Troubleshooting

Prowlarr won’t connect

• Make sure Prowlarr is running. In Docker, check with docker ps.
• Verify PROWLARR_URL points to the right address. In Docker, this is http://prowlarr:9696 internally.
• If you’re on bare metal, make sure the API key in Settings matches the one in Prowlarr’s UI under Settings > General > API Key.

No search results

• Check that you have indexers configured in Settings. Without indexers, Prowlarr has nothing to search.
• Some indexers require FlareSolverr to bypass Cloudflare. Make sure FlareSolverr is running if you’re using protected indexers.
• Try increasing the timeout or lowering the minimum seeder count.

Video won’t play

• Plank transcodes incompatible formats (MKV, AVI) to MP4 on the fly. This requires FFmpeg.
• On bare metal, make sure FFmpeg is installed: ffmpeg -version.
• If a video is stuck, try using the retry/redownload option on the media’s detail page.

Downloads are slow

• Torrent speed depends on the number of seeders. Try a different torrent source with more seeders.
• Using a VPN is recommended for privacy, but some VPNs throttle torrent traffic. Check your VPN’s settings.
• Port 6881 (torrent) needs to be accessible for best performance. In Docker, this is mapped automatically.

Docker containers won’t start

• Check logs: docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml logs.
• Make sure ports 3300, 9696, 8191, and 6881 aren’t already in use.
• Verify your .env file exists and has valid values.

Database errors

• Run migrations: npx drizzle-kit migrate (bare metal) or restart the Docker container (migrations run on startup).
• If the database is corrupted, you can delete plank.db and restart. This will reset all data. You will lose access to your media, and will need to delete the /data directory as we currently dont have a recovery option if the database is nuked.

Health check

Plank exposes a health endpoint at /health. Use it to verify the server is running:

curl http://localhost:3300/health