Plex not seeing into mounted hard drive

[Frankie842]

Hi there.
I have setup plex media streamer on my Raspberry Pi 2, and have an external hard drive mounted properly, but when I direct the plex to my hard drive, it doesn't see into it at all. It sees the 3 different partitions, but no files or folders inside them.
I can see the files and folders from the Pi desktop though.
Any thoughts how to get plex media streamer to scan my hard drive for movies?

[topguy]

The result of a couple of

Code: Select all

ls -al

in relevant areas would probably be helpful.

The output from "mount" is also useful.

Is the plex server running as the "plex" user or as "pi" ?

[Frankie842]

This is what I got:
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ls -al
total 112
drwxr-xr-x 19 pi pi 4096 Nov 3 13:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Dec 31 1969 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 69 Nov 3 00:02 .asoundrc
-rw------- 1 pi pi 2485 Nov 3 13:30 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 220 Sep 24 13:26 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 3243 Sep 24 13:26 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 11 pi pi 4096 Nov 3 00:10 .cache
drwx------ 8 pi pi 4096 Nov 3 12:29 .claws-mail
drwx------ 13 pi pi 4096 Nov 3 13:12 .config
drwx------ 3 pi pi 4096 Sep 24 15:33 .dbus
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Nov 3 03:31 Desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 55 Nov 3 11:53 .dmrc
drwxr-xr-x 5 pi pi 4096 Dec 31 1969 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Nov 3 01:49 Downloads
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Nov 3 00:02 .gstreamer-0.10
drwx------ 3 pi pi 4096 Nov 3 00:09 .local
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Sep 24 15:33 Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Sep 24 15:33 Pictures
-rw-r--r-- 1 pi pi 675 Sep 24 13:26 .profile
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Sep 24 15:33 Public
drwxrwxr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Dec 31 1969 python_games
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Sep 24 15:33 Templates
drwxr-xr-x 3 pi pi 4096 Sep 24 15:33 .themes
drwx------ 4 pi pi 4096 Nov 3 00:20 .thumbnails
drwxr-xr-x 2 pi pi 4096 Sep 24 15:33 Videos
-rw------- 1 pi pi 56 Nov 3 13:09 .Xauthority
-rw------- 1 pi pi 354 Nov 3 13:09 .xsession-errors
-rw------- 1 pi pi 354 Nov 3 12:13 .xsession-errors.old

I don't see my external hard drive there.
Am very new to Raspberry Pi, so I don't really understand "The output from "mount" is also useful.

Is the plex server running as the "plex" user or as "pi" ?"

Thanks for your help

[RaTTuS]

1) get pastebinit
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install pastebinit
2)
use pastebin
df -h |pastebinit
sudo fdisk -l | pastebinit
mount | pastebinit

and post the links

[Frankie842]

http://paste.debian.net/320751/
http://paste.debian.net/320752/
http://paste.debian.net/320753/

Hope that's what you need. I just started using Rasp Pi today
Thanks again

[RaTTuS]

do you get brown outs ? is the power good?
the drive is mounted as

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/dev/sda4       419G  386G   34G  92% /media/pi/Spare Space
/dev/sda3       280G  264G   16G  95% /media/pi/Time Capsule
/dev/sda2       233G  212G   22G  91% /media/pi/Carbon Copy

all as hfsplus (mac)

Code: Select all

/dev/sda4 on /media/pi/Spare Space type hfsplus (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,umask=22,uid=0,gid=0,nls=utf8,uhelper=udisks2)
/dev/sda3 on /media/pi/Time Capsule type hfsplus (ro,nosuid,nodev,relatime,umask=22,uid=0,gid=0,nls=utf8,uhelper=udisks2)
/dev/sda2 on /media/pi/Carbon Copy type hfsplus (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,umask=22,uid=0,gid=0,nls=utf8,uhelper=udisks2)

does

Code: Select all

ls -l " /media/pi/Spare Space"
ls -l " /media/pi/Time Capsule"
ls -l " /media/pi/Carbon Copy"

show you anything of use ?

[KevinNAZ]

This is how I enabled Plex Server to see my exFAT formatted USB3.0 External 3TB media drive with movies, tv, etc.

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#! /bin/bash
#
# This file is a list of shell commands for the
# Raspberry Pi to fix groups and permissions to allow the Plex
# media server to access media on an external USB drive.
# I am using Plex Server on a Raspberry Pi 4 with Raspi Buster.
sudo usermod -a -G pi plex
sudo usermod -a -G plugdev plex
sudo chmod 775 /media/pi

[hydra3333]

This is how I enabled Plex Server to see my exFAT formatted USB3.0 External 3TB media drive with movies, tv, etc.

Code: Select all

#! /bin/bash
#
# This file is a list of shell commands for the
# Raspberry Pi to fix groups and permissions to allow the Plex
# media server to access media on an external USB drive.
# I am using Plex Server on a Raspberry Pi 4 with Raspi Buster.
sudo usermod -a -G pi plex
sudo usermod -a -G plugdev plex
sudo chmod 775 /media/pi

Thanks !!!!!!!!!

Also, what is group plugdev used in/for ?

[dustnbone]

From https://wiki.debian.org/SystemGroups

plugdev: Allows members to mount (only with the options nodev and nosuid, for security reasons) and umount removable devices through pmount.

[hydra3333]

From https://wiki.debian.org/SystemGroups
plugdev: Allows members to mount (only with the options nodev and nosuid, for security reasons) and umount removable devices through pmount.

OK, so with

Code: Select all

sudo usermod -a -G plugdev plex

user plex can mount/dismount removable drives with security limitations.

Thank you !

[AWal25]

Listen,

I am a total noob to Pi myself and have been all over these boards and the web as a whole for WEEKS trying to figure this out. I have taken beginner courses on Pi JUST to get to figure out how to gt my PMS to see the external drives I can see on my Pi 400. And with three SIMPLE command lines you sir have fixed what has kept me up at night! You are my personal hero, I don't know who you are but you have changed my LIFE! Thank you!

In case anyone needs help with this here it goes:
-I am running my new Raspberry Pi 400 with Plex Media Server connected to three external HDD's all in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format.
-My Pi OS was able to see and play the video files with no issue using VLC but my PMS was unable to see them.
-By opening the terminal and entering the below commands I was able to get my PMS to see the files on the HDD's and start playing my media on my other devices.

sudo usermod -a -G pi plex
sudo usermod -a -G plugdev plex
sudo chmod 775 /media/pi