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+--- Thread: Jellyfin Server/Install Vanished - Unable to Recover (/t-jellyfin-server-install-vanished-unable-to-recover)
Jellyfin Server/Install Vanished - Unable to Recover - Talk2Giuseppe - 2025-03-06
I been searching the boards/forums/reddit for clues on what happened to my seemingly stable Jellyfin for weeks now. I finally saw a post on reddit this morning that seems to be close to what I am dealing with, but reddit is wonky and I am unable to engage with the user to figure out how/if they resolved it. I searched the forums here and none of the keywords I used returned a result.
I originally set Jellyfin up on my debian 12 linux server back around October of 2024. As with most applications of this sort, it took some time (a lot of time!) to get things dialed in with user settings, content, plugins, collections, etc. By the end of January, I had stopped adding plugins and any new content. Everything was stable and working wonderfully. I had clients installed on various desktops, tablets, phones and the firestick. The firestick is our main and mostly utilized client.
The installation itself was on docker through a docker compose file. I don't remember where I acquired the compose file - it is likely I pulled it from Jellyfin's own repository. I say that because I remember doing a ton of research on Jellyfin before giving it a go. Tons of video reviews, how-tos, and reading through the github issues tab. The server is a dedicated machine running docker with a variety of home automation and general server related things. It's a linux based machine running Debian 12. All media content is stored on the NAS away from the server.
About two weeks ago, the wife and I decided to watch a movie off JF, whereas we were greeted with a screen that requested we reconnect to the media server. It flashed some code on the screen and I was not in the mood to try and figure WTF was going on. We backed out and simply went over to Prime for the night. The following day I went to login on my desktop and noticed the same - a request to connect to the media server. I then proceeded to confirm that same behavior with all the clients - and it was the same. Each one seemed to have lost sight of the JF server.
I logged into docker (portainer) and did a restart of the container. Repeated the process on all the clients and it was the same outcome - a request to reconnect to the server. I have to say, I was kind of furious with the idea that this may be some kind of security feature forcing a fresh login every 30 days or something.
So I decided to re-establish a connection to the server through the desktop client. I connected to the server and landed at a page that appeared to do a first time config. I was in a state of panic that somehow all my configuration data was lost. I closed the tab and went to search for the Jellyfin folders on the server. I was able to confirm that the data folders were still there along with the plugin data, user data, collections data, etc. That was a relief.
Having experience with software that goes sideways, I figured a reinstall may help restore everything back to normal. I opened the details of the current container in one tab and started to configure a new container in another. I carefully matched the configuration data for ENV, VOLUMES, etc. Once I felt that all the variables were the same, I blew out the faulty container of Jellyfin and after it was removed, created the new one. After that was done - I rebooted the server and ran the tests again. That didn't fix anything. I still had an empty install.
Having noticed that there are several forks of JF in the docker container pull section (whatever it's called), I started to suspect that perhaps the fork I was using (linuxserver:jellyfin) was faulty. So I repeated the steps I did above and choose jellyfin:jellyfin this time around. That didn't fix/restore it either.
Because I can see my previous data, plugins, users, etc - I am hesitant to take the installation any further. I don't want to have the setup data start to overwrite any old data -- if possible. I would simply like to take much of the configuration folders, move them off to the side, and begin to drop them into place on a new install to restore my old configuration. But it doesn't seem likely as the folder/data structure isn't that easy to distinguish - it's hard to know which are program files and what is program data. Some folders are labeled that way, but not all. I realize that all the data talks/links to other data and you can't simply bring one folder over without the others.
This morning, based on another post elsewhere, I decided to follow through the setup process with my admin account. After creating the user, nothing from the previous install related to the admin user restored. Yet I can see files are being updated in the proper/old directories. None of the plugins are appearing within JF, yet they too are still sitting in the plugin folder. I am at a loss as to why JF is not seeing all that stuff and not able to simply come back to life.
Any recommendations? Any ideas? Any questions? Any suggestions - besides, "Start over!" LOL.
--: LOGS. I wish I had the foresight to snag the logs before attempting a restore. Seems the only logs now available are those from the recent re-installation of JF. But what I find odd is that data/config/plugins are still resident. I did attempt to attach them to this post - but a file size restriction isn't allowing them to be uploaded. The file is ~900k. Perhaps a suggestion can be offered to help reduce it's size to 1/4 of it's original size.
Thank you in advance for any all help.
RE: Jellyfin Server/Install Vanished - Unable to Recover - TheDreadPirate - 2025-03-07
Can you share your docker compose?
RE: Jellyfin Server/Install Vanished - Unable to Recover - Talk2Giuseppe - 2025-03-07
(2025-03-07, 01:50 PM)TheDreadPirate Wrote: Can you share your docker compose?
I believe this is the file I used... My working jellyfin folder, this file and some of the media folders are all dated the same.
ver: "27.4"
services:
jellyfin:
image: jellyfin/jellyfin:latest
container_name: jellyfin
user: 1000:1000
network_mode: 'bridge'
ports:
- 8096:8096
volumes:
- /home/admin/Docker/Jellyfin/config
config- /home/admin/Docker/Jellyfin/cache
cache- /media/Professional/Media/Video
media restart: 'unless-stopped'
But as I mentioned, the system crashed with the version linuxserver:jellyfin running. My suspicion/failing memory is that I originally installed jellyfin with the docker compose file above and after exploring the application and creating a mess - I deleted the container and spin up a new one in portainer pulling the linuxserver:jellyfin version.