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

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.

PC Upgrade Finished

Just finished my pc upgrade today!

Sorry I haven't been more active here lately but between work and real world chores I barely have time for myself.
This weekend I finally finished my pc upgrade.

I had some of the parts for a month now and with the help of a borrowed SATA cable I finally finished them. What were the upgrades?
Some hard drives and a power supply.

A few months ago I ordered a new Asus motherboard, AMD Regor 240 and 2 Gigs of GSkill DDR3 Ram.
After I had that installed I decided to go for broke so to speak.
I ordered 2 new Western Digital Black Edition 640 GB hard drives a month after I got the new motherboard, cpu and ram.

Then a few weeks ago I ordered 2 more of the same drives and a new 650 watt power supply. Now my tower is filled to the brim.
The configuration is as follows;
4 - 640 GB W/D Sata drives
2 - Sata Cd/DVD burners
1 - 500 GB W/D Sata hard drive in an external USB enclosure

You may ask why all that space just for Linux?
Good question.
My new system is now a combination personal PC, Local Network server and a Home Theater pc.

During the install of the new parts I added a new 80 mm front and rear fan. Didn't need them before as I was only running a 500 MB Sata and 80 MB Pata drive.
Now that I have four high end hard drives in this system I knew that heat would be an issue. In fact I just checked the drive temps and see that I may have to add in a second front fan and possibly a second rear fan as the drive temps are around 102 F / 39 C

Those temps are a bit too high for my liking.
If I can get them down a few degrees I will be much happier.
Don't want any heat killing the drives as I waited too long for this dream system.

As for the Linux distro I'm running now?
Switched over to the Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit version and so far I haven't had any serious issues. A few minor ones with flash games causing screen flicker in Firefox although I don't have that issue when using Opera.
I'm also using a USB mouse and at times my mouse pointer goes on a rampage and flies to another part of the screen by itself.

But for the most part I'm very happy with the system I now have and hope it lasts a good long while.

Next on my wish list is a big screen tv!
LOL!!!

And I received an older D-Link router from a friend that I plan to upgrade by installing the DD-WRT Linux firmware on it. Will try and keep you updated on that project.

Until later.

TaZMAn

Check Your Hard Drive Smart Status Using A GUI

Checking your hard drives Smart status is preventive damage control.
It lets you see if your hard drive is slowly failing or is healthy.
But in Linux the standard smartmon tools can be a bit of a hassle to set up and interpret the results.

I have my smartmon tools set to do a Smart scan once a day and send the results to a log file.
That means remembering to open the log file and read it. Something I neglect to do on a regular basis. Also setting up the smartmon tools in the command line may be a bit over the top for the new user. Many new users are terrified of the terminal and don't want to be bothered wading through log files.
I needed something that allowed me to check the Smart status on demand and provide the results in 'Real' time with a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

GSmartControl (GSC) fills all those needs plus adds a few other features.
Each time you open GSC it does a check of the hard drives installed in your system.
You can view the capabilities of each hard drive, attributes, error log and self test log.
It also has 2 test modes that allow you to run a diagnostic test on the hard drive to make sure it is good.

GSC can be downloaded from it's home page found here;
GSmartControl Website

http://gsmartcontrol.berlios.de/home/index.php/en/Home

They have packages for all the popular Linux distros and an exe installer for Windows users although they will need to install GTK+ first.

As Linux matures we will find more software that provides the user with a GUI.
Some purists may not be happy with the proliferation of GUI's and tend to snub them as the GUI is not true Linux but the mainstream user wants or even demands a GUI.

Now go and grab this nice utility and know that you can now easily check your hard drive for possible problems.

Enjoy!