However, I am unable to set my own thread to Solved without being a 'Registered+' user (which I assume means paying some monthly fee). While I agree with the risk of this setting when used incorrectly, in this particular case, this use seems to be the correct use. So even if Plex wanted to write to the files, the permissions at the file level will not allow it. Further, for the movie files under the share, Plex only has 'read' access.

The applications data, where Plex does need write access, is not shared with anyone. Since the 'Safety Check' is to prevent multiple writers from clobbering a file at the same time, AND because Plex only has 'read' access to the the same files shared under the SMB share, there should be no conflict.

I have concluded that for this particular instance of TreuNAS Scale with only Plex running, turning off this flag should not be an issue. Understanding the TrueNAS SCALE 'hostPathValidation' setting

Everything is working fineSo I read through the posts on the Enable Host Path Safety Checks, especially this one:

Plex Media Server 1.32.5.7328 download