`docker restart` forgets my server

[ptarjan]

Output of docker inspect plex --format='{{index .Config.Labels.version}}':

1.18.2.2058-armhf

Description

When I update my docker image I lose all my configuration (library locations, etc.). I think it has something to do with needing PLEX_CLAIM as an environment variable?

Steps to reproduce the issue:

1. docker-compose pull
2. docker-compose down
3. docker-compose up -d

Describe the results you received:

A new claim page when I visit <my_ip>:32400

Describe the results you expected:

The same config I had before I updated

Additional information you deem important (e.g. issue happens only occasionally):

[jaymoulin]

Thank you for reporting this issue.

If you find this product useful, please consider donating. You can also support this by watching ads on https://utip.io/femtopixel as much as you like.

I think you should post your docker-compose.yaml file to be sure how your container was set.
This stated, I'm pretty sure this is surely not related to PLEX_CLAIM environment variable and you forgot to set your configuration path as as volume (https://github.com/jaymoulin/docker-plex#configuration : mount your Plex Library to /root/Library).

Note: you don't have to docker-compose down to update, docker-compose pull && docker-compose up -d does that job for you.

[ptarjan]

Thanks for taking a look at the issue and for teaching me a thing or two about docker-compose.

My docker-compose.yaml is as follows:

$ cat docker-compose.yml
version: '3.3'
services:
  plex:
    container_name: plex
    restart: always
    network_mode: host
    environment:
      - TZ=America/Los_Angeles
    volumes:
      - '/home/plex:/root/Library'
      - '/mnt/data/Transcode:/transcode'
      - '/mnt/data:/media'
    image: jaymoulin/plex

And I do think it is working since the files seem to be written

$ ls -al /home/plex/Application\ Support/Plex\ Media\ Server/
total 48
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Nov 30 18:40  .
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Nov 29 16:47  ..
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Nov 30 18:31  Cache
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Nov 29 16:47  Codecs
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Nov 29 16:47 'Crash Reports'
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Nov 30 18:40  Logs
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Nov 29 20:15  Media
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 Nov 29 20:18  Metadata
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    1 Nov 29 20:22  plexmediaserver.pid
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Nov 29 16:47  Plug-ins
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root 4096 Nov 29 16:47 'Plug-in Support'
-rw-------  1 root root  982 Nov 30 18:40  Preferences.xml

Does your plex need to be re-claimed on upgrade?

[jaymoulin]

Interesting. I do have a similar docker-compose.yml file but I can't reproduce your issue:

$ cat docker-compose.yml 
version: "3.4"

services:
  plex:
    image: "jaymoulin/plex"
    volumes:
      - /mnt/usbdrive:/media
      - /mnt/usbdrive/var/plex:/root/Library
      - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    network_mode: host
    restart: always

As your file are existing in your host drive, this should be working and your PMS should not need to be reclaimed. Is your PMS linked to a plex account?

[ptarjan]

Interesting that yours works. Did you try downgrading and upgrading the image (can you do that with docker-compose?). I recently added PLEX_CLAIM to my environment variables as suggested by some online guides (https://github.com/plexinc/pms-docker#host-networking most notably) and I can restart the container without problems now, but I haven't tried to update it yet since you haven't released a new images since I last pulled.

And yes, it should be claimed. Is there a way to check? When I log into plex.tv or on my other plex apps I see the server and the content.

[jaymoulin]

I never added PLEX_CLAIM environment to my container. As far as I understand, this environment var is created by PMS when requesting, and its value is added then added in Preferences.xml in the Library folder (the reason I thought your volume was not mounted) (source: https://forums.plex.tv/t/plexpass-tag-and-plex_claim/172669).

You can downgrade your plex version by specifying which version to use in the docker-compose.yml file, image line (eg image: jaymoulin/plex:1.9.7). Then docker-compose up -d will pull the downgraded image, destroy the actual plex container and recreate a new one.

Not specifying version will use the latest tag, which will allow you to use docker-compose pull to download the latest release and docker-compose up -d to recreate the container using the latest image (or docker-compose pull && docker-compose up -d as I like to use (command I put in a crontab to automatically update my container))

If you're logged in plex application and see your PMS, then it should be OK.