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Troubleshooting

Common problems and how to fix them.

Port and Connectivity

Web UI or API is not reachable

  1. Confirm DaCollector is running. On Windows, check Task Manager or the tray icon. In Docker, run docker compose ps.
  2. Confirm no other process owns port 38111: powershell Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 38111 -State Listen
  3. Confirm the firewall allows the port: powershell netsh advfirewall firewall show rule name="DaCollector" Add it if missing: powershell netsh advfirewall firewall add rule name="DaCollector" dir=in action=allow protocol=TCP localport=38111
  4. If you changed the port, confirm you are using the correct value in the URL and that DACOLLECTOR_PORT matches.

Server starts but the Web UI returns 404

The webui folder is missing from the publish output. Confirm the publish step ran correctly and that webui/ is present in the same directory as DaCollector.exe.

Docker Networking

Container is running but http://127.0.0.1:38111 does not respond

  1. Confirm the port mapping is 38111:38111 in docker-compose.yml: powershell docker compose ps
  2. Confirm Docker Desktop is running and the container is in the running state, not exited.
  3. Try the container's IP directly if the localhost mapping has an issue: powershell docker inspect dacollector --format '{{.NetworkSettings.IPAddress}}'

Plex on the Docker host is unreachable from inside the container

Use host.docker.internal instead of 127.0.0.1 or localhost:

PLEX_TARGET_BASE_URL: "http://host.docker.internal:32400"

The extra_hosts entry in the Compose file maps this to the Docker host gateway:

extra_hosts:
  - "host.docker.internal:host-gateway"

Container appears stuck on first boot

See the TrueNAS and ZFS section for ownership repair stalls. The startup log should show Ownership of ... repaired or Ownership ... is correct before the server starts.

Plex Token

How to find your Plex token

Method 1 — From an item URL in Plex Web:

  1. Open Plex Web and click any movie or show.
  2. Click the three-dot menu and choose Get Info.
  3. Look at the URL bar — it contains X-Plex-Token=<value>.

Method 2 — From the Plex API:

While signed into Plex Web, open the network tab in browser developer tools and look for a request to plex.tv/users/sign_in.json. The token appears in the JSON response as authToken.

Method 3 — From a Plex config file (Linux/Docker Plex):

cat "/var/lib/plexmediaserver/Library/Application Support/Plex Media Server/Preferences.xml" | grep -o 'PlexOnlineToken="[^"]*"'

Token is rejected by DaCollector

  • Confirm the token has not expired. Tokens tied to a Plex Home managed account or a shared library may have restricted access.
  • Test directly: text http://127.0.0.1:32400/identity?X-Plex-Token=<your-token> A 200 response with server name confirms the token is valid.
  • Confirm PLEX_TARGET_BASE_URL uses the correct host and port. Use http://, not https://, for local Plex on the LAN.

DaCollector can read libraries but collections do not apply

  • Confirm the token belongs to a Plex administrator, not a managed user.
  • Confirm PLEX_TARGET_SECTION_KEY is set to the numeric section key from: text http://127.0.0.1:32400/library/sections?X-Plex-Token=<your-token>
  • Confirm the collection sync was called with apply=true.

Provider Credentials

TMDB collection builders return no results

  • Confirm TMDB_API_KEY is set and not empty.
  • Test the key directly: text https://api.themoviedb.org/3/configuration?api_key=<your-key> A 200 response confirms the key is valid.
  • Confirm DaCollector was restarted after setting the key — environment variables are read at startup.

TVDB collection builders fail with "API key not configured"

  • Confirm TVDB_API_KEY is set and not empty.
  • If you have a subscriber PIN, set TVDB_PIN as well.
  • Check the server log for the exact error. A 401 from TVDB means the key or PIN is wrong. A missing-key error means the setting was not picked up at startup.

SQLite Startup

Server log shows migration errors or database blocked state

  1. Stop DaCollector completely.
  2. Back up the data directory before changing anything.
  3. Confirm no other DaCollector process is running — two processes opening the same SQLite file will block each other.
  4. Check for a .lock or -journal file in the SQLite folder and remove it only if the server is confirmed stopped.
  5. Restart DaCollector and watch the startup log for the migration that fails.

Clean first-boot test

To verify a clean first boot with no prior data:

$env:DACOLLECTOR_HOME = "$env:TEMP\DaCollector-verify"
Remove-Item $env:DACOLLECTOR_HOME -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
.\DaCollector.exe

The server should create the SQLite databases, run all migrations in order, and reach ready state without errors. After verifying, delete the temporary directory.

For Docker:

docker compose down
docker volume rm dacollector_dacollector-data
docker compose up -d
docker compose logs -f dacollector

Remove the volume only when you intentionally want to reset the test instance.

First-Boot and Ownership Issues (Docker)

Container starts slowly or log shows "Starting ownership repair..."

The container is running a recursive chown on the data directory. On a large ZFS dataset (TrueNAS), this can take several minutes.

Quickest fix: match PUID and PGID to the dataset owner so the check passes immediately:

stat -c '%u:%g' /mnt/your-pool/dacollector-data

Set the matching values in docker-compose.yml:

PUID: "1000"
PGID: "1000"

Alternative: skip the repair entirely for ACL-managed datasets:

SKIP_CHOWN: "true"

See TrueNAS and ZFS for more detail.

Server log shows "PluginManager" NullReferenceException

This was caused by an invalid local build version (0.0.0-local) and is fixed as of commit becf507. If you see it on a current build, confirm your Dockerfile and compose.yaml use version: 0.0.1-local or later as the default build arg.

Log Locations

Platform Log path
Windows C:\ProgramData\DaCollector\logs\
Windows (custom home) %DACOLLECTOR_HOME%\logs\
Docker (recommended setup) ./logs/ next to docker-compose.yml on the host — bind-mounted from inside the container
Docker (fallback) docker compose logs dacollector streams container stdout (entrypoint messages); for full server logs use docker exec dacollector ls /home/dacollector/.dacollector/DaCollector/logs/

The server log captures startup, migration, job, and error output. Always read the log before opening a bug report.