Read/Write Permissions for Plex on Ubuntu

The Problem::

I have a fresh install of Plex (latest version). Install was fine aside from the lack of obvious naming and permission requirements.

I now have tried adding the Library as type Movies and as type Other media.

Same result: There are no items in this library

The plex user is part of my user group. My user group is the owner of this directory. I have even added the plex user to the root group to make sure it wasn’t still about permissions.

me@xps:/media/me/MyHD/Media/Movies$ groups plex
plex : plex root video me

All files are inside the me directory within the /media/me/MyHD/Media/Movies/files located here

me@xps:~$ ll /media/
total 12
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4096 Jun 30 22:22 ./
drwxr-xr-x  24 root root 4096 Jun 29 06:08 ../
drwxr-xr-x+  4 me me  4096 Jul  1 02:10 me/

Server Status:

me@xps:~/Downloads$ sudo systemctl status plexmediaserver.service
● plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service; enabled; vendor 
   Active: active (running) since Mon 2019-07-01 02:57:21 PDT; 15h ago
 Main PID: 11654 (sh)
   CGroup: /system.slice/plexmediaserver.service
           ├─11654 /bin/sh -c  PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_INFO_VENDOR="$(grep ^NAME= /etc
           ├─11674 /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Media Server
           ├─11694 Plex Plug-in [com.plexapp.system] /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Re
           ├─11747 /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex Tuner Service /usr/lib/plexmedi
           └─11748 /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex DLNA Server

Jul 01 02:57:21 xps systemd[1]: Starting Plex Media Server...
Jul 01 02:57:21 xps systemd[1]: Started Plex Media Server.
Jul 01 18:45:15 xps systemd[1]: Started Plex Media Server.

So, the plex interface is only showing me a short list of available directories to add during the Library creation. The parent directory MyHD is a typical usb HD. Mounted to /media/me/MyHD

My files are located in directory:

me@xps:/media/me/MyHD/Media/Movies$ pwd
/media/me/MyHD/Media/Movies

From what I understand the naming convention needs to be Parent directory (MyHD) ->Media -> Movies.

All of my movies are in that directory. Some of the movies are in directories and some are only single files. There are thousands of files in there yet it cannot “see” any of them…

me@xps:/media/me/MyHD/Media/Movies$ sudo journalctl -xe | grep -i plex
[sudo] password for me: 
Jul 01 18:44:59 xps sudo[11289]:      me : TTY=pts/2 ; PWD=/home/me/Downloads ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/systemctl enable plexmediaserver.service
Jul 01 18:45:15 xps sudo[11377]:      me : TTY=pts/2 ; PWD=/home/me/Downloads ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/systemctl start plexmediaserver.service
Jul 01 18:45:15 xps systemd[1]: Started Plex Media Server.
-- Subject: Unit plexmediaserver.service has finished start-up
-- Unit plexmediaserver.service has finished starting up.
Jul 01 18:45:20 xps sudo[11381]:      me : TTY=pts/2 ; PWD=/home/me/Downloads ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/systemctl enable plexmediaserver.service
Jul 01 18:46:07 xps sudo[13259]:      me : TTY=pts/2 ; PWD=/home/me/Downloads ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/systemctl status plexmediaserver.service
Jul 01 18:50:51 xps sudo[13459]:      me : TTY=pts/2 ; PWD=/home/me/Downloads ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/systemctl restart plexmediaserver.service
Jul 01 18:50:51 xps systemd[1]: Stopping Plex Media Server...
-- Subject: Unit plexmediaserver.service has begun shutting down
-- Unit plexmediaserver.service has begun shutting down.
Jul 01 18:50:51 xps systemd[1]: Stopped Plex Media Server.
-- Subject: Unit plexmediaserver.service has finished shutting down
-- Unit plexmediaserver.service has finished shutting down.
Jul 01 18:50:51 xps systemd[1]: Starting Plex Media Server...
-- Subject: Unit plexmediaserver.service has begun start-up
-- Unit plexmediaserver.service has begun starting up.

Here is some of the disk information: It looks like the FS type is exFAT. Block ID:::

me@xps:/media$ blkid | grep -i sda1
/dev/sda1: LABEL="MyHD" UUID="52F0-FEC1" TYPE="exfat" PARTUUID="1be014c0-01"

FDISK:::

me@xps:/media$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda1
Disk /dev/sda1: 1.8 TiB, 2000397884928 bytes, 3907027119 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device      Boot      Start        End    Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sda1p1      4294967295 8589934589 4294967295    2T ff BBT
/dev/sda1p2      4294967295 8589934589 4294967295    2T ff BBT
/dev/sda1p3      4294967295 8589934589 4294967295    2T ff BBT
/dev/sda1p4      4294967295 6854241533 2559274239  1.2T ff BBT

LSBLK:::

me@xps:/media$ lsblk -l /dev/sda1
NAME MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda1   8:1    0  1.8T  0 part /media/me/MyHD

MOUNT:::

me@xps:/media$ mount | grep "^/dev/sda1"
/dev/sda1 on /media/me/MyHD type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096,uhelper=udisks2)

So, I’m stuck. Can anyone confirm if the naming convention is correct? Is it still a possible permissions issue?

Thank you for any help.

The issue was how the disk was mounted. It appeared to be mounted correctly and had rw permission set and exfat as the type. The fstab entry didn't align with the permissions I needed or the filesystem type.

The issue was the file system type. Instead of exfat it needs to be exfat-fuse. It mounted using exfat, but it wasn't mounted properly.

Example

UUID=52F0-FEC1 /plex exfat-fuse default_permissions,uid=1000,gid=1000,nosuid,nodev,relatime,blksize=4096 0 0

I have a hunch the default_permissions was also an issue. It was set to rw before. Those are the two changes I had to make to fstab. Pretty straightforward. I just don't know why it was so hard to find out about exfat-fuse type.

I hope this helps someone else.