Plex not detecting Syncthing folder

Support and Troubleshooting
1

I installed Plex on my Umbrel recently, and transferred my files via Syncthing to my server, but I can’t import my library into Plex. When I enter the /var folder, there’s no /var/syncthing, so I can’t access the files. I know that the files are on the SSD, since it shows the correct amount of used storage. Anybody know how to solve this?

2

Hello Umby29!

We are sorry you are facing this issue - can you create the /var/syncthing folder? You should have write permissions. That may help.

Thank you,
Max

3

Sure, how can I do that? I tried plugging the drive into my computer, but it doesn’t show up in the file explorer. (I’m using Windows)

4

Hello Umby29,

Just a quick update - we had an internal team discussion and came to a correction. Plex does not currently support a Syncthing transfer because it uses a different media directory on umbrel which is shared with jellyfin, sonarr, radarr, lidarr and transmission. While there isn’t an easy way to move existing files into the media directory at the moment, the current setup works automatically if you use sonarr/radarr or transmission (directly) on Umbrel to download new media content.

We apologize for the mis-communication!

Thanks,
Max

1 Like
5

Thank you!

6

The Plex libraries are not shared with transmission or File Browser. Looks like it is set the same in umbrel/app-data/plex/docker-compose.yml, but I can’t locate any files in Plex.

2 Likes
7

If you feel comfortable doing so, you can edit the docker-compose file for syncthing and add the /downloads directory as a volume. That way Plex can see the folder. You could probably do it the other way too.

  1. SSH into your umbrel ssh umbrel@umbrel.local
  2. Edit the syncthing docker-compose nano /home/umbrel/umbrel/app-data/syncthing/docker-compose.yml
  3. Add - ${UMBREL_ROOT}/data/storage/downloads:/downloads under volumes
  4. Restart syncthing (right-click the icon in the umbrel UI)
  5. Add a folder using /downloads/ instead of ~/

Plex should be able to see the /downloads directory by default.

This is what the volumes section should look like in the docker compose:

volumes:
      - ${APP_DATA_DIR}/data:/var/syncthing
      - ${UMBREL_ROOT}/data/storage/downloads:/downloads