Canada to UK User Stuttering/Transcoding Remote Access Issues

Plex Media Server Remote Access
1

Hi Everyone. Thanks in advance for any help/feedback you can provide.

As a long-time Plex Pass user in Canada with a Fibre connection of 1.5 GB download and 150 MB upload, I have always enabled remote access to my server for my 87-year-old father in the UK so he can watch my media directly from it.

Within my local network, Plex works great, and for years, it worked great for him in the UK using the paid Plex App on his Sony Bravia TV. His network is Fibre with 150 MB download (tested). However, over the past couple of months, we have experienced streaming issues with remote media viewing, so trying to watch anything remotely from my server is impossible.

All settings are at the default. I am not even sure where to begin diagnosing this. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Martin

Server Version#: v.1.43.0.10492-121068a07
Player Version#: latest
<If providing server logs, please do NOT turn on verbose logging; only debug logging should be enabled.>

2

For me this sounds like a Client issue on the UK side, Tv clients are not the best.

You could check if the Sony in the UK is not being turned off with remote control only. (Cache).

3

Hi SE56,

Thanks for getting back to me on this so quickly. Hmm interesting. I will walk my father through cleaning out the app cache and rebooting the TV. I will report back.

Thanks Martin

4

You could install an openspeedtest server on your server and open/forward the port on your router and then have your father test the direct bandwidth to you via a browser. This will tell you if there are any issues between you and him. Try different ports, including the one you use for Plex: https://openspeedtest.com/selfhosted-speedtest

5

Hi VeeeJay,

Thanks for this suggestion. I will try this on the weekend to see if there is an issue.

Thanks,
Martin

6

Continuing the discussion from Canada to UK User Stuttering/Transcoding Remote Access Issues:

Hi SE56,

We tried this without success. However, we did try this on his desktop computer as well in a browser window with the same result. So that makes me think it is not related to his Sony TV.

Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Martin

7

This may be more difficult for your Father and depends a lot on his abilities.

Sony TV/ Settings/ Video / Remote Play back - Change to 8Mb or even 6Mb. This will still give a good picture.

Would you know what DNS is set on the Sony or your Father’s Router, I would definitely recommend using Cloudfare 1.1.1.1

Note: Using Cloudfare at the router will over ride the Sony if set at Automatically Configure Network settings

https://www.cloudflare.com/en-gb/learning/dns/what-is-1.1.1.1/

One question, are you piping this through a VPN? Or there maybe a throttling issue with ISP or VPN.

Cheers

8

Hi SE56,

Thank you for this reply. Those are great things to check out. No, no VPN, I know that for sure. It might be a case of ISP throttling, as he uses TalkTalk. I will do that with him this weekend. Thanks again! Martin

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9

I would run a traceroute from your dad’s computer and see how many hops and latency values you get. My guess is the latency has gone up and can’t keep up with the stream speeds.

10

Hi Everyone, thank you so much for your help! I think we have this one working now. I ended up switching my father’s DNS to Cloudflare, but that didn’t make a difference. What ended up making a difference was setting an external port on Plex from my server. After some reboots and such, his bandwidth was up to substantially to 15mb+ on our tests. So we are going to try it for the next couple of days and see if he has any issues. Again, thanks to everyone for their feedback and suggestions! Cheers, Martin

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