How to set up plexmediaserver in Ubuntu 16.04?

I can install it but it can't see my files. I believe It's a permission issue because plexmediaserver is run by 'plex' user. In Ubuntu 14.04, I could edit /etc/default/plexmediaserver so that it would be run by me. It's doesn't seem to work in 16.04 (because systemd ?).

I've tried , with the debian source or with the deb. I can't seem to start the service ..

[user@machine]:[~] $ sudo systemctl start plexmediaserver.service Job for plexmediaserver.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status plexmediaserver.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details. [user@machine]:[~] $ systemctl status plexmediaserver.service ● plexmediaserver.service - Plex Media Server for Linux Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled) Drop-In: /etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service.d └─local.conf Active: inactive (dead) (Result: exit-code) since lun. 2016-05-02 18:58:40 CEST; 34s ago Process: 2784 ExecStart=/bin/sh -c /usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex\ Media\ Server (code=exited, status=139) Process: 2779 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c /usr/bin/test -d "${PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR}" || /bin/mkdir -p "${PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR}" (code=exited, status=0 Main PID: 2784 (code=exited, status=139) mai 02 18:58:35 machine systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Unit entered failed state. mai 02 18:58:35 machine systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'. mai 02 18:58:40 machine systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart. mai 02 18:58:40 machine systemd[1]: Stopped Plex Media Server for Linux. mai 02 18:58:40 machine systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Start request repeated too quickly. mai 02 18:58:40 machine systemd[1]: Failed to start Plex Media Server for Linux. mai 02 18:59:02 machine systemd[1]: plexmediaserver.service: Start request repeated too quickly. mai 02 18:59:02 machine systemd[1]: Failed to start Plex Media Server for Linux. 

1 Answer

Plex Media Server on Ubuntu 16.04LTS (only for Plex-Pass free Downloads)

init.d is legacy so forget /etc/default/plexmediaserver because its ignored. Instead use systemctl.

Setting it up; add the repo for “automatic” updates:

echo deb ./public main | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plexmediaserver.list curl | sudo apt-key add - sudo apt update sudo apt install plexmediaserver -y 

To avoid permission problems run the server as your standard user, replace “plex” with your user and group in:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/plexmediaserver.service 

If this file is empty, paste the following into the file.

[Unit] Description=Plex Media Server for Linux After=network.target [Service] Environment="PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR=/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support" Environment=PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_HOME=/usr/lib/plexmediaserver Environment=PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_MAX_PLUGIN_PROCS=6 Environment=PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_TMPDIR=/tmp Environment=LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/plexmediaserver Environment=LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 Environment=LANG=en_US.UTF-8 ExecStartPre=/bin/sh -c '/usr/bin/test -d "${PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR}" || /bin/mkdir -p "${PLEX_MEDIA_SERVER_APPLICATION_SUPPORT_DIR}"' ExecStart=/bin/sh -c '/usr/lib/plexmediaserver/Plex\ Media\ Server' Type=simple User=user Group=group Restart=on-failure RestartSec=5 StartLimitInterval=60s StartLimitBurst=3 [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target 

Now also change the ownership of the next subdir to your user!

sudo chown -R user:group /var/lib/plexmediaserver sudo systemctl --system daemon-reload sudo service plexmediaserver start 

Now you can set up your pms.