plex TrueNAS Scale plex fail

[Quietman Adventures]

I have installed TrueNAS Scale and Plex app but I am having trouble getting my server files to show in Plex app. I have watched videos and read Redit logs and questions on this site but I cannot figure out how to get it to ask me for my Server Setup when I click the "WebPortal" button. It just shows all of the shows and mo never asks me to setup the server. URL is http://192.168.1.55:32400/web/index.html#!/ . This is all new to me so I need some help understanding what I am doing wrong.  What I have done:

Installed TrueNAS scale, added folders and user(plex:plex - 1000:1000)

Set the ACLs for plex:plex as SMB

Installed Plex as described by many

Click on WebPortal and below is what I get. It does not ask to setup my server as shown in everyone else's youtube and descriptions.

Thank you.

[Godlygamer23]

Did you add your media folders to the Plex jail? I'm not sure why it doesn't auto-navigate to allow you to set up your server, but do you have settings? What shows up there? Does it show you connected to your server? You could try adding your libraries directly, instead of going through the setup, but that depends on the current state of your Plex plugin.

[Quietman Adventures]

Can you explain what a jail is? These show how I set the files up.

[Godlygamer23]

3 minutes ago, Quietman Adventures said:

Can you explain what a jail is? These show how I set the files up.

Apologies. TrueNAS Scale is Linux based, not FreeBSD, so it won't use jails. 

 

However, I did find this: https://techmikeny.com/blogs/techtalk/how-to-set-up-plex-on-truenas

 

It might be useful.

[Quietman Adventures]

The menus are different - at least I cannot find some of the settings in the article. The article is dated June 2023 but my install is a date of Feb 24 so some of those things could have changed. I did all the things that seemed to be what the article says otherwise. Stopped and started the app but still does not work. I had read that article before. Most of the things online do not seem to match what I have loaded.

[Bersella AI]

4 hours ago, Quietman Adventures said:

The menus are different - at least I cannot find some of the settings in the article. The article is dated June 2023 but my install is a date of Feb 24 so some of those things could have changed. I did all the things that seemed to be what the article says otherwise. Stopped and started the app but still does not work. I had read that article before. Most of the things online do not seem to match what I have loaded.

Yes, there do have breaking changes since the release of TrueNAS Scale 23.10.1, which you might have downloaded and installed. This release dropped native support of Docker and switched to TrueChart apps, and older instructions are no longer informative for this, although it can still be installed manually through SSH. I have managed to make Docker working on Scale 23.10.1:

1. Log in to the system through SSH with the admin account.
2. Grant access to apt by sudo-ing chmod +x /usr/lib/apt*
3. Update apt by apt update.
4. Install Docker by sudo-ing apt install docker.io. The Docker daemon should be started automatically.
5. Install the image Portainer and create a container from it.
6. Launch Portainer to manage Docker containers, such as Plex.

[Quietman Adventures]

Thanks everyone for your help. I reloaded plex on my TrueNAS install and it kinda sorta works but It is very slow, not at all like my tv app. Only issue with the tv is I can't get my personal videos shared, its an old tv. I gave it my best to get it working for over a week. I have read blogs, watched videos but still it does not work the way I think it should. TrueNAS scale works great as a file server but the first app I loaded, Plex, has me thinking maybe I should choose something else to run my media server.

Eight years ago my son built a FreeNAS server on Ubuntu (LTS?) and has worked great as a file server but he no longer has time to maintain it. I thought with all the videos that show Plex works easily but I just can't get it to work on TrueNAS-SCALE-23.10.1.3. I will probably continue to use TrueNAS as a file server.

 

(later) Well, I guess I just had to wait overnight for it to do something because now it seems to be working fine. Again, thanks everyone for your support!

[Bersella AI]

I also felt that TrueNAS did pretty well as a storage server, but left other usages poorly developed. After all, it is intended for use in large-scale commercial infrastructures, not personal nor home use. There are also good news though, for example, the integrated Intel GPU was loaded automatically by Scale, and the Docker container of Jellyfin managed to utilize the GPU for transcoding, with expected framerates observed. Due to the lack of Plex Pass subscription, hard transcoding in Plex could not be taken in action, although acceptable framerates could still be achieved using the software pipeline, making the experience not that lagging.

 

For the TV side, an external TV box or stick, such as X96 X4, can be considered to watch videos from both streaming services & your server.