So the first time I started the server I put in my Surfshark info and everything was working. I downloaded the media bundle and added some indexers. So far everything is working. I open up Jellyfin, there is no avatar as told, and put in the credentials get told they are invalid and BAM vpn drops. Then it just constant VPN issues, It finally came back online an hour later so I try again. Same exact bug happens. Im new to this and at a complete loss and frustrated to no end, can anyone please help me or at least tell me how to start helping myself?
8 replies
tomspark wrote:
Sounds rough but you haven't broken anything. Two separate things here: Jellyfin login is not tied to your VPN at all, so on its own a wrong password wouldn't touch the VPN. For Jellyfin, use the admin username/password you set the very first time you opened it (not your Surfshark login) - if you don't remember it we can reset it. For the VPN dropping on and off, that's usually just a rough server connection - try a different Surfshark location in Settings and give it a minute to reconnect. Can you run sudo sparkbox doctor and paste what it prints? That'll show us exactly what's actually failing.
Goosey73 wrote:
Thank your for the help, Its currently back to working but I havent tried Jellyfin again. This is what that command returned back. SparkBox v1.6.369 - Self-Hosted Privacy Stack Created by Tom Spark | youtube.com/@TomSparkReviews Network profile: private SparkBox Doctor Running diagnostics... [Install location] [OK] SparkBox is installed at: /opt/sparkbox [OK] Settings file (.env): /opt/sparkbox/.env [OK] Media library folder (MEDIAROOT): /opt/sparkbox/data/media [Docker] [OK] Docker daemon is accessible [OK] Docker version: Docker version 29.6.2, build dfc4efb [OK] Docker Compose: 5.3.1 [Docker Socket] [OK] Docker socket exists at /var/run/docker.sock [OK] Docker socket is readable [User IDs] [INFO] Current user: root (UID=0, GID=0) [OK] PUID=1000 (containers run as UID 1000) [OK] PGID=1000 (containers run as GID 1000) [Container Egress] [OK] Containers can reach webhook.tomsparkbox.com (license server) [Port Conflicts] [OK] Port 53: available [OK] Port 80: in use (Docker -- likely SparkBox) [OK] Port 443: in use (Docker -- likely SparkBox) [OK] Port 8080: available [OK] Port 8443: in use (Docker -- likely SparkBox) [OK] Port 9000: in use (Docker -- likely SparkBox) [OK] Port 9092: available [Portainer Auth] [OK] Portainer admin login verified (HTTP 200) [VPN Tunnel] [OK] Gluetun tunnel is healthy [Hardware Transcoding] [OK] /dev/dri exists -- GPU devices detected total 0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 80 Jul 16 21:17 . drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4540 Jul 17 10:38 .. drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 60 Jul 16 21:17 by-path crw-rw----+ 1 root video 226, 0 Jul 17 07:47 card0 [WARN] Render device may not be accessible -- check group membership (video/render) [Media Storage] [OK] MEDIAROOT=/opt/sparkbox/data/media exists [OK] MEDIAROOT is writable [OK] Your apps (user id 1000) can read your media library [INFO] Free space at MEDIAROOT: 1556GB [System Resources] [INFO] Total RAM: 31000MB [INFO] Available RAM: 24291MB [OK] RAM looks sufficient for 3 enabled modules [INFO] Free disk at SBROOT: 1556GB [Container Health] [OK] All SparkBox containers are running ============================================ 1 issue(s) found. Review warnings above and fix as needed. ============================================
Chris wrote:
Good news on the doctor output—everything's green, including gluetun. Now comes the real test: go ahead and try a Jellyfin login exactly like you did before (wrong password first if you want, to match the original scenario). If the VPN stays up through that, you're genuinely fixed and this was just a rough server moment. If it drops again, paste the last 30 lines of 'sudo sparkbox logs sb-gluetun' and we'll dig into what's happening during auth. You're doing great—just verify the actual behavior, then we'll know exactly where we stand.
Goosey73 wrote:
So I have tried to log into Jellyfin with the provided username and password and it tells me its invalid. There is no little automatic animation either. The vpn didnt disconnect but I still cannot get into Jellyfin. I really appreciate all of your help.
Chris wrote:
The "no animation" hint is key — that usually means the browser can't reach Jellyfin at all (network-level block), not an auth failure. Quick checks: 1) First, confirm Jellyfin is running: docker ps | grep sb-jellyfin-media (should show a container). 2) Get the real admin password — it's auto-generated and saved here: cat /opt/sparkbox/state/jellyfin-admin-password.txt (or grab it from your dashboard under Settings Service Passwords if you're logged in elsewhere). 3) Try logging in with that password from a fresh browser tab or incognito window. If you still get "invalid" with the correct password, or the container isn't running, reply with the docker output and I'll escalate this to Tom — this might be a deeper issue.
Goosey73 wrote:
This is what i get from the first command permission denied while trying to connect to the docker API at unix:///var/run/docker.sock
Chris wrote:
Try running the command with sudo: sudo docker ps | grep sb-jellyfin-media — even though the doctor showed you're running as root, the docker socket can require elevated permissions depending on your group setup. Once you get the container running output, paste it back here and we'll know exactly what's happening on your box.
Chris wrote:
That permission error means your user isn't in the Docker group yet—easy fix. Try running the command again with sudo in front (e.g., sudo docker logs ...). That should work immediately. If you want to skip sudo going forward, let me know and I can walk you through adding your user to the docker group.