Transferring Ubuntu 23.04 to Debian 12

[pixel24]

Hi all,
My current Jellyfin (10.8.13) is running on an Ubuntu Server 23.04 (Proxmox VM). Unfortunately, it was installed with:

• / xfs
  
• /var xfs
  

This system cannot be upgraded to a higher version because /boot must be on ext4. Since Jellyfin 10.9 does not support this OS, I have decided to install a new system with Debian 12.5, which I have already done.
On the Debian VM, I have already installed Jellyfin 10.9.4. The libraries are on a central file server and are mounted on the new Debian the same way as on the old Ubuntu. The paths to the libraries are absolutely identical.

As far as I can see, the file structure (XML files) of the playlists has changed in Jellyfin 10.9.
Is there a way to migrate the playlists from the Ubuntu server to the Debian server so that they work correctly there?

with best

[pcm]

The playlists stored as XML files. A typical linux installation stores these playlists within the data directory.

/var/lib/jellyfin/data/playlists

Each playlist is a directory with the playlist name and a playlist.xml file within that directory.

So, if you have a playlist called 'metallica' you would have a directory like

/var/lib/jellyfin/data/playlists/metallica

with a

/var/lib/jellyfin/data/playlists/metallica/playlist.xml

file in it and this xml file will contain all the individual files and their paths as PlayListItems.

So, if your paths are identical, you can simply copy the entire

/var/lib/jellyfin/data/playlists

directory over to your debian-jellyfin server and you should be good.

NOTE: You may probably need to restart your server for it to detect the copied over playlists ...

[TheDreadPirate]

If the server is an apt package install, just copy over /var/lib/jellyfin and /etc/jellyfin. Once you finished moving them to the new Debian VM, sudo chown -R jellyfin: /var/lib/jellyfin /etc/jellyfin.

[pixel24]

Thank you. I will test it as soon as the media scan (audio normalization) is finished. This has been running since yesterday and shows no progress. I will open a separate post for this.

I had already tried the simple copying of /var/lib/jellyfin/data/playlists from 10.8.13 to 10.9.x with the beta version. That didn't work back then because the structure of the XML files had probably changed.

I will try it again.

[pixel24]

One more question on this topic. Are the playlists converted to the new XML structure during an update from 10.8.13 to 10.9.4?

[TheDreadPirate]

AFAIK, yes. During the beta my playlist was busted on my test instance. But after the 10.9.1 update all my playlists worked.