Fixed: The Synology NAS with Plex Server and mismatched version numbers
I am a HUGE fan of Plex. Plex is a server you run combined with both a great HTML5 web app and some awesome native clients. Plex has clients for iOS, Windows Store, Windows Phone, and on and on. Best yet, the Plex Server can run not only on your spare computers, but also NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices like Synology, Netgear, Drobo, and more.
Last year, Plex came to the Synology DiskStation. I have a Synology 1511+ NAS and run everything on it from Minecraft Servers to Plex to using it as a giant 5TB NAS to storing my Time Machine backups and Windows 8 File History. I also run CrashPlan headless on my Synology.
Synology has an ersatz App Store that allows you to easily install all sorts of stuff to your Synology NAS, like phpBB, Plex, Git, and more.
However, I personally (and others) have found this feed of packages to be either updated not very often, or when it is updated, versions don't line up.
If I can be slightly critical of Plex for a moment, they are fairly aggressive about keeping their client and server protocol versions in line. This means if you aren't keeping your Plex Server reasonably up to date, one day you'll startup your iPad Plex app or Windows Plex app and be told that server version is too old. It's a little jarring.
The issue for me happens when I go to the Synology to update and there's no new update. So the client is saying "you need version x+2" and all I see on the Synology feed is version x.
_3.png "Plex example on a Microsoft Surface RT with Windows 8")
Here's the gotcha, and why I'm writing this up for you. You can use the Manual Install option (as seen in the top picture) then visit https://plex.tv/downloads and manually upload the .SPK file for Plex to your Synology server.
If you don't uninstall Plex first - that's the one that you install from Synology's feed originally - then you can get yourself into some very weird versioning situations where Plex thinks one version is running and the Synology thinks another as seen in the screenshot below.
This has been discussed in the forums for almost a year now with no clear answer or solution.
Again, here's what I did:
- Uninstall Plex from the Synology Package Manager
- Download Plex from https://plex.tv/downloads
- Use Manual Install to install the new SPK to Synology
I hope this helps someone. Be sure to check out Plex, it's a joy.
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Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
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I know players like the Roku/Chromecast have different requirements for video format, and have heard some people having issues with of their NAS Plex server not being able to support the correct transcoding. Right now I'm using a PC for the server, so haven't had any issues, but I would like to eventually move things off to a NAS.
On a side note, always nice to see a plug for Plex, it is definitely one of my favorite services/pieces of software!
So that's pretty much h264 (which most of my collection is) to most of my clients (PS3, AppleTV, iPad). And it's fine. No matter what resolution or file size.
However, anything over ~720p in a non "native" format, and you're going to have a bad time. The exact point where it fails depends on the source, some formats are slower to transcode than others.
Is it just for the command line on the NAS itself?
I don't get the point why this could be necessary.
Btw.: Have you heard of ownCloud? Pretty awesome!
Please.
Uninstall Plex from the Synology Package ManagerDownload Plex from https://plex.tv/downloadsUse Manual Install to install the new SPK to Synology
The question is - would I lose all the Plex settings (sections & video metadata) after uninstalling Synology version of Plex and then installing the official Plex, or will it keep all the settings intact? Thanks!
To add to the thread, I've got a DS412+ and it'll encode and play files way over 4GB without issue
I just followed the instructions and my server came back just fine. In fact, it's working faster than ever. I was showing the exact file mismatch described above. I followed the exact instructions and I had no issues. I did not have to rescan my libraries or map my file shares. It just came back showing the new (and matching) versions.
I was hoping that was the case too, but unfortunately the synology NAS requires formatting at time of install as it needs them in a certain format.
Do you have updates on using the synology. How's the backup going with Crashplan, have you upgraded to the new DSM 5.0
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Have you noticed a max file size that it struggles at? Any movies that are over 4GB in size it can't handle.