Trying to create Plex Server for first time on TrueNas Scale - help needed please

Okay I am trying to get a Plex Media Server working on a custom i5 10500 PC over the week end but I am always running into issues . Some YouTube videos I see are asking me to create the dataset that I am going to be using for PLex as SMB preset and some in APPs preset but whatever I am doing, I must be doing something wrong as whatever I am doing, I can not get the transcoding working on the iGPU, the CPU ends up doing the transcoding. I see in the logs

[FFMPEG] - Failed to initialise VAAPI connection: -1 (unknown libva error).

So I tried all sorts of things suggested by ChatGPT and the Gemini AI, but at this point of time, I think I needs human guidance , and not AI. I am thinking it must be making making some mistake. Can anyone please trow some light on this please. This is my DataSet Sturcture

"MainPool" in the Main Pool made form all my HDDs
Under it is PlexyTime
And under PlexyTime is
Plex_Config
Plex_Transcode ( but for now I have set the transcoding to use tmpfs ( temp directory on RAM to see if it fixes the issues, it did not )
PlexyMedia

Please Media has all my movies etc.

All the folders are created at present are created with SMB share.
Only one user is created - Zuser.

All the above for DataSets/folders have the use zuser added with FullPermission.
The first problem I faced is when I put a sample movie in the PlexMedia folder, nothing was visible, and only when I ran this command as per ChatGTP was the movies visible

chown -R 568:568 /mnt/MainPool/PlexyTime/PlexyMedia

The other things I have dones as per suggestions form chatGPT and GeminiAI are
in Additional Storage I have Added MountPath as /PlexyMedia
and HostPath pointing to mnt/MainPool/Plexytime/PlexyMedia

I have also added two more devices under the Device Section

/dev/dri/renderD128 and
/dev/dri/card0

both under HostDevice and Container Device each.

What could I be doing wrong, kindly advise please.

 

Okay I got so frustrated that late last night I removed the Trunas scall installation completely and installed it fresh, now as it stands it is a complete fresh install, not even a pool is created in it. Any instruction form the learned gurus in here on step by step on how to set up the permission shares on dataset while creating them and etc, so as not to run into the
[FFMPEG] - Failed to initialise VAAPI connection: -1 (unknown libva error).
again ?

 

I feel that you should be posting this on a more specific forum or community. Something like the trunas reddit, or the plex reddit.

 

Thank you very much for your kind suggestion sammy_b0i . Is there a more specific section in this forum you may suggest that is likely more appropriate for my query ? I am thinking of posting this soon on reddit too, so that is a great idea, and I thank you for it.

 

I think your post here is fine, but you are needing someone with pretty specific knowledge of setting up plex on truenas scale. There might only be a handful of people on OCAU who have ever done that, and of those handful, maybe none will be active or willing to go through it in your timeframe. That's why going to a specific community of truenas assistance will probably net you a better outcome.

 

I haven't set up Plex under TrueNAS but have split vitrual iGPU providing HW transcoding running in a Docker container under an Ubuntu VM on Proxmox on an i5 10500. It is a bit of a painful process requiring modifications to GRUB.

My understanding is that TrueNAS runs Plex in Docker so it should be able to do it without the GRUB modifications.

Make sure you have the following in your docker-compose.yml for Plex (not sure if TrueNAS has a GUI option for this or lets you add it)

devices:
- /dev/dri:/dev/dri

There is this post on Reddit which could provide some guidance

https://www.reddit.com/r/truenas/comments/1btg99n/igpu_not_working_with_plex_truenas_scale/

 

I'm not sure you actually need to define the GPU in the Plex 'app' setup section, from memory - I seem to recall it just populating the correct (Intel iGPU) in the Plex transcoder field automagically.

I'll have a look tonight and report back. My CPU is an N305 so a bit weaker, but the process should be the same?

 

Hi Guys, thanks for all the responses, one of my friend was able to remote connect to my Pc and fix my issues. He set everything up from scratch and so far hardware transcoding seems to be working fine. But I thank you all for your kind responses in trying to help me out, it is very much appreciated. If ny new users wants screenshots on how my server is configured running into same problem as me, I will send them over my screenshot backups that I have now taken.

 

Glad you got it working mate!

In case anyone else pops in here, here's the settings I was on about:

This at the bottom-end of the Plex app setup:


And then in the Plex app's own Settings for Transcoding:

 

juzz86, thanks very much for the photos. Unfortunately when I tried those settings by themselves, it did not work for me. My friend had to do more to get it working. Looking at your screenshot gave me the idea to put up my screenshots here too, and I hope that your screenshots along with my will help other users in this forum too should they get stuck like me. The crucial configugrtations were made in the way the Plex app was config on Truenas Community edition ( previously knowns as Truenas Scale). Here is a sanpshot of my settings.
EDIT: for some strange reason the images I uplloaded are getting displayed in the reverse order. to follow my settings, see from last image to the first. Cheers.

 

All the info you need can be found here https://wiki.serversatho.me/plex . It is a great resource for setting up truenas and a lot of apps. It is what I used to get almost all of my apps setup and running.

 

You don't, the setting is only necessary if you have multiple GPUs and want Plex to use a specific one.

It is useful though for checking whether the Plex Docker container is seeing the GPU. If it doesn't appear in the list then it generally means Plex can't use it.