DQ
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This is not very complicated but there is more to it than one might assume. I know this because I just recently did it. I rebuilt my plex box and decided to not rebuild Plex itself but to restore it. And it's somewhat of a pain and not at all very clean. The backup DB option in Plex would lead you to believe this is all you need. It is not. There are 3 things you need and that is just one of them.
What to backup for Plex:
1) Plex DB from the "scheduled tasks" settings
2) For Windows export a registry entry at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server" (this is different of course for Mac or NAS installs, see article)
3) This one is not required but I found it very handy and a timesaver, backup this cache directory -> "C:\Users\USER_PLEX_IS_RUNNING_UNDER\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Cache"
Restoring goes like this:
1) Install Plex , and then stop it
2) Navigate to "C:\Users\USER_PLEX_IS_RUNNING_UNDER\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Plug-in Support\Databases"
3) Delete the files there. Copy your 2 backup DB files there and rename them so you just take the date off the end so they end in ".db"
4) Import the registry key
5) Again this is optional but copy the cache directory you backed up to the new install's cache directory
6) Start Plex
Here is the Plex documentation for all OS's on this.
I also install Tautulli and PMS. I do take an additional step and setup Tautulli as a service because otherwise it often stops running.
What to backup for Plex:
1) Plex DB from the "scheduled tasks" settings
2) For Windows export a registry entry at "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Plex, Inc.\Plex Media Server" (this is different of course for Mac or NAS installs, see article)
3) This one is not required but I found it very handy and a timesaver, backup this cache directory -> "C:\Users\USER_PLEX_IS_RUNNING_UNDER\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Cache"
Restoring goes like this:
1) Install Plex , and then stop it
2) Navigate to "C:\Users\USER_PLEX_IS_RUNNING_UNDER\AppData\Local\Plex Media Server\Plug-in Support\Databases"
3) Delete the files there. Copy your 2 backup DB files there and rename them so you just take the date off the end so they end in ".db"
4) Import the registry key
5) Again this is optional but copy the cache directory you backed up to the new install's cache directory
6) Start Plex
Here is the Plex documentation for all OS's on this.
Code:
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201539237-backing-up-plex-media-server-data/
https://support.plex.tv/articles/202485658-restore-a-database-backed-up-via-scheduled-tasks/I also install Tautulli and PMS. I do take an additional step and setup Tautulli as a service because otherwise it often stops running.
Code:
https://tautulli.com/
https://github.com/cjmurph/PmsService