[speedkills]

Plex is great EXCEPT they don't care about your data. They have refused to provide backup and restore capability for years. Been using Plex for a while and like it so much you want to buy a dedicated device to put Plex on? Say goodbye to your watched shows and movie history.

[soundwave106]

The bulk of the user data (your movies, paths, what you watched) seems to be stored in a com.plexapp.plugins.library.db SQLite file (that you find in Plug-in Support\Databases on the Plex Media Server data storage folder, on Windows it is %LocalAppData%\Plex Media Server and someone linked to a support question with the rest).

So I imagine you can get a pretty solid backup just by using SQLite tools on that one file (though backing up the entire Plex Media Server folder might also be nice to do every now and then to save other things such as plug-in data).

The DB, although obviously undocumented, is also an interesting place to poke around for looking at the data for your own purposes. For instance, it looks like the statistics_media table stores your watched show history.

[arghwhat]

Plex does DB backups. You just tell it where to do it, and it'll do backups at some specified interval.

I haven't tried to restore, but I keep the backup in a separate location.

[givinguflac]

Uh, no? https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201539237-Backing-...

[haylem]

Interesting. That never bothered me, and I've reinstalled Plex quite a few times over the past 2 years. For me it's quick to setup and re-index, so I don't really see an issue with its own data getting lost, as long as it leaves my files alone.

I guess it's because I don't use (or see the need, really) for these features. I mean, I can remember fine what I've already seen and I don't mind clicking through to my next episode when I get back into Plex, and I don't really care to know what I've watched in the past, how many times, or how I rated it.

I'm more bothered by its DLNA server crashing, its occasional screw-ups with multi-audio or multi-subtitle containers, or it's failure to transcode some files (though most of these might be due to the receiver more than Plex).

[nofacade]

It's not the greatest solution as you have to manually run some commands but https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201154527-Move-Vie... has worked for me the multiple times I've moved Plex installs.

[Speakeasys]

I find Serviio works well as well.