DietPi-Software | Plex: Official ARM binaries and planned APT repo

[WolfganP]

Just as a heads up, Plex started working a while ago in simplifying their code base and tools (https://forums.plex.tv/t/much-faster-hopefully-smaller-mostly-and-better-pms-builds-preview-1-15-0-573-123756e9a/308294)

One of the consequences is that ARMv7 and ARMv8 images now will be officially maintained by Plex themselves (the ARM community version integrated now in DietPi will be discontinued), and they also plan to support an official apt source (confirmed at https://forums.plex.tv/t/official-pms-for-armv7-what-will-happen-with-this-community-one/372290/4)

I'll keep this issue updated with official information on Plex developments that may impact DietPi, if anyone wants to test, beta versions for all platforms are available already at https://forums.plex.tv/t/much-faster-hopefully-smaller-mostly-and-better-pms-builds-preview-1-15-0-573-123756e9a/308294

[MichaIng]

@WolfganP
Many thanks for this information. Great that all binaries can be then downloaded from the same source. An official APT repo of course would make things easier again.

I think we could already add those preview versions with DietPi v6.22 or are you aware of any issues with them reported by users?

Another question. Did you try the new binaries on an ARM device already? The ones from the 3rd party repo required the locale to be en_US, I guess/hope the official binaries allow any language?

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I opened a PR to use the new binaries. However perhaps we should wait for official release: https://github.com/Fourdee/DietPi/pull/2554

• Actually it would be great if the Plex guys could provide some meta URL that always links to the most current stable release. This way we don't need to always update our URL and have no delay when Plex updates upstream versions.

[WolfganP]

@MichaIng I tried the new binary in a separate RasPi2 and it worked OK (but it was just a test with a handful of media files and not my big media list nor the customized environment). I plan to migrate once they ship the production images.

A few users at https://forums.plex.tv/tags/server-linux report unresponsive server after upgrade, but as there's no automated official upgrade path, some seems to be manual errors. Clearly it's a public beta, but worth to try for power users.

[MichaIng]

@WolfganP

I tried the new binary in a separate RasPi2 and it worked OK

Do you have another locale active than en_US.UTF-8 or were you able to switch this afterwards?

Currently when installing Plex on ARM devices (via 3rd party repo), we switch active locale to en_US.UTF-8 and inform user about that.

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So I think we should wait for release. I hope the 3rd party repo is not taken offline directly after release, so there is a time frame to switch.

EDIT: https://forums.plex.tv/t/official-pms-for-armv7-what-will-happen-with-this-community-one/372290/5

@WolfganP Yes, it’s nearly time to retire my repository. As soon as the new official repo is deployed and there is a stable public release for armv7 and armv8, I will pull the plug.

• Okay that doesn't sound like there will be a time frame...

A bid hard to find a reasonable schedule our side then.

• If we release DietPi v6.22 with Plex 3rd party repo, it might happen that this is dropped before we can react with a new release.
• If we release with Beta links, yeah we ship possibly unstable beta packages to our end users and a new release requires manually adjusting the download links.

It would really help if:

• The 3rd party repo would stay online until a while after Plex 1.15 release.
• Plex could offer download links that always point to the latest release. Currently it is not even possible to browse the download dir to estimate the latest release within script.

If we are very lucky, then Plex 1.15 is released close to DietPi v6.22, at best while we are in our open beta. Let's see how things work out.

[WolfganP]

@MichaIng my locale is en_US.UTF-8. I deleted my test env for a diff test that will take some time, but if any chance appears I'll retry Plex on another locale, and monitor the plex forums for related reports if any.

[MichaIng]

@WolfganP
Jep that is great, very helpful 👍!

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EDIT: Waiting for user reply = waiting for release and information about 3rd party ARM repo drop date 😉.

[MichaIng]

@WolfganP
The v15 download links on the forum thread are not updated anymore, but in announcements I find very regular v15 updates to the beta update channel, fixing several of the issues users mentioned: https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-media-server/30447/247
Can't find download links, so it seems this is available through the internal updater, or do you know where to download those directly?
EDIT: available to Plex Pass users in the Beta update channel somehow clarifies it.

I am still thinking we could/should add this with DietPi v6.22, but only if a very recent external download link is available.

[WolfganP]

@MichaIng Yes, up to now the v1.15 files were available to anyone, kind of alpha state distribution. It seems they are now confident on the new version stability to move the files to the official beta distribution channel, but not into production nor any sign of the official apt source yet.
I'll keep an eye on it and comment back in here once news appear.

[MichaIng]

Quick link to check v1.15 release state: https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-media-server/30447/last

[WolfganP]

Just announced, Plex Media Server 1.15.1.791 is now available to everyone in download pages https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-media-server/30447/250 (no indication of an official apt repo yet)

Some issues reported by users at the official forums https://forums.plex.tv/tags/server-raspberry-pi , seems unrelated to the update but possible workaround at https://forums.plex.tv/t/plex-server-suddenly-not-starting-on-raspberry-pi-after-crashed-update/387681/5

$ sudo LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libarmmem-v6l.so
$ sudo rm /etc/ld.so.preload
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo reboot

[MichaIng]

@WolfganP
😄 less than an hour edited after I had a look.

Getting latest release link automatically is possible via: https://plex.tv/pms/downloads/5

[MichaIng]

@WolfganP
Okay I implemented latest version catch as above. With this I am okay with merging this change already into v6.22, since quick hotfix releases Plex side will immediately result in a fixed install our side. Without this I would have not been keen to ship this version as it might not yet be too stable (although pushed to releases?).

If you have an ARM test system or one where dev branch is okay, might you test if indeed with this ARM binaries no en_US locale is required anymore? Although it is actually pretty sure and you already mentioned such above. Would be just a last test to be 100% sure 😉.

To apply the branch and install Plex:

G_DEV_BRANCH plex
dietpi-software install 42

Last question is if we should apply this to existing ARM installs as well, so reinstall Plex on DietPi update to v6.22 and remove the 3rd party repo? Actually makes sense since the maintainer mentioned that the repo will be dropped as fast as v1.15 is released, which would result in APT errors then. Should be okay also since it is a deb package install only without any config file or data touch.

[WolfganP]

@MichaIng as per discussions at the Plex forum, the official repo + documentation and migration strategy may come up after the weekend, so I suggest to wait a few days.
I tried production PMS v.1.15 by means of manual install, and it works well as far as I could test.

[MichaIng]

@WolfganP
Okay makes sense then to wait for the official migration strategy then. However I will merge Beta v6.22.1 later with current stage (after currently running tests succeed) to allow testing as well other changes. But before release will add migration for existing ARM Plex installs.

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Ui every plug-in now has its own process. Okay hope DietPi-Process_Tool applies for all of them.

[MichaIng]

v1.15 has been pushed to the dev2day repo as well, which will be dropped ~1 month later: https://forums.plex.tv/t/official-pms-for-armv7-what-will-happen-with-this-community-one/372290/21

Official migration guide is still missing. Looks like we will delay reinstall for ARMs to v6.23 as planned release is before repo drop.

I just pushed the new v1.15+ install code to Beta (v6.22.1): #2640

[MichaIng]

Update to official packages seems to be indeed that easy. However we will do that for ARM devices with v6.23 to allow some testing: https://forums.plex.tv/t/official-pms-for-armv7-what-will-happen-with-this-community-one/372290/37

[MichaIng]

Official migration steps are available. Will implement this now for v6.23: #2655

[WolfganP]

Just for reference, this is the official documentation of the new repo https://support.plex.tv/articles/235974187-enable-repository-updating-for-supported-linux-server-distributions/

Caveat: Plex v1.15 series doesn't seem to be compatible/stable with old & 3rd party clients (ie Orca's Sansumg TV), so users may need to stay on v1.14 branch if Plex client is not up to date.

[MichaIng]

@WolfganP

Just for reference, this is the official documentation of the new repo

Jep, I'm following that.

Caveat: Plex v1.15 series doesn't seem to be compatible/stable with old & 3rd party clients (ie Orca's Sansumg TV), so users may need to stay on v1.14 branch if Plex client is not up to date.

Good to know, but nothing we can take care of. We will migrate all users to new APT repo and upgrade them to v1.15 by running dietpi-software reinstall. Aside from this, even with our previous install methods all ARM users would face the same issue (dev2day is on v1.15 as well for a month) and fresh installs anyway.

[MichaIng]

Done: #2722
Luckily very easy, simply remove dev2day package, remove repo and reinstall on top 😃.

I am very happy with this. APT makes things much easier. The v6.22 method to estimate current version/grab package URL from API website relied very much on consistent tags and those changed quite often, as could be seen on the 3rd party updater which required/requires changes quite often: https://github.com/mrworf/plexupdate