Synology Plex Library 'Not authorized' Troubleshooting

3 min read •

Why has my Plex stopped working?

After a two-week trip away, I sat down to watch something on my Apple TV using Plex. To my horror, two of my libraries that were hosted from my Synology were showing yellow warning symbols and couldn’t be used, displaying a message: "Not authorized, you do not have access to this server."

After digging around in a few forums, I managed to find a way to fix this. All that’s needed is a computer with access to the Synology hosting Plex.

Stop the Plex server on your Synology:

  1. In the Synology web DSM interface, open Package Center
  2. Find Plex via search or browse
  3. Click on the box with the application name – not the Open button – this will open the package’s full detail page
  4. Click the dropdown next to the Open button and select Stop. Hit Yes on the confirmation dialog
  5. Leave this page open — we’ll need it later

Remove stored preferences for your account:

  1. Access your Synology’s file system in a way that allows you to edit a text-based file. I used a Mac with the Synology mounted as a network drive so I could access all files
  2. Find the Plex Preferences.xml file. For me, this was located at:
    smb://<MY-NAS-NAME>._smb._tcp.local/PlexMediaServer/AppData/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml
  3. Open Preferences.xml in a text editor and delete the following items and their associated values:
    • PlexOnlineHome
    • PlexOnlineMail
    • PlexOnlineToken
    • PlexOnlineUsername
      Save the file

Reclaim your Plex Server:

  1. Restart your Plex server in Synology Package Center by clicking the Run button on the detail page we left open
  2. Go to your Plex server’s web address (click the Open button in Package Center if you haven’t bookmarked it)
  3. Navigate to one of the libraries your Plex server hosts — you should see an option to claim the server using your Plex account. Follow this process
  4. Once claimed, I got another warning about access — but simply refreshing the page removed it

I’m not sure what caused this, and I’ve seen plenty of questions and answers on message boards about the issue. In my case, since the server was off for over two weeks, I wonder if a token in my Plex account was rotated and not updated on the server? I even tried mangling the token to recreate the error, but just got a “no server” message instead. I guess I’ll find out the next time I go on holiday!

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