Cannot claim server

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: Ubuntu 18.04; Plex 1.25.8.5621
Player Version#: multiple (Apple TV, Android, Web)

A few days ago my Plex server disappeared from all of my apps (Apple TV, Android, Web, etc.). I can still login, but all I see is the online stuff; my server is missing.

It appears that my server is no longer associated with my account so I logged into the server local and confirmed that. Here are the steps I’ve tried to resolve:

Stop Plex Media Server
Edit Preferences.xml, remove PlexOnlineToken, PlexOnlineUsername, PlexOnlineMail, and PlexOnlineHome key/value pairs
Reboot server
Go to local web interface https://localhost:32400/web
Get Plex Web Setup, Customize your Media screen; click Finish Setup
I now see my libraries with yellow triangles with ! in them.
I click on one of them
I now see (name) server is unclaimed and not secure and a Claim It Now button
I click on the Claim It Now button
I now see the General Settings page for my server with a message that “This server is unclaimed and not secure” and Claim Server button.
I click on Claim Server
I now see a Plex Web would like to sign in to your Plex account
I click on Continue with Email and provide my email address and password
Login is successful
I now see the General Settings page for my server with a message that “This server is unclaimed and not secure” and Claim Server button, but it has a spinning “working” circle on it now.
After some time, it stops and a get a new page that I’m not authorized

When I now look at the Preferences.xml file I see that the four key/value pairs have been recreated.

The Plex Media Server.log has a bunch of these:
ERROR - MyPlex: Error 403 requesting XML from: https://plex.tv/api/v2/server/access_tokens?auth_token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
ERROR - MyPlex: Couldn’t get list of access tokens from myPlex.

If I paste the URL with my new auth_token from Preferences.xml in places of the “xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”, I get an XML file back as follows:


It seems like something is going wrong with the claim process, but I haven’t been able to figure out what or why.

I have confirmed via the CanYouSeeMe.org open port tool that 32400 is open and that site can connect to it when the server is running so it doesn’t seem like that’s an issue.

This issue originally started a few days ago when I was running Plex v1.25.5.5492. I upgraded to 1.25.8.5621 in an attempt to correct the issue, but it didn’t resolve it.

Any suggestions?

2

Looks like the forum removed the XML I pasted. Here it is:
&lt errors &gt
&lt error code=“1080” message=“A valid server token is required to perform this action” status=“403”/ &gt
&lt /errors &gt

3

@nwh

Use </> code formatting to show the XML.

Regarding not claiming:

  1. Is the LAN RFC-1918 addressing compliant? - required on LAN.
  2. Are you attempting to claim through the use of a FQDN? - won’t work.
4

  1. Yes; I’m using the 192.168.x.x range on the LAN.

  2. Not to my knowledge. I know what a FQDN is, however I’m not sure how it applies to this scenario as I’m never prompted for any IP or domain name info during the process; just my ID/password to login to Plex.

This server has been running for several years, and suddenly it disappeared from all of my apps. I have not made any changes to the Plex configuration, or the server itself for that matter, in quite some time, aside from O/S and Plex updates about once a month. What sorts of things would cause it to no longer be associated with my account?

5

@nwh

I looked at your account on Plex.tv

According to the records there,

  1. You have no servers
  2. You have 25 devices (players , including browers)

Did you perhaps go to into Settings - Authorized Devices and accidentally REMOVE it when cleaning up other things?

I would like you to look in your Preferences.xml file.

In the file, look for

  • PlexOnlineUsername
  • PlexOnlineToken
  • PlexOnlineEmail
  • PlexOnlineHome (optional)

Those three fields should have values.

6

After trying to claim the server several times with no success, I deleted the server from my account thinking that perhaps there was some sort of conflict, so no, there isn’t a server in my account now, however it was there when the issue started, and it showed that it had been active a few hours earlier despite Plex not having worked for several days, which I found puzzling.

Regarding Preferences.xml; I deleted those four key/value pairs per the instructions I found on the Plex site. When I attempt to reclaim the server, those four values get re-created, but then the reclaim process appears to timeout and ultimate return a not authorized message. At present, all four of them have values. The current token starts with w and ends with u.

7

@nwh

I’d like you to do the following and reclaim the server using a completely different method.

  1. Stop Plex

  2. Using a text editor, as root, edit Preferences.xml

  3. Carefully remove the following Name="Value" pairs.
    – PlexOnlineUsername
    – PlexOnlineMail
    – PlexOnlineToken
    – PlexOnlineHome (if it exists)

  4. Save and exit the text editor. Leave the command line session open.

  5. Make certain you have the curl command installed.
    ( sudo apt install curl / sudo dnf install curl ) – if needed

  6. Open a browser window to Claim | Plex

  7. It will present you with a claim token.

  8. COPY that token into the browser clipboard

  9. Start Plex

  10. At the command line, type

curl -X POST 'http://127.0.0.1:32400/myplex/claim?token=PASTE_THE_TOKEN_HERE'

  1. Hit enter and in about 15-20 seconds for PMS and Plex.tv to negotiate using the claim token.

  2. When complete, it will respond with a bunch of feature flags , ending in </myplex> This signifies success

  3. Now open http://127.0.0.1:32400/web

  4. The server will be there waiting for you to acknowledge claiming and then bring you to the dashboard (if it’s happy) or the setup wizard (if anything needs to be completed).

8

No go. Step 11 took about 90 seconds, but finally returned the feature flags as you indicated. When I open Step 13, I get an empty home page. If I expand MORE I can see my server. When I click on it I get not authorized. I tried restarting the server, but same results.

9

Issue has been resolved.

Back in January I moved to a new house. As part of this move I had to switch from CenturyLink fiber at the old house to CenturyLink DSL at the new one. At the old house I ran in bridge mode without any issues. At the new house, the modem that CenturyLink provided would not work in bridge mode, so I had to let the modem handle the PPPoE connection. A couple of weeks ago I got my hands on a modem that would support bridge mode and switched everything to use bridge mode. That is most likely when the issue actually started, however I haven’t been home much since then and had chalked up several oddities to broader Internet issues. This morning it hit me that I had made this change a couple of weeks ago, so I switched everything back to letting the original modem handle the PPPoE connection. I was able to reclaim the Plex server without issue, and the oddities that I recalled having occurred recently have all been tested and are resolved as well.

I suspect the bridge mode issues may be related to an MTU setting somewhere, but haven’t dug into that yet. Most things were working most of the time under bridge mode, but in hindsight and with further testing, there were a few things that simply weren’t working. Those have all been resolved now as well.

Sorry to have taken up so much of your time trying to track this down, Chuck, but hopefully my experience will help someone else resolve similar issues in the future. Thank you for your assistance!

10

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