windows server crashed

[gimpacause 3]

Hi All my windows server has crashed (major hardware failure) the os drive is still good

without the ability to run any form of backup script how would i go about getting all the information from emby and copying it over to my main ubuntu server,

and will this keep watched statuses and favoourites

 

many thanks

 

Ben

[Abobader 3464]

Hello gimpacause,

** This is an auto reply **

Please wait for someone from staff support or our members to reply to you.

It's recommended to provide more info, as it explain in this thread:

Thank you.

Emby Team

[Carlo 4561]

Hi check out this KB article about half way down for manual backups

https://emby.media/support/articles/Backup.html

Let us know how you make out or if you need additional info or help,
Carlo

Edited November 6, 2025 by GrimReaper
KB article link updated

[pwhodges 2012]

If you are intending to run Emby now on your Ubuntu server, you'll have work to do.

You could simply copy the database and so on to another Windows server and have it just work, but only if all the library paths are exactly the same as before.  As Windows has drive letters and Ubuntu doesn't, this cannot be possible when moving from Windows to Ubuntu.

The article Carlo linked touches on that.

If you have another Windows machine that you could use for a temporary install (meeting the path requirements for the libraries) you could consider copying to there, bringing it up and then making a backup which might be easier to transfer to the Ubuntu machine.

Paul

[Carlo 4561]

10 hours ago, gimpacause said:

Hi All my windows server has crashed (major hardware failure) the os drive is still good
Ben

What happened, did you have a bad drive?  What info did you lose on the Server?

1 hour ago, pwhodges said:

If you are intending to run Emby now on your Ubuntu server, you'll have work to do.

...

If you have another Windows machine that you could use for a temporary install (meeting the path requirements for the libraries) you could consider copying to there, bringing it up and then making a backup which might be easier to transfer to the Ubuntu machine.

Paul

If you aren't pretty familiar with ubuntu I'd agree with Paul and say to stand up another Windows server even if it's just for the short term.  This will make coping folders and drive mapping much easier to get back up to speed faster.

Let us know how we can assist you in this troubling situation.

[gimpacause 3]

hi guys I am very familiar with ubuntu been running this server for well over 10 years, however due to other software requirements (that were running on the old windows box) I went and grabbed an intel NUC (alot more powerful than the 3770 my old box had) with a 1TB nvme SSD  that i will put emby on, i have just copied my old windows install across to one of my work stations, and I am now in the processes of setting up the NUC and dragging the old Emby system across to it, 

will let you know how it all goes, hopefully will be completed in a few hours

 

thanks

[gimpacause 3]

hi guys I managed to get the old windows server drive booting on my test bench and emby started , all network shares showed up and i performed a backup,
backup is currently restoring on the NUC, will let you know how it goes

[Luke 42078]

Thanks for the feedback. Let us know how you get on. Thanks.

[gimpacause 3]

Hi Luke,

 

sorry for the delayed response ,

 

so 2 weeks on and everything seems to be working fine, except auto scanning and updating of libraries no longer works (or most likely i broke it somehow)

a bit of background

my NAS is a dedicated ubuntu box, that pretty much has only the horsepower to run and manage my raid devices and one or two services,
for all "frontend" work I am now running a intel i7 NUC with 32 gig of ram and a 2TB nvme SSD, (this eclipses my old 3770 windows box) these are linked over a 10 gig copper switch
my old emby install had no issue scanning files on the ubuntu box as they dropped ( I cannot remember how i had them setup, whether pointing directly to the ubuntu machine or pointing to a mapped network drive in windows 10) 

 

currently i have them set up pointing to \\<ipadress>\Media\<content type>\

but now i have to manually trigger library updates, and these are taking ages (like 2 hours on new server vs 10 minutes on the older windows box) any idea's

would it be better to point emby to the mapped network drive within windows so it would now be  Z:\Media\<content type>\ instead of the ip of the NAS

the windows box has full control over the ubuntu machine can read/write and make any required changes from an administrative perspective, this is the last piece of the puzzle to bring everything back to how it was

i still have the old windows box's hdd so if needed i can any relevant files/logs for comparison

thank you for your help

Edited June 3, 2021 by gimpacause

[Carlo 4561]

Hi, If you change the mapping Emby will have to rescan all files on the new path and drop files from the old path.

With the current method of mapping does your system not find new files during the nightly scan?

[gimpacause 3]

Hi Cayars no, on current setup no new media is updated unless I manually trigger a manual library scan, I did notice emby server has done an update, upon seeing this I can no longer access any media and i see alot of errors in the log, I will go through them when i get home, I do have an auto matic backup of the server happening every 6 hours, so if I have to nuke this install shouldn't be to much of an issue

embyserver.txt

Edited June 4, 2021 by gimpacause

[Carlo 4561]

Did you reset back up on Windows again?

[Luke 42078]

6 hours ago, gimpacause said:

Hi Cayars no, on current setup no new media is updated unless I manually trigger a manual library scan, I did notice emby server has done an update, upon seeing this I can no longer access any media and i see alot of errors in the log, I will go through them when i get home, I do have an auto matic backup of the server happening every 6 hours, so if I have to nuke this install shouldn't be to much of an issue

embyserver.txt 201.73 kB · 1 download

Hi, those errors in the log are nothing to worry about. What do you mean by "can no longer access media" ?

[gimpacause 3]

Hi Luke

When I or anyone else opens emby all we can see is 

My Media, and nothing else, can't see latest TV/Movies or Continue Watching, clicking on Collections/Movies/TV 

Does nothing just sits there

I did let it sit for about 15 minutes from another PC on the network (Web browser) and everything showed up, clicked on a movie started playing instantly and the screen froze, I could still see and click the OSD Buttons but nothing happens on each input

Checking both systems (The NAS & Windows PC Running Emby) they don't seem to be using any CPU/RAM/DISK 

Here's some photos from several device's 

I have so far checked my network infrastructure speed and couldn't see any issues

 

Thanks, 

Ben

[gimpacause 3]

Hi Cayars, yes set up on a new Intel NUC and restored the latest backup from my old Windows system, the new system (besides hardware) has had its software set up in the same way (restored from network backup) what I could and then manually compared and set up the same as the old server 

[Carlo 4561]

Try running a full library scan.

Also check your home page settings as you can change what shows up that way.

[gimpacause 3]

hi cayars, started a full library scan a few minutes after your post, its about 95% done (this is very slow compared to other times) looking in other threads I have confirmed extract thumbnails gtom media files is DISABLED

 

I have also noticed quite a few TV shows are also missing from the library when i can get it load, I'll leave it for now and let it complete the library scan and report back what happens, thanks for all the help

Edited June 5, 2021 by gimpacause

[Luke 42078]

Let us know that it looks like once the scan is complete. Thanks.

[gimpacause 3]

Hi Luke everything appears to be back and running normally, can't test it all at the moment due to my NAS doing its monthly RAID resync/Check, I will mark as solved once I can play around with it a bit, thank you all for the help thus far

[Luke 42078]

Thanks for the feedback.