I live in Portugal and use one of the major ISP’s MEO.
Last night I found some issues with Plex, no access to library, I try to reinstall the app on my Android box and when try to link at (https:\plex.tv\link) I got a security error message, tried to check here in the forums but I could see all forum but couldn’t post again security message.
I just want to know if Plex has any legal issues going on in Europe so for some reason they are being blocked.
Today I contacted the ISP tech support and now I can access plex.tv/link but for forum’s only with VPN.
I am not able to give you any kind of legal advice. Considering that Portugal is an EU member, I assume that the differences in Plex’s legal status in comparison to e.g. Germany cannot be that high. And the legality of Plex is not questioned in Germany.
What is happening most likely, is that your ISP is on the cautious side and is blocking rather too early, if the legal status of a website is even questioned.
This might have been caused by some detail in your national legislations, about which I unfortunately have no idea.
There have been reports about some parties reporting Plex’s website because of its video streaming offerings. However, these offerings are all perfectly legal and officially licensed, so those alleged “illegality” reportings are without merit.
There are many reports from Portuguese Plex users who cannot use Plex correctly, because their ISP has some questionable DNS blocks.
Set your router to use Google’s DNS. 8.8.8.8, instead of the DNS server of your ISP. That should mitigate most of these blocks.
If you don’t have access to your router’s configuration, replace it.
Or put another router behind it that is under your control. A common example is Pi-hole, which works as an internet filter which provides its own DNS resolver.
As a last resort, you can almost always configure a DNS server in the properties of your server’s (and client’s) network connection.
This was not the issue, even today I was trying to link a new TV and only on mobile network worked. This is other think, the ISP can’t confirm the is blocking anything.
To screenshots: one without VPN and other with VPN.
If they don’t refresh/update their own DNS servers frequently enough, the result is a de facto blocking of plex and its features.
i.e. there doesn’t even have to be intent to block.
The fact that it works if you use a VPN (which also means you are using a different DNS resolver) is rather a confirmation.
