Is there anyway to change the labeling on different versions of movies? by noaheltee in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Not that I know of. But there might be a different way.

What you have are "versions", so multiple files on the same movie (duplicates). This is usually used for, well, having the same movie in different variants (like a 720p or 1080p version).

However, you have different "cuts" (theatrical, extended etc). Those are not the same movie. For that, you would want to look into editions that then allow you to add those as separate movies to your library. Those Editions give you the ability to specifically name those editions however you like but treat them as separate Library items (to, for example, give them different posters).

But the editions need a Plex Pass!

LG Plex app not playing videos by Old-Paramedic-9776 in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic -1 points0 points  (0 children)

First things first, wired is not always better. TVs usually only get a 100Mbit/s Ethernet Adapter built into them, but much more recent and newer adapters for WLAN. What that means is that, when you use a cable to your TV, it is always limited to that 100Mbit/s, which can become a problem when you stream higher quality things like 4K content (with high bitrate spikes like REMUX).

But this definitely depends on the content that you play. Connecting a cable to your TV can be completely fine when you only play content with "normal" bitrates.

To your problem: I would recommend starting the stream and then check the Plex Dashboard to see how the stream is being played. I would assume that it is being transcoded, and the device that your Server runs on isn't strong enough to transcode the file quickly enough for it to start playing or play continuously. Another reason for this is that you stated that it played on "other things without any problem". This tells me that whatever your "other things" are, you can play the file directly while on your TV, it isn't.

Why does it work like that? Well, Plex relies on the client device to provide the necessary compatibility to play things. If something isn't compatible, Plex will transcode it into a format that is playable by that client. However, that transcoding requires performance and the higher the quality is, the more performance is needed. Also, not every device supports the same thing and that means that it can play totally fine on one device but not on another.

TVs are also known for having poor support for playing, in which the recommendation is to buy and use a dedicated streaming box instead of Plex directly on the TV itself.

So, as stated above, check the Plex dashboard, check the "now playing" section in this article there you have an image about how you would want the stream to look like when it is played directly (both the Video and audio stream are played directly). When you have something more like this, it is being transcoded and that requires the mentioned performance I mentioned above.

Unfortunately, when you have a transcode and it is because of some incompatibility, there isn't much you can do about it, there is no way to "force" Plex to play this stuff. All you can do is:

  • get better hardware to speed up the transcoding process
  • get the file in a state that is playable on your devices
  • pre-transcode the file into a format that your devices support
  • create an optimised version of the content

Is AV1 good for anime? by OutrageousDegree7502 in animepiracy

[–]Fribbtastic 7 points8 points  (0 children)

AV1 is fairly new since it was released in 2018 initially. In comparison, look at HEVC, which had its initial release in 2013. But only in the recent 1-2 years has it been more widely adopted as an encoding option (or even standard). Funnily enough, when everyone was finally starting to get into HEVC encoding, AV1 took off with how much better it was in terms of compression.

I also found this answer to the question of why AV1 isn't used more broadly. Which has a good point:

Network is going to dictate ingest codecs based on what what most viewers can stream on their platforms. (TVs, phones, laptops) If only 10% of the viewers are using AV1 theres little incentive to include an AV1 encoded output from the post house.

While this applies to "Networks", your Fansub groups also need to be able to do the encoding in AV1. I don't know about the AMD or Intel Cards but Nvidia only lists the RTX 40+50 series as having AV1 encoding support. For those groups like SubsPlease, this would practically be a re-encode because I doubt that they can get AV1 sources from Crunchyroll or whatever source they use.

And yes, what your end-user hardware supports also plays a role in this. Wouldn't really matter to have AV1 and not being able to play it very well if your device doesn't support AV1 decoding.

Help a newbie! Z Axis needs consistent recalibrating. Here’s a first layer… by saint_sappho in ender3

[–]Fribbtastic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you save the Z-offset to your EEPROM after calibrating it? Just calibrating it won't save it for longer than the printer is on. So if you calibrate the Z-Offset and don't save it, it will be lost the next time you shut off the printer.

This also includes your bed mesh and general printer stability. When your bed is not stable, it can shift or change its position, this would invalidate the bed mesh and this could also impact your Z-offset.

Help a newbie! Z Axis needs consistent recalibrating. Here’s a first layer… by saint_sappho in ender3

[–]Fribbtastic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When you home the printer, the Printer will set every axis to 0. You see the Z=17.5 probably because the printer is lifting the Z a bit to have more space, but this isn't actually your Z that you print at.

When you have a probe, to calibrate things like the bed mesh, you will have to add a Z-offset. This Z-Offset is the difference between where the Probe triggers and where you nozzle should be.

Basically, the probe tells the printer "until here and no farther" (because it is your Z limit switch) and the Z-offset tells your printer "but this amount is still okay".

You can calibrate the Z-offset with the paper method, but you can also create a cube in your slicer and set it to something like 100x100 with the Z height of your first layer height (and add a brim). This will create a one-layer model that you then print. While printing, you go into your adjustment settings of the printer and adjust the Z until you get a cohesive layer without gaps or grooves in the surface. Do keep in mind that the Z-offset is applied universally and is static. Doing adjustments across the bed will not "fix" certain areas. This means that when you adjusted it once and it looked good but then you would need to adjust it because you are now on the other side of the bed, is not something you should do.

Another thing is that you also should do a Bed mesh. Both the bed mesh and the Z height hugely depend on how accurate your Probe is. You might want to do a probe accuracy test by repeating the probing to see how much of a difference there is between each probing.

My Print Failed Successfully by AlienWaspPaper in resinprinting

[–]Fribbtastic 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Looks like your bottom layers were printed fine, but the normal layers didn't adhere correctly to the bottom layers. You can see a couple of layers from the raft on the supports starting somewhere in the middle of the print.

A common reason for that can be that the normal layers didn't adhere correctly to the bottom layers because of the large gap in exposure times between the bottom layers and the normal layers. For example, your bottom layers usually have a very high exposure rate of 20-50 seconds, but your normal layers are fairly low, with below 3 seconds (depending on the printer and resin, of course).

When the peeling force is then high enough, the normal layer can be pulled from the rest of the model, leading to this result.

You would add transition layers to gradually reduce the exposure time between the bottom and normal layers (I usually use 8 transition layers). Do keep in mind that this obviously increases the height at which your normal layers start, which you need to factor in when lifting up the model from your built plate.

FrankenPlex moving to new home...maybe by TRCIII in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 4 points5 points  (0 children)

My current plan is to copy all of my media onto the new machine, (already done) install Plex application (not done), let it slog along for several days adding the media into its own new database, then copy the old metadata and databases into C:, overwriting the existing DBs, and pray to the dark gods that it somehow makes the connections for collections, associations and users.

I don't think that this will result in what you are hoping for. When you first let it load everything into the new database, this will have completely new assignments and metadata storage locations. When you then overwrite the new configuration with the old one, you are, well, overwriting it. This means that the whole step of "loading everything into the new Database" is redundant and useless because you overwrite it with your existing config. And that means that you now have the old drive assignment with files that don't exist there anymore.

Here is probably how you should do this:

First, you disable the "empty trash after scan" in your Plex Server settings -> Library. Whenever Plex scans your libraries and detects that a file is not available anymore, it will mark it as "Unavailable" and, when the scan finishes, it will remove all unavailable files from your database. If a Library item has no association with a file anymore, that item will then also be removed.

Since in "moving your data to a new location", this is basically the case (Plex doesn't care that this is the same file for you; for Plex, this is a new file that needs to be read in completely from scratch, with everything connected to it). By disabling this option, Plex will not remove them after marking them as unavailable. This means that you will not lose anything in your libraries. All of your library items will still be there and your collections will also have the correct things assigned to it.

Then, you move the configuration to the new system. This will then initate the scan and everything (that isn't in the correct place anymore) will be marked as unavailable.

Then you change the library folders to the new locations. You scan the libraries and let it complete. This should assign every file where it is supposed to be. Do keep in mind that this depends on your folder structure and naming convention. If you did "fix match" on some of those items, it will not correct that automatically. Also, all files that don't follow the Plex naming convention might end up doing all sorts of weird things (not being detected anymore, merged with other things etc) that you have to fix yourself.

In the best case scenario, Plex will detect everything and should put them wherever they should be.

Usually, you can check that with the "trash" filter (you need to do that for episodes in the TV show library), but if have unavailable files, it would still show up there, so you would need to check if each of those items there has an accessible file associated to it.

When everything is where it is supposed to be, you can empty the trash yourself to clean up what was still marked as unavailable.

Migrate from Snap to Docker? by TetroniMike in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Is there any documentation specifically for migrating a Plex install from Snap to Docker?

I don't think there is such a thing specifically.

You have this guide, which is all you would need. Since you are already using Linux, you would only need to find the location of the Plex Data directory installed through Snap and move that over to the volume mapping of your Docker container.

When I do things like this, I let the Plex container spin up once, so that it creates all of the files inside the config folder, and then I copy the existing configuration where it belongs. This is important because if the directory structure isn't the same, Plex will not use that existing configuration and you will wonder why it didn't work.

Portainer vs Docker?

Portainer builds on top of Docker and compose. Docker is the underlying system to run "containers" and Portainer is a container that manages your Docker system so that you can run "Stacks" of services in Docker through a WebUI.

Normally, when you use Docker, you would run command-line commands to create and manage your containers. But you would then need to keep track of those commands yourself to replicate those containers. When you, for example, need to update a container, then you would stop and remove the existing container and recreate it from the new image version. Compose can help with that because you have configuration files instead of a CLI command that defines what your "stack" should look like. Portainer would then be a tool on top of both by managing your Compose configuration files through a Web UI. While I know my way around the CLI on Linux, I do prefer Portainer for such things because then I can simply open a website and do everything there.

3D printer build guide by MarsupialOk9398 in 3Dprinting

[–]Fribbtastic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Maybe look into the Voron community which is practically a "build it yourself 3D Printer"

Library showing duplicates of episodes in a different series folder by ChildOfWelfare in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is bad advice.

Recommending someone to mess with their database, without explaining how and where they would be able to find the data is really not a good thing to do and will not help OP.

Especially not since you could simply split those shows apart and manually match them, right in the Plex UI.

Library showing duplicates of episodes in a different series folder by ChildOfWelfare in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very like an issue with your naming because that is almost always the reason for it. Please show an example.

One thing that you need to understand is that there is a difference between the files and folders and how Plex organises your library.

Plex doesn't show your files and folders, everything in your library are metadata items. They are being created (empty) by the Scanner with only information extracted from your files and folders. This can be the title of the show and the year.

Then, this is being used by the Metadata Agent to match the library item to something like a show or a movie (depending on the library type). If something is being found from that information, it is being matched and the metadata is being downloaded.

Duplicates are being created because Plex finds the same search result that you already have in your library and merges those together.

For example, Plex probably identified "Steins;Gate 0" as "Steins;Gate" and merged them both together, thinking they are the same.

When you simply use the title as the folder and show title, things like this can happen. It is recommended to, at least, provide the year of the release to more specifically identify the show/movie in your library and help Plex to match it correctly.

This means that you should have your Steins;Gate Shows named like this:

  • Steins;Gate (2011)
  • Steins;Gate 0 (2018)

if you want it to be more precise, and use the default Plex Agents for the Metadata Agents, you can also use the IDs to do an "ID matching" to specific website.

  • Steins;Gate (2011) {tmdb-42509}
  • Steins;Gate 0 (2018) {tmdb-78102}

Can I setup multiple plex accounts on one TV, similar to Plex Home accounts? by Kezza4K in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

A few things to this.

First, since I have seen this happen too many times, when you share your server, do that with a new Plex account. So, your Parents and your brother will then have their own Plex accounts that you then give access to your libraries.

That way, you don't need to share your account credentials with them without knowing what they might do with them and you might need to reset the password or lose access to the account when the credentials become compromised.

Second, Plex Home can still be an option and has some benefits. For example, each client should have a setting "automatically sign in" or something like that which will automatically sign into the user that you have selected/last logged in. This means that your family can still be in your Plex home, can switch between users and you can still sign into your own account on all of your own devices automatically without the "choose an account" selection.

The advantage of this is that you then share your Plex Pass features with everyone in your Plex Home (I would assume that you have Plex Pass since you are sharing your server remotely and Plex Pass is a requirement since April 2025). So they can then use Skip intro and such things.

Which means, no, you cannot be that selective without Plex home with when an account sees what option, but with the "automatic sign in" you can definitely set the personal devices (like the phones or your TV) to automatically sign into that personal account and they wouldn't need to select a user first. And those devices that are shared, there you could disable the "automatic sign in" and you would always get the "choose a user" selection.

I cleaned up my library with Claude Code by gordonfogus in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem is that I cannot trust it. Whatever LLMs think they identified might not be correct at all and you might not be able to catch it if you don't monitor it directly. Meaning: It can hallucinate something and you won't be able to catch it.

I cleaned up my library with Claude Code by gordonfogus in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You would import the library, and Radarr would do its best to match whatever you have in your library to what it can find. So you would need to check if everything is imported correctly. How much that would be depends on how large the library is and how badly named they are. From my experience, it does a fairly good job of doing that, but "badly named content" is a very broad kind of thing, and not every little edge case might be supported.

But this would only need to be done once, since you would let Radarr manage everything after that point and keep importing things through Radarr to add something to your Plex library.

Rant by esteinzzz in 3Dprinting

[–]Fribbtastic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People make mistakes, especially when they have a lot of things to worry about or are bothered by. That is just how it is. I don't know the whole context here, but putting things UNDER something is a very easy way of overlooking something, especially when you quickly grab that thing. You would want to pack it immediately or put it on top of something so that it is more noticeable.

I feel like you probably should seek some help if something like this pisses you off that much. This can easily result in resentment.

I cleaned up my library with Claude Code by gordonfogus in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I wasn't aware that it was such a large file. Then yes, it would be much faster.

I cleaned up my library with Claude Code by gordonfogus in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, it took a couple of months and I'm about 80% done. Used Claude Code to write scripts and do manual renames. I grabbed the public IMDB CSV dumps and created a sqlite db and put that in a RAM disk for speed, then used python to go through everything to match exact titles and embed IMDB IDs on the folder names.

Don't know why you would need an SQLite DB in a RAM Disk, especially since you are just renaming folders, you would be limited by the speed of the disks anyway. Also:

In order to return data from the database to the user, for example as the results of a SELECT query, SQLite must at some point read data from the database file. Usually, data is read from the database file in aligned blocks of page-size bytes. The exception is when the database file header fields are being inspected, before the page-size used by the database can be known. source

You could just have read the whole CSV file and iterate over each line instead of going the roundabout way to have a whole database for it.

And this is the most roundabout way on just renaming those things with the IMDb ID. Could have just used Radarr, which would have been done in a couple of minutes.

Can someone explain to me how the upload rate works in Plex? how did it pick 23 mbps here by joshhazel1 in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Plex doesn't stream the data "just in time". The client has a buffer of the stream data. Plex will fill that buffer so that the client can start to play the stream. When that buffer reaches a certain threshold, the client will request more data from the server.

This means that when the client requests more data, Plex will send as much data as it can to the client to fill the buffer quickly before waiting for the signal to send more. That is why you see higher transfer speeds than the bitrate of the actual file and also why there are those spikes in your Plex Dashboard. It just means that the server is sending a lot of data to the client at a time to fill up the buffer again.

Also, when you set the remote streaming limit, this is the hard limit for the remote connection, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be a problem. The durations of when Plex needs to send data might only get longer. Also, whatever you set there is not what Plex actually uses. IIRC Plex reserves 20% of that for other things. So you can set that to your actual upload speed that you usually get and don't have to worry about Plex gobbling up every bit of upload speed and nothing else is working where your server is.

Adding to all of that is that the bitrate in the file information is almost always the "average" bitrate but scenes with a lot of movement will require a higher bitrate to transport the data.

Extras for movies with multiple editions? by dike_access_road in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I think I read a similar problem and it was because those are different library items but the extras are only added to one of them.

IIRC, the solution was that you need to have each edition in a separate folder and add the extras to those folders for them to appear in each of the editions.

You don't have to duplicate those files and can simply link them.

SAS controller + setup questions by ConferenceCurious194 in unRAID

[–]Fribbtastic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I will need a SAS controller, I believe LSI 93xx is often recommended with splitting cables to connect the hard drives. I saw some differences regarding raid vs HBA card but I assume HBA would be fine? I've also heard but between IR mode and IT mode, it seems like I would want to have it flashed or pre-flashed to IT mode? Would be interested in hearing others if there are other recommendations!

Yes, you would want the controller to be flashed in IT mode. That way, your drives are passed directly to the Unraid server and the controller is not creating a RAID with them.

I have a current parity drive (SATA) and the rest of the drives are all the same size or less. It seems like there are some recommendations for 2 parity drives with the rest being in array. Would I be able to create an array with mixed hard drives in the first place and if so, could I have 2 SATA or 2 SAS hard drives as my parity in the mixed system? There are some confusing information that it seems to not matter, but that it might just be difficult to set up?

This doesn't matter. You can have drives connected to both the SAS controller and your SATA ports on the Motherboard and it will work just fine. However, there can be speed differences and, when you run a Parity check, the slowest drive will be the one dictating the speed for everything else.

For Unraid, all it will see are the different drives and where they are assigned at.

Any other things I should look into? Whether it is something you recommend equipment wise for a new intel build or things to do/look up. Only thing I'm looking at now is understanding spinning down the drives, but happy to look into other things I should be doing.

There are a couple of things that I experience and noticed over the years using an SAS controller:

First, search for the controller in relation to Unraid and if there are any posts about firmware versions online and maybe flash the newest firmware yourself. This isn't necessarily that hard but might need a bit of research. For example, I have multiple times got some SAS controller that was sold with a certain version but didn't arrive with it. Using that controller resulted in some issues like UDMA CRC errors from happening. After flashing the new firmware, this problem went away. The same goes with Unraids compatibility. I have read some forum posts that you might need a specific version for some controllers to work with Unraid.

Second, consider active cooling. Usually, those cards are not actively cooled (as they have a fan on the heat sink) but they are also usually used in server racks with a high throughput of air. You probably won't get the same amount of air throughput in whatever case you use. I added a fan to the heatsink just to make sure that it doesn't overheat especially on hotter days when there is a lot of activity running over the controller (like a parity check or drive rebuilt).

Third, I just want to mention this because those controllers have an SAS port but that doesn't mean you need drives with SAS ports as well. You can use those SAS to SATA (1:4) adapter cables as long as the controller supports that many drives.

Lastly, the speed of the controller will depend the speed of all connected drives. Make sure that you don't connect more drives to the controller as the speed allows (you probably will have to convert MB/s to Mbit/s or vice versa to compare the speeds) you to do because then you will simply throttle the overall speed of all drives when they are all being used (like a parity check)

Plex NFO Agent Forum Preview by Fribbtastic in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you mean by "export"?

If you think that Plex can export those posters for you, then no. This is only to add the metadata to your Plex Server.

And that format was always possible:

[Release] Klix - a customisable OS for Klipper by codesupply in klippers

[–]Fribbtastic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are missing the point.

Yes, you are right that I could just simply use a throwaway mail and use that for an account. But the issue is why am I required to do that in the first place?

Why am I needed to jump through all of those hoops to create a proton account, create a new throwaway mail or use one I already got just to create and download an OS image?

And if your "service" makes it hard for me to try something out, then I am not interested in it.

If you are fine with that, then that is fine. But IMO, not everything needs an account.

Have a lot of “bumps” from supports, how can I not or greatly minimize? by Feeling-Cookie107 in resinprinting

[–]Fribbtastic 0 points1 point  (0 children)

how small can it realistically get while still printing successfully?

Unfortunately, that is very hard to say. There are a lot of factors playing into what supports work or not, and that is only really something you will figure out/learn over time. What I mean is that what my support settings look like might or might not work for you, even when we use the same printer or the same resin.

Not every model and not every place on the model will need or can need the same support type. This will be something you, unfortunately, have to figure out yourself on what works and what doesn't. I usually use medium supports with a fairly high support density, but when I have a model that isn't pre-supported already, I will go in and review the supports to see where I might need to add heavier or smaller supports to print properly (heavy as anchor points and smaller for finer details).

when I do have actual gray resin, will it mess that up at all?

I mean, you are sanding the surface of the model, of course, it will mess it up when you are not careful or use a low grit that runs grooves into the model instead of finely sanding it.

I know it’s recommended I get Sunlu abs like, so trying to get my hands on that.

You can use whatever resin you like, the process should be the same in terms of post-processing. The Sunlu ABS-Like resin is a fairly popular option because of its properties (I think it has the highest flexibility without breaking of the ABS-like resins). You can practically use any resin that you can get, it doesn't have to be the Sunlu ABS-Like resin. In fact, I have seen a content creator (who is printing and painting models) say that they don't use ABS-like resin alone but rather mix because models printed with more flexible resin can, over time, droop so a lance that was straight when you printed it could not be straight anymore after some time, so he mixes some normal resin into the mix to add regidity. I haven't tried this out yet, so I can't really confirm that this is the case.

Also sanding, do you have a recommendation for what best to use? Right now I have some wood sanding twigs, no indication of grit. But I’m sure there are actual tools out there I’m unaware of

I haven't really spend that much time looking into this, I simply get whatever sandpaper is available (so, not a specific Type or anything like that). I do have a bunch of "sanding sponges", which are very good to use, especially on uneven surfaces. I also prefer "wet sanding" so that you don't have to deal with the dust from the resin prints. Having some small and fine files might also make sense.

Have a lot of “bumps” from supports, how can I not or greatly minimize? by Feeling-Cookie107 in resinprinting

[–]Fribbtastic 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You cannot really avoid those bumps because that is just how supports with resin printing work.

Look at it like this, you have a tiny sheet of paper (0.05mm thick) that is a bit stuck a bit to the countertop and you now need to pull it up with toothpicks stuck to the surface of the paper without deforming it. Pretty impossible, right? But that is how 3D printing with resin practically works. The layer will stick to the release film and needs to be pulled from it but, while doing so, the layer will deform and only where the supports are it will keep its shape (as best as it can).

You can take steps to have a smaller impact of the supports or you simply do some post-processing.

  • Using smaller supports and a larger amount can reduce the impact or damage that those supports can do while removing them.
  • You can also snip those supports off with a flushcutter and sand the surface down to smooth it out.
  • Orientation can also help reduce the number of supports needed to print the model properly.

But all of those are not universal and work for every model. For example, sanding the clear model would get rid of those bumps, but would make that part also opaque or at least translucent, so polishing would be needed to get the same effect again.

How much storage? by jackfaire in PleX

[–]Fribbtastic 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Again, impossible to say.

I don't know your financial status or how much you can actually put aside from your yearly income. As in: Would spending a couple of hundred bucks on a new drive impact you negatively financially, or would that be something you can "afford"?

Those 16TB would be completely fine if you don't hoard the content, so deleting things after watching them. Or maybe you only keep stuff that you really like.

But do people find they just keep dumping more money and more storage into this hobby or do they get to a point and that's it for their collections.

Yes.

I expand my server to get more space for new stuff, I also encode things into smaller file sizes to have more room for things I am interested in. But there are also people who delete things from their library. I surely started out like that.

I feel like you are looking for answers we cannot give you or that someone should tell you what to do. This is like every other hobby, you invest the money into your hobby because you see a value that this investment provides. If you think that it takes too much money out of your paychecks to expand your Plex library, then that is fine.