home based hard drives, the drive will continue to drop out of the array and require you to spend countless hours of adding the drive back into the array then rebuild it. Not very productive.
With mdadm it does not query the hard drive nor does it rely on TLER.
That means that it is up to you to be vigilant and check the status of the array on a regular basis. This can be done through the Gnome Disk Utility or a set of commands found on the page I linked to.
You can also reconfigure mdadm to send you email alerts if something happens to the array. I haven't set up my system this way so I don't know what is all involved.
You can find additional info on mdadm and advanced features here;
https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/advanced-installation.html
Remember that backing up your data is important. Using a Raid array in a Raid 1 or Raid 5 configuration is a step in the right direction but unless you monitor the array health you can have a disaster on your hands that rivals a single hard drive failure scenario.
Have fun and keep your data safe.
Raid 1 uses 2 identical size hard drives and will mirror the data from one hard drive to the other automatically.
I tried several tutorials to set up mdadm but several of them either missed a few steps or were lacking good instructions. But then I found this site and followed the instructions. Working fine now!
http://lummie.co.uk/ubuntu-server-setting-up-and-managing-raid1/
I can use the Gnome Disk Utility available in the repo's to check the SMART Status of each disk in the array as well as checking the health of the array.
I usually use Western Digital hard drives as they have been very reliable for me but for this project I used a set of Samsung's.
The Samsung's required a firmware fix to repair a flaw that caused lost data.
I had to create a Dos based bootable flash drive and throw the firmware on it then boot to it to flash the hard drive firmware. Talk about the retro 90's!
I have been running the array for a month and everything has been flawless.
Read and write speeds have been what I expected for a software based Raid array. And I have not had to rebuild the array except the one time I had an unexpected power outage when a tree took down a power line.
Software based Raid setups have their advantages and disadvantages.
Many of the motherboard based Raid controllers are actually considered fake Raid and don't work well with Linux. They also have disadvantages that surpass those of a software Raid.
One advantage of using software such as mdadm is the ability to use any model of Western Digital hard drives. I didn't know this fact until after I ordered the Samsung's.
A while back Western Digital pulled a fast one on it's customers. They decided they needed to increase their revenues on their higher cost 'Enterprise' models of hard drives. No one was buying them. Instead everyone was purchasing their Black edition and using them for their Raid setups.
So Western Digital went and disabled the TLER feature in all of their hard drives except for the Enterpise editions.
TLER is an abbreviation for Time Limited Error Recovery. Essentially a hardware Raid controller queries the hard drive every so often and the hard drive responds back. If the controller does not get a response in a predetermined time it marks the hard drive as bad and drops it from the array. This requires you to rebuild the array which takes quite awhile.
Since WD disabled TLER in their home based hard drives, the drive will continue to drop out of the array and require you to spend countless hours of adding the drive back into the array then rebuild it. Not very productive.
With mdadm it does not query the hard drive nor does it rely on TLER.
That means that it is up to you to be vigilant and check the status of the array on a regular basis. This can be done through the Gnome Disk Utility or a set of commands found on the page I linked to.
You can also reconfigure mdadm to send you email alerts if something happens to the array. I haven't set up my system this way so I don't know what is all involved.
You can find additional info on mdadm and advanced features here;
https://help.ubuntu.com/10.04/serverguide/C/advanced-installation.html
Remember that backing up your data is important. Using a Raid array in a Raid 1 or Raid 5 configuration is a step in the right direction but unless you monitor the array health you can have a disaster on your hands that rivals a single hard drive failure scenario.
Have fun and keep your data safe.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Stanley The Spammer
Just spent about 15 minutes deleting a comment left in about 15 of my pages by Stanley the Spammer.
He left a whole bunch of oriental characters each containing a link to numerous Asian sites. After I deleted the links I then checked Google's policy about registered users leaving spam in comments. Seems their solution is for the blog's owner to turn on comment moderation.
They will go after blogs that promote spam but won't go after spammers that leave comments. Okay. I'm alright with that. But that now leaves me with only one choice. A choice I hate to make.
Everyone can thank Stanley the Spammer for forcing me to turn on comments moderation. I don't like it but I'm not going to turn my little piece of the internet into a spammer links festival.
Be assured that if you leave a legitimate comment, it will be approved and will show up in the appropriate article that you posted to.
And I will be checking on a daily basis whenever possible. Don't worry if you don't see your comment show up right away. If it's legit, it will be published.
Thanks to everyone for their understanding in this matter.
Peace out!
He left a whole bunch of oriental characters each containing a link to numerous Asian sites. After I deleted the links I then checked Google's policy about registered users leaving spam in comments. Seems their solution is for the blog's owner to turn on comment moderation.
They will go after blogs that promote spam but won't go after spammers that leave comments. Okay. I'm alright with that. But that now leaves me with only one choice. A choice I hate to make.
Everyone can thank Stanley the Spammer for forcing me to turn on comments moderation. I don't like it but I'm not going to turn my little piece of the internet into a spammer links festival.
Be assured that if you leave a legitimate comment, it will be approved and will show up in the appropriate article that you posted to.
And I will be checking on a daily basis whenever possible. Don't worry if you don't see your comment show up right away. If it's legit, it will be published.
Thanks to everyone for their understanding in this matter.
Peace out!
Monday, May 31, 2010
FFMPEG Missing Codec Error
Recently a reader asked me a question about a missing codec error while using ffmpeg to convert a video.
Here's the error message;
It seems your FFMPEG (libavcodec) installation lacks the following encoder:
MPEG AAC Audio.
I initially told him to make sure he has the AAC audio codec installed. Then I tried a conversion and got a similar message. I know I had everything installed so it was time to investigate.
Didn't take me long to find out that the ffmpeg including the unstripped version from the restricted repo's is lacking certain codecs due to licensing B.S.
So what do we do?
I read many articles talking about compiling your own ffmpeg with the missing codecs. Now I'm not against doing that but I was hoping for something easier. LOL!
Then I found this page;
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1117283
It has a comprehensive tutorial on how to compile your own ffmpeg.
And it also contains a quick 2 copy and paste terminal commands that will download and install the unstripped ffmpeg.
Just make sure that you pick your correct version of Ubuntu when using either option.
Many thanks to FakeOutdoorsman for his excellent tutorial on fixing this.
Linux!
There are so many ways around the B.S!
Enjoy!
Here's the error message;
It seems your FFMPEG (libavcodec) installation lacks the following encoder:
MPEG AAC Audio.
I initially told him to make sure he has the AAC audio codec installed. Then I tried a conversion and got a similar message. I know I had everything installed so it was time to investigate.
Didn't take me long to find out that the ffmpeg including the unstripped version from the restricted repo's is lacking certain codecs due to licensing B.S.
So what do we do?
I read many articles talking about compiling your own ffmpeg with the missing codecs. Now I'm not against doing that but I was hoping for something easier. LOL!
Then I found this page;
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1117283
It has a comprehensive tutorial on how to compile your own ffmpeg.
And it also contains a quick 2 copy and paste terminal commands that will download and install the unstripped ffmpeg.
Just make sure that you pick your correct version of Ubuntu when using either option.
Many thanks to FakeOutdoorsman for his excellent tutorial on fixing this.
Linux!
There are so many ways around the B.S!
Enjoy!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Great News For 20 in 1 Multiboot DVD
As many of my readers know, I have been hosting my Linux 20 in 1 Multiboot DVD on Rapidshare for lack of a better hosting service.
But then the other night a reader by the name of Greg asked me to contact him about hosting my files on his dedicated server.
I contacted him and he graciously offered to host all the 20 in 1 links on his server that is also used to mirror software from the likes of Mozilla, Open Office, GetDeb, PlayDeb and other project sites.
He has provided a folder filled with the full Iso for those users who have the bandwidth to download it in one shot or for those that are limited with download caps or slow speeds, the individual Rar files are available.
He also created and md5sum file so you can verify your downloads.
I also tested his download speeds and they are fast!
Greg exemplifies the true spirit of the Linux community because during our email discussion he said he wanted to host my files to help out my readers and the Linux community. That attitude and generosity is what makes the Linux community so strong. We believe in giving and sharing.
I'm still jumping for joy at finally having this project on a server that doesn't play wait and see games with users trying to download it. And I'm happy for everyone that passes through my blog and can now download my 20 in 1 Multiboot without any hassles.
If you would like to thank Greg you can leave comments here or stop by his blog found here;
http://labby.co.uk/
As for my Linux 20 in 1 Multiboot DVD links?
You can grab them from here;
http://labby.co.uk/ubuntu4you/
Finally I must say this again even though I have said it to him at least a dozen times;
Thank You!!!
Enjoy the new links and please say thank you to Greg who made this all possible.
I must be dreaming! LOL!!
TaZMAn
But then the other night a reader by the name of Greg asked me to contact him about hosting my files on his dedicated server.
I contacted him and he graciously offered to host all the 20 in 1 links on his server that is also used to mirror software from the likes of Mozilla, Open Office, GetDeb, PlayDeb and other project sites.
He has provided a folder filled with the full Iso for those users who have the bandwidth to download it in one shot or for those that are limited with download caps or slow speeds, the individual Rar files are available.
He also created and md5sum file so you can verify your downloads.
I also tested his download speeds and they are fast!
Greg exemplifies the true spirit of the Linux community because during our email discussion he said he wanted to host my files to help out my readers and the Linux community. That attitude and generosity is what makes the Linux community so strong. We believe in giving and sharing.
I'm still jumping for joy at finally having this project on a server that doesn't play wait and see games with users trying to download it. And I'm happy for everyone that passes through my blog and can now download my 20 in 1 Multiboot without any hassles.
If you would like to thank Greg you can leave comments here or stop by his blog found here;
http://labby.co.uk/
As for my Linux 20 in 1 Multiboot DVD links?
You can grab them from here;
http://labby.co.uk/ubuntu4you/
Finally I must say this again even though I have said it to him at least a dozen times;
Thank You!!!
Enjoy the new links and please say thank you to Greg who made this all possible.
I must be dreaming! LOL!!
TaZMAn
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