(2024-07-21, 05:25 PM)TheDreadPirate Wrote: The problem is that the Jellyfin server generates a unique ID.  When you reinstall from scratch it generates another unique ID and the clients don't like that.  You should be backing up /var/lib/jellyfin and /etc/jellyfin and restoring those directories and resetting the file permissions.  This will preserve the unique ID.

(2024-07-28, 12:36 AM)TheDreadPirate Wrote: Here is what I did to backup and restore my Jellyfin completely.

Code:

mkdir -p /path/to/backup/drive/jellyfin
cd /path/to/backup/drive/jellyfin
mkdir jellyfinEtc jellyfinVar jellyfinCache
sudo rsync -a -p --progress /etc/jellyfin jellyfinEtc/
sudo rsync -a -p --progress /var/lib/jellyfin jellyfinVar/
sudo rsync -a -p --progress /var/cache/jellyfin jellyfinCache/

NOT putting a slash at the end of the SOURCE path is important.  Without the slash rsync will pull the entire directory, including hidden files and folders.  If you put a /* at the end of the source path it would not grab hidden folders and files.

To simulate a fresh OS install

Code:

sudo apt purge jellyfin*

To reinstall

Code:

curl https://repo.jellyfin.org/install-debuntu.sh | sudo bash

To restore

Code:

sudo systemctl stop jellyfin
cd /etc
sudo rsync -a -p --progress /path/to/backup/drive/jellyfin/jellyfinEtc/jellyfin .
cd /var/lib
sudo rsync -a -p --progress /path/to/backup/drive/jellyfin/jellyfinVar/jellyfin .
cd /var/cache
sudo rsync -a -p --progress /path/to/backup/drive/jellyfin/jellyfinCache/jellyfin .
sudo chown -R jellyfin /var/lib/jellyfin /var/cache/jellyfin /etc/jellyfin
sudo systemctl start jellyfin

None of my clients had to re-login.

(2024-08-04, 12:41 PM)Efficient_Good_5784 Wrote: Any reason you're not at least preserving the old Jellyfin config folder?
Do you need to clear out your Jellyfin settings when you clear everything off of your computer?

I'm using containers for my Jellyfin server, and when I update Jellyfin, all I have to do is download the new image and link it a copy of the old config folder.
After that, the container starts and all my clients work as before with no re-logging in needed.

Also, the cache folder shouldn't matter here for your issue.

(2024-08-04, 02:54 PM)raulo1985 Wrote: Thanks for your reply. Sorry, but what do you mean by preserving the old Jellyfin config folder? You mean the one that was in the .config folder? I understand that Jellyfin doesn’t use it anymore (and I don’t see it either), and that all the config files are now located in the etc and var folders. So I thought that backing up and restoring those two folders, there weren’t other folders that need restoring.

(2024-08-04, 08:15 PM)Efficient_Good_5784 Wrote:

(2024-08-04, 02:54 PM)raulo1985 Wrote: Thanks for your reply. Sorry, but what do you mean by preserving the old Jellyfin config folder? You mean the one that was in the .config folder? I understand that Jellyfin doesn’t use it anymore (and I don’t see it either), and that all the config files are now located in the etc and var folders. So I thought that backing up and restoring those two folders, there weren’t other folders that need restoring.

It's a bit different when you're dealing with containers. Jellyfin will create a config folder and use that for all configuration.

In your case, you should preserve both /var/lib/jellyfin & /etc/jellyfin.

You should have your server restored by backing up those two directories and adding them back on the new install.