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Thursday, July 13, 2023

Synology with Plex Media Server Unable to Browse Folder

So you have a Synology NAS. Great!

If you are like me who thinks that the Video Station from Synology isn't good enough and uses Plex. Fantastic!

However, if you like to have more function for the Plex Server such as RBAC (Role base access), live streaming of shows from Plex, etc. you might have to get a Plex Pass (their membership program). 

They come in a monthly, yearly and lifetime. You can check it out here. If you are not in an hurry, wait for Black Friday which falls on the 4th Friday after Thanks Giving every November. This year it falls on the 24th Nov 2023. That is when you might likely get a 50% discount off the lifetime Plex Pass which I got previously many years back. Trust me its worth it.

For Synology, you can just download the Plex Server binary here, and use Package Center to manually install it. Do choose the right package depending you are on the old DSM 6.x or new DSM 7.x.


So once you have Plex setup, you will want to map your existing Movies, Photos or even TV Shows folders. However, you might end up not able to let Plex Server browse it. Here is why.

Plex create a system, internal user, "PlexMediaServer". You will need to grant this user to permission to your media folders.


Hope this helps in case you encounter the same issue like me. I do forgot about this critical step all the time. So am recording this down for my future reference. :)