As of about a week ago, after working flawlessly for many months, suddenly my friend can no longer play any content from my Plex server via his Amazon Fire Stick and the Plex app on that device. I also cannot play any content via any of our Alexa devices in our house, and my Firestick will also no longer play any content via the Plex app. The firesticks can all connect and see what is available on my Plex server, but playback on anything (movies, tv or music) gives an error. Alexa says she knows the server is online, but says remote access has not been granted to the Alexa app.
The Firesticks can play the Plex supplied TV, movies etc. but they won’t play any of my supplied content that sits on our WD My Cloud Home NAS. I think this is specifically Android related, because my friend also has an old Apple iPad, and the Plex app on that plays the content fine! Oddly, our Samsung TV has the Plex app and that also works just fine, but that is connected via a wired rather than Wi-Fi connection. The common link between these issues appears to be streaming Plex content to an Amazon (Android-based) device via Wi-Fi (regardless of whether it is on the LAN or via WAN). That functionality has suddenly broken! Has something changed in the last week or so in regards to the Alexa skill or the Plex Android-based apps?
In contrast, web access to the Plex server via a wired LAN connection continues to work fine on my laptop, as it also does via Wi-Fi (Windows 10).
What version of Plex Media Server is running on the NAS?
If an older release, such as 1.18.x or 1.19.x, can you update to the current release, 1.23.4.4805?
If you cannot update your server, then try setting Secure Connections = Disabled in Settings → Networks. Check the client settings and change if needed. Settings → Advanced → Allow Insecure Connections = Always.
There is a problem with current version Android clients and older releases of Plex Media Server (on all platforms, not just WD).
For those who can do so, updating to a current Plex Media Server release resolves the problem.
For those who cannot update, disabling secure connections has helped some users.
The Plex server version on the WD My Cloud Home is old (v1.18.6.2350) and the relevant setting was set to ‘Preferred’, and has now been set to ‘Disabled’.
That fixed the issue, but I did panic for a moment as the browser then told me I could not access any of the ‘settings’ anymore. I had to navigate ‘directly’ to Plex via the local internal IP address in the browser, and then I could see them again.
It’s weird that it suddenly stopped working, but I guess maybe Alexa or the Plex app has recently updated and that broke it.
