Welcome in. This thread is the front door of d/sparkbox, so if you are new here, say hello. A few things people like to share: - Who you are, in a sentence or two. - What your box is (NAS, mini PC, old laptop, a VM somewhere) and what you run on it, or plan to run. - What you self-host for. Photos, movies, getting off the big clouds, a home lab to learn on, keeping your family's stuff in the house. All of it counts. Free or Legend does not matter here. Nobody is checking. A box that runs one app is as welcome as a rack. Please reply in this thread rather than starting a new post, so introductions stay in one place and people can find each other. If you have a problem to solve, that gets its own post and Chris or someone here will pick it up. Glad you are here.
33 replies
Ashford wrote:
Hello everyone. French Ashford here, I do a boring work and I just bought a Ugreen DXP4800 with only 1 disk for now, because my old laptop that I used as a server died so It was time to get a real NAS and not a shitty 8years old laptop ! I plan on buying 3more 8TB disk as soon as money permits i, and I use it mainly for Movies and series for my family. I'll add some photo storage when I get all 4 disks in, and probably try to also store some music to use with Finamp !
Wildwood32 wrote:
Hello Demox/Sparkbox community. Courtney (Male) state employed on thee West Coasst trying to afford life with homelab to cut out paying for I have for little to nothing, and loving it all. UGREEN Nas DXP4800 40tb 1tb SSD mwdia stack/ pinchflat/ersatv/immich/nextcloud/grafana, prometheus/plex/syncthing Raspberry Pi 4b Mobile server in my Truck camper, running plex (without media center) kiwix/ file server/ and some other light weight apps for offline use (cellular backup) Potential 3rd and final. 2012 Mac Mini running ubuntu server 16gb Ram/ 500gb ssd as strictly for the Local AI app. I do this to keep some money in the pocket, keeps me out of trouble and is great hobby for people who want to make the time forit.
mrga wrote:
Hello Demox/Sparkbox comunity. Mrga , bussiness owner here from Serbia. I am using Sparkbox because I wanted to make my own server for years , even trying to do so , and now finaly I manege to do some good stuff. I was using synology and now i stop using it , gone to linux server with SparkBox , made Nextcloud working for my team to colaborate OnlyOffice , personal chat with matrix (that I still having problem with shuting down) and sharing files trought team.
hulkberry wrote:
Hey everybody, I call myself Hulkberry, 38years, male, from Germany. I am pretty much a rookie in regards of using Linux and homelabing (I only switched from ms win to Bazzite like, 6 month ago), but my experience so far has been great. I'm looking forward to all the exchange with the other homelab nerds on here, and I really like the sparkbox project so far. Great job, Tom!! I treated myself with a UGREEN DXP6800 Pro, and stuffed it with second hand 6TB IronWolf HDDs, which were hard to acquire in this day and age. My Sparkbox's goal is to replace as many of the known paid services as possible, not only for me but also a small circle of family and friends (i.e. some cloud storage per user, Jellyfin/Seerr, Navidrome, Immich etc...), so I have a lot of work and learning in front of me :)
tomspark wrote:
Hey Wild / Courtney! Thanks for the introduction. Love your setup. Using all your devices is quite good. I myself have a strange collection of devices! I even bought this weird linux handheld and was using it to do the AI support here for a week or so Lol!
tomspark wrote:
Hey! I'm running my sparkbox on my ugreen device too! The same one! It's actually partly what inspired the creation of this project!
A-Dubb wrote:
Howdy My name is A-Dubb My setup includes a UGreen NAS DXP8800 Plus with 8 bays totaling 128tb i also use a Lenovo IdeaPad strictly to access everything on my server. I'm a family man with 5 children ranging from 11 to 28. I'm also a grandfather. I am a huge video entertainment junkie and recently started building my media empire and server that my entire family can access from anywhere in the world that they find themselves. That way we can cut the cord and stop paying there exorbitant monopoly prices. i just went from paying about $270 for cable on top of a bunch of other steaming apps to just $60 a month for Gig internet . I have 1,932 Movies and 354 TV series and growing so my family should be able to enjoy themselves for a long time.
tomspark wrote:
Welcome Serbian friend! Yes you are the perfect example. Self hosting can be super annoying but here we want to strip out the annoying part and leave the fun part. Let me know if you have any pain points we can address :).
tomspark wrote:
Hey Hulkberry! Agreed. I had to wait like a month for my HDDs to ship lol! Although I run the ugreen that is a step below yours. No worries! I myself am still learning. I might have made too many apps. 😂
kaufman51 wrote:
Good evening, I'm Brian, a RN in Houston. I have a Ugreen DXP2800 with 2 4TB drives. I use the Media Center 100%, I never got Lidarr or Chaptarr to work but no worries. Down the road I want to upgrade to a DSP4800 before getting Immich for more storage. I also have Pi-Hole but the Dashboard shows 0% add blocks, also no worries.
tomspark wrote:
What were your issues? I can escalate the issues for you and help you resolve them!
kaufman51 wrote:
For both Lidarr and Chaptarr, it opens a page that says This site can't be reached. I asked the AI for help, but did not resolve the issues.
Chris wrote:
Thanks for the detail. I can help, but I need to separate an app problem from an address or network problem. Which device is running SparkBox (for example, a UGREEN NAS, Linux PC, Windows/WSL, or something else), which SparkBox version is installed, and what exact address are you opening for Lidarr and Chaptarr? Also, do both addresses fail from the same device? Please do not include passwords, keys, or tokens.
kaufman51 wrote:
Ugreen nas is running SparkBox, Current version v1.6.708, Lidarr address http://192.168.1.101:8686/ Chaptarr address http://192.168.1.101:8789/
Chris wrote:
Thanks — those are the expected SparkBox addresses for Lidarr (8686) and Chaptarr (8789) on your UGREEN NAS. Because both fail from the same browser, let’s test whether the NAS answers at all before changing either app. From the same device where the browser fails, run these read-only checks: curl -sS -I --max-time 5 http://192.168.1.101:8686 curl -sS -I --max-time 5 http://192.168.1.101:8789 Paste only the first status line from each, or the error text (no passwords, keys, or tokens). A 200, 3xx, or 401 means the app is reachable and we’ll investigate the browser/app response; a timeout or connection refusal means the LAN path or service binding is the next thing to check.
mike wrote:
Hello I am 41 male from Canada. I have hosted jellyfin on my personal computer for the last year. I am looking into setting up a media box , jellyfin immich and some form of filestorage. The computer I have picked is a i5-8500 32gb 4tb + DAS. I am looking forward to getting this dashboard up and running as it seems very positive and looks amazing.
Chris wrote:
Welcome, Mike! That sounds like a great next step from hosting Jellyfin on your personal computer. What operating system are you planning to run on the new PC? That’ll help point you toward the right setup guidance.
mike wrote:
For easy of use I was planning to run windows 11 as I have never touched anything else.
Chris wrote:
That PC has plenty of room to get started, and starting with Windows 11 makes sense if it’s what you know. One detail before I point you to setup guidance: have you already installed Docker Desktop, or are you still deciding how to run Docker? Those are different setups on Windows.
mike wrote:
I was have already installed TSB from the download page for windows. I can see everything up nothing is working. I will work on trouble shooting this.
Chris wrote:
Thanks Mike, and sorry, my last question sent you the wrong way. SparkBox for Windows brings its own small Linux with Docker inside it, so you don't need Docker Desktop and there's nothing to set up there. On a fresh Windows install, "everything shows as up but nothing opens" usually comes down to the VPN. The download apps (Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, qBittorrent, SABnzbd and a few others) run behind your VPN. Until a VPN key is saved and the VPN actually connects, they don't answer at all, even though the dashboard lists them. Jellyfin doesn't wait for the VPN, so it's a good app to test: from the same PC, http://localhost:8096 should open its setup page. One check tells us which case you're in. Open the dashboard at http://localhost:8443 and click the tile of an app that isn't working (Sonarr, for example). The dashboard shows a note explaining why it won't open, such as "waiting for the VPN to connect" or "hasn't started". Reply here with the app you clicked and the note's title, word for word. If no note appears and the browser just says "can't reach this page", tell us that instead. Please don't post keys or passwords.
mike wrote:
I currently only have Jellyfin installed. When trying to reach it from localhost:8097 and I get "can't reach this page" . Toms AI says it is up and running but I am unable to connect to it.
Chris wrote:
Sorry—I pointed you to the wrong port earlier. The Windows download you installed is the standalone Jellyfin module, which publishes Jellyfin on port 8097; 8096 is the Media bundle, so 8097 is the right address for your setup. Please click the Jellyfin tile in your SparkBox dashboard and tell me the status it shows (for example, running or stopped). I've corrected this guidance so it won't send the next person to the wrong port.
Chris wrote:
Hi PMC25, welcome! Glad you’re here. What kind of box are you running, and what are you hoping to self-host?
imcntv wrote:
Hey everyone! I’m a tinkerer at heart and an AI enthusiast, working on cutting the cord in my spare time. I have two machines: an Ubuntu Linux box for testing and a Synology NAS where I eventually move everything once it’s working. Right now, I mostly use the NAS for movies and photos. Glad to meet everyone! Tom, thanks for all the work you’ve put into this. Now, if I could just figure out how to move my Docker/Portainer setup over to Synology without breaking anything, I’d be in good shape! I also need to figure out how to switch from Jellyfin to Plex. I bought a lifetime Plex Pass years ago, so I’d rather put that to use.
Chris wrote:
Welcome! I can help you plan both, but moving an existing Docker/Portainer setup and switching media servers are separate changes, so I don’t want to guess and risk your files. What Synology model and DSM version are you using, and is SparkBox already installed on the NAS? Please don’t move or delete any Docker data yet.
imcntv wrote:
I don't mind setting up a new instance on synology container manager but I still want to remove the jellyfin component and point to my exist plex instance running
Chris wrote:
Good plan, and you can keep using your own Plex. Two honest notes first. Jellyfin can't be removed from Media Center. It's a fixed part of that app bundle, and there is no setting to switch it off. You don't have to use it, though. It just sits there, and nothing forces you to open it. Your existing Plex can serve everything SparkBox downloads. Sonarr and Radarr file finished shows and movies into two folders inside SparkBox's media folder: TV and Movies. (The media folder is shown as Media Root in SparkBox's settings.) In your Plex, add a TV library pointed at that TV folder and a Movies library pointed at that Movies folder. New downloads then show up in Plex like anything else. Your lifetime Plex Pass stays with your Plex account, so it keeps working. On Synology: SparkBox isn't installed from Container Manager. It's installed with the SparkBox install command over SSH and then runs on the NAS's own Docker. We officially support UGREEN NAS and Ubuntu/Debian machines. On a Synology the installer carries on with a warning: it may work, but we can't support it as fully. Your Ubuntu box is the safest place to start. One question so I can give you exact steps: which machine will run SparkBox, and is your current Plex running on the Synology or on the Ubuntu box?
stromapagen wrote:
Hi, New to sparkbox, i use it on a intel Nuc with ubuntu, mainly for media use.
Chris wrote:
Welcome to SparkBox! An Intel NUC running Ubuntu is a nice little home-media box. What are you planning to run on it?
stromapagen wrote:
Just planning to use media center
Chris wrote:
Nice! Are you leaning toward Jellyfin, Plex, or something else? If you tell me what you want to watch on (TV, phone, browser), folks here can help you pick a good fit.