Plex Media Server Occasionally Crashes...I "fixed" it with AI

Operating Systems & Open Source
1

So, every once and a while I will get in bed, turn on my TV and go to watch some mundane reruns of a show before I go to sleep. But it doesn’t work, my Plex server has crashed. I’m too lazy to figure out why this happened, so I simply restart the program, go back to bed and watch TV.

It happened to me again tonight. I’m still too lazy to figure out why it happens. I’ll go months without the problem, and sometimes it happens twice a week. With rolling releases, who has the time? It could be the same problem reoccurring, or a new one causing the crash. IDK.

In any case, I asked OpenAI Chat ChatGPT (openai.com) to help me. The AI wrote this script for Windows. I just made the batch file, copied the text over and set it to start on Startup. Here comes John Connors…

@echo off

rem Set the directory where the log file will be saved
set logdir=C:\plex_monitor

rem Create the log directory if it does not exist
if not exist "%logdir%" mkdir "%logdir%"

:loop

rem Get the current date and time
for /f "tokens=1-6 delims= " %%a in ('date /t') do set date=%%a%%b%%c
for /f "tokens=1-3 delims=:" %%a in ('time /t') do set time=%%a%%b%%c

rem Check if the Plex Media Server is running
tasklist | find "Plex Media Server" > nul
if errorlevel 1 (
    rem The Plex Media Server is not running

    rem Check if the Plex Media Server.exe process is running
    tasklist | find "Plex Media Server.exe" > nul
    if errorlevel 1 (
        rem The Plex Media Server.exe process is not running
        echo %date% %time% Plex Media Server is not running. Will relaunch it now. >> "%logdir%\plex_monitor.txt"

        rem Relaunch the Plex Media Server
        start "Plex Media Server" "C:\Program Files\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Media Server.exe"
        echo %date% %time% Plex Media Server has been relaunched. >> "%logdir%\plex_monitor.txt"
    )
)

rem Wait for 5 minutes before checking if the Plex Media Server is still running
timeout /t 300

rem Loop back to the beginning of the script
goto loop

What’s scarier, is that I then asked it to re-write the script in Python. and it did… I haven’t tested the Python version, but the batch file works fine :slight_smile:

import os
import time
import subprocess

# Set the directory where the log file will be saved
logdir = r"C:\plex_monitor"

# Create the log directory if it does not exist
if not os.path.exists(logdir):
    os.mkdir(logdir)

while True:
    # Get the current date and time
    date = time.strftime("%Y%m%d")
    curr_time = time.strftime("%H%M%S")

    # Check if the Plex Media Server is running
    result = subprocess.run(["tasklist"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, encoding="utf-8")
    if "Plex Media Server" not in result.stdout:
        # The Plex Media Server is not running

        # Check if the Plex Media Server.exe process is running
        result = subprocess.run(["tasklist"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, encoding="utf-8")
        if "Plex Media Server.exe" not in result.stdout:
            # The Plex Media Server.exe process is not running
            with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server is not running. Will relaunch it now.\n")

            # Relaunch the Plex Media Server
            subprocess.run(["start", "Plex Media Server", r"C:\Program Files\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Media Server.exe"])
            with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server has been relaunched.\n")

    # Wait for 5 minutes before checking if the Plex Media Server is still running
    time.sleep(300)

Finally, and this is going to give me nightmares…
I asked it to re-qrite the script to support both Windows and Ubuntu Linux. The only information I gave it was to change the output directory of the log file…

import os
import time
import subprocess

# Set the directory where the log file will be saved
if os.name == "nt":  # Windows
    logdir = r"C:\plex_monitor"
else:  # Linux
    logdir = r"/var/log/plex_monitor"

# Create the log directory if it does not exist
if not os.path.exists(logdir):
    os.mkdir(logdir)

while True:
    # Get the current date and time
    date = time.strftime("%Y%m%d")
    curr_time = time.strftime("%H%M%S")

    # Check if the Plex Media Server is running
    if os.name == "nt":  # Windows
        result = subprocess.run(["tasklist"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, encoding="utf-8")
        if "Plex Media Server" not in result.stdout:
            # The Plex Media Server is not running

            # Check if the Plex Media Server.exe process is running
            result = subprocess.run(["tasklist"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, encoding="utf-8")
            if "Plex Media Server.exe" not in result.stdout:
                # The Plex Media Server.exe process is not running
                with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                    f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server is not running. Will relaunch it now.\n")

                # Relaunch the Plex Media Server
                subprocess.run(["start", "Plex Media Server", r"C:\Program Files\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Media Server.exe"])
                with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                    f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server has been relaunched.\n")
    else:  # Linux
        result = subprocess.run(["ps", "-aux"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, encoding="utf-8")
        if "plexmediaserver" not in result.stdout:
            # The Plex Media Server is not running
            with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server is not running. Will relaunch it now.\n")

            # Relaunch the Plex Media Server
            subprocess.run(["service", "plexmediaserver", "start"])
            with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server has been relaunched.\n")

    # Wait for 5 minutes before checking if the Plex Media Server is still running
    time.sleep(300)
1 Like
2

I asked it if it could send email…

import os
import time
import subprocess
import smtplib
from email.mime.text import MIMEText

# Set the directory where the log file will be saved
if os.name == "nt":  # Windows
    logdir = r"C:\plex_monitor"
else:  # Linux
    logdir = r"/var/log/plex_monitor"

# Create the log directory if it does not exist
if not os.path.exists(logdir):
    os.mkdir(logdir)

while True:
    # Get the current date and time
    date = time.strftime("%Y%m%d")
    curr_time = time.strftime("%H%M%S")

    # Check if the Plex Media Server is running
    if os.name == "nt":  # Windows
        result = subprocess.run(["tasklist"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, encoding="utf-8")
        if "Plex Media Server" not in result.stdout:
            # The Plex Media Server is not running

            # Check if the Plex Media Server.exe process is running
            result = subprocess.run(["tasklist"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, encoding="utf-8")
            if "Plex Media Server.exe" not in result.stdout:
                # The Plex Media Server.exe process is not running
                with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                    f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server is not running. Will relaunch it now.\n")

                # Relaunch the Plex Media Server
                subprocess.run(["start", "Plex Media Server", r"C:\Program Files\Plex\Plex Media Server\Plex Media Server.exe"])
                with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                    f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server has been relaunched.\n")

                # Send email notification
                sender = "[email protected]"
                recipient = "[email protected]"
                subject = "Plex Media Server restarted"
                body = f"The Plex Media Server has been restarted at {date} {curr_time}."

                msg = MIMEText(body)
                msg["From"] = sender
                msg["To"] = recipient
                msg["Subject"] = subject

                server = smtplib.SMTP("smtp.example.com")
                server.send_message(msg)
                server.quit()
    else:  # Linux
        result = subprocess.run(["ps", "-aux"], stdout=subprocess.PIPE, encoding="utf-8")
        if "plexmediaserver" not in result.stdout:
            # The Plex Media Server is not running
            with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server is not running. Will relaunch it now.\n")

            # Relaunch the Plex Media Server
            subprocess.run(["service", "plexmediaserver", "start"])
            with open(os.path.join(logdir, "plex_monitor.txt"), "a") as f:
                f.write(f"{date} {curr_time} Plex Media Server has been relaunched.\n")

            # Send email notification
            sender = "[email protected]"
            recipient = "[email protected]"
            subject = "Plex Media Server restarted"
            body = f"The Plex Media Server has been restarted at {date} {curr_time}."

            msg = MIMEText(body)
            msg["From"] = sender
            msg["To"] = recipient
            msg["Subject"] = subject

            server = smtplib.SMTP("smtp.example.com")
            server.send_message(msg)
            server.quit()

    # Wait for 5 minutes before checking if the Plex Media Server is still running
    time.sleep(300)
3

Yeah, what this chatbot can do seems truly amazing lul.

Gotta make an account so I can play with it too.

Seems like google except far in a way better (except when it does not work). Well see how much success I have with it.

4

A friend has around a decades experience using something called SAS. I asked the AI a question on how to do a code that’s intermediate experience level. When it churned out the answer, they just said, “Wow”. Followed by, “sign me up to access when you’ve got a moment!”.