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Nice article. I had big plans for using a Raspberry Pi as a Plex Media Server once. The set up was easy, I attached my external HDD and let it scan the librari

Nice article. I had big plans for using a Raspberry Pi as a Plex Media Server once. The set up was easy, I attached my external HDD and let it scan the libraries. My wife and I watched a few movies, it worked perfectly. The next evening when we sat down to watch a movie I saw that Plex couldn't connect to the media server. I went upstairs and attached a monitor to my Raspberry Pi and I saw that Wireless Internet was not working on it. I tried everything and eventually rebooted it and everything worked again. This turned into a daily thing. I followed all sorts of instructions I found on the internet to try and fix the issue, but to no avail. Every day there would come a certain time where the Raspberry Pi would just lose it's Wifi capabilities and a reboot was needed. Sad, because I liked the idea of this small box sitting on the corner of my desk running a media server. This was an older Raspberry Pi, maybe things have improved.

blowski 7y ago
I had a similar problem with an early model of Raspberry Pi, but no problems with the newer one. Definitely worth giving it another go.
- Zenbit_UX 7y ago
  I heard plex server is no longer supported on the Pi's though.
  - twmiller 7y ago
    It’s running on my pi4 down in the basement, no issues.
jumbopapa 7y ago
Why not just setup a cron job to run a reboot command daily?
- op00to 7y ago
  Why not have it just work without having to reboot? The real answer is that the instability that manifests overnight will eventually manifest while you’re watching a movie.
- Fiahil 7y ago
  Why not set up a local kubernetes server and let it handle the reboot ?
xenorplxx 7y ago
Running any server on wifi, even home plex instance, is not a great idea. It's a shame that rPi doesn't support PoE out of the box, that'd mean you could've only 1 cable connected, but it'd manage both network and power.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Really? It's not 2005. Sure something system critical use ethernet. But the idea that it's WiFi that's unreliable is clearly not the case. Something is wrong with the RPI WiFi chip, driver or OS configuration.
  - sliken 7y ago
    Normal homes these days have quite a bit of competition for wifi. Hell even today's watches these days have wifi. Add a kindle, a few security cameras, a few laptops/tablets, a few phones, etc. Then add some crappy/noisy LED bulbs, a cheap microwave, and various consumer electronics and wifi is far from a sure thing for streaming 4k video over... especially for hours at a time. I had some network lag/dropped frames, turns out my stereo receiver was downloading a quite large firmware update. Had me freaked out a bit, I hadn't recorded the mac address. Didn't figure it out till I turned the TV on and saw a dialog asking if it should upgrade. So, yes, generally I'd recommend that anything that's going to consume hours of 4k video be put on ethernet if at all possible.
  - throwaway8941 7y ago
    If you're living in an apartment (like a sizeable chunk of the world's population does), WiFi is absolutely not an option for anything even remotely traffic heavy.
    - pnutjam 7y ago
      2.4 is unusable in my house. I can only reliably use 5.0 ghz
  - newqer 7y ago
    I always try to connect devices that don't move to Ethernet. It saves WiFi bandwidth for "mobile"devices and is extremely stable and the full bandwidth is always available. Things like SmartTV, RPi, Solar Panels, Amplifier, etc. I hate it that Chromecast only has a wireless option. But more on-topic, it shouldn't drop off WiFi just like that.
karatestomp 7y ago
Yeah, you’re gonna want Ethernet for a server. Both ends of a connection being on wifi is asking for flakiness even if there aren’t any problems with the server’s hardware or software.
darkteflon 7y ago
Fwiw, I run an rpi4 4gb as a plex home server over ethernet and it’s been flawless for the two months I’ve had it. I set it up on a lark expecting it to be basically rubbish but turns out that, at least with my media and an LG TV Plex client, it’s never had to transcode a thing. It’s now my only media server. It just sits there in the corner, costs about $5 / month in electricity, faithfully serving up anything I throw at it. On top of that, it also runs my Pihole and a bunch of other services through Docker. Bit of a revelation, really.
Legogris 7y ago
As a free software alternative to Plex, Jellyfin is definitely worth considering. FSF fork of Emby, integrates well with other software like Radarr, Sonarr, Jackett etc. https://jellyfin.org/ https://jellyfin.org/
- mattl 7y ago
  FSF forked Emby?

blowski 7y ago

I had a similar problem with an early model of Raspberry Pi, but no problems with the newer one. Definitely worth giving it another go.

Zenbit_UX 7y ago
I heard plex server is no longer supported on the Pi's though.
- twmiller 7y ago
  It’s running on my pi4 down in the basement, no issues.

jumbopapa 7y ago

Why not just setup a cron job to run a reboot command daily?

op00to 7y ago
Why not have it just work without having to reboot? The real answer is that the instability that manifests overnight will eventually manifest while you’re watching a movie.
Fiahil 7y ago
Why not set up a local kubernetes server and let it handle the reboot ?

xenorplxx 7y ago

Running any server on wifi, even home plex instance, is not a great idea. It's a shame that rPi doesn't support PoE out of the box, that'd mean you could've only 1 cable connected, but it'd manage both network and power.

Jonnax 7y ago
Really? It's not 2005. Sure something system critical use ethernet. But the idea that it's WiFi that's unreliable is clearly not the case. Something is wrong with the RPI WiFi chip, driver or OS configuration.
- sliken 7y ago
  Normal homes these days have quite a bit of competition for wifi. Hell even today's watches these days have wifi. Add a kindle, a few security cameras, a few laptops/tablets, a few phones, etc. Then add some crappy/noisy LED bulbs, a cheap microwave, and various consumer electronics and wifi is far from a sure thing for streaming 4k video over... especially for hours at a time. I had some network lag/dropped frames, turns out my stereo receiver was downloading a quite large firmware update. Had me freaked out a bit, I hadn't recorded the mac address. Didn't figure it out till I turned the TV on and saw a dialog asking if it should upgrade. So, yes, generally I'd recommend that anything that's going to consume hours of 4k video be put on ethernet if at all possible.
- throwaway8941 7y ago
  If you're living in an apartment (like a sizeable chunk of the world's population does), WiFi is absolutely not an option for anything even remotely traffic heavy.
  - pnutjam 7y ago
    2.4 is unusable in my house. I can only reliably use 5.0 ghz
- newqer 7y ago
  I always try to connect devices that don't move to Ethernet. It saves WiFi bandwidth for "mobile"devices and is extremely stable and the full bandwidth is always available. Things like SmartTV, RPi, Solar Panels, Amplifier, etc. I hate it that Chromecast only has a wireless option. But more on-topic, it shouldn't drop off WiFi just like that.

karatestomp 7y ago

Yeah, you’re gonna want Ethernet for a server. Both ends of a connection being on wifi is asking for flakiness even if there aren’t any problems with the server’s hardware or software.

darkteflon 7y ago

Fwiw, I run an rpi4 4gb as a plex home server over ethernet and it’s been flawless for the two months I’ve had it. I set it up on a lark expecting it to be basically rubbish but turns out that, at least with my media and an LG TV Plex client, it’s never had to transcode a thing. It’s now my only media server. It just sits there in the corner, costs about $5 / month in electricity, faithfully serving up anything I throw at it. On top of that, it also runs my Pihole and a bunch of other services through Docker. Bit of a revelation, really.

Legogris 7y ago

As a free software alternative to Plex, Jellyfin is definitely worth considering. FSF fork of Emby, integrates well with other software like Radarr, Sonarr, Jackett etc. https://jellyfin.org/ https://jellyfin.org/

mattl 7y ago
FSF forked Emby?