Cannot enable remote access

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
1

Server Version#: 1.13.9.5456

I am running a linux ubuntu 16.04 server with PMS. This month I had to replace my storage raid on the server and decided to do a clean install since i had previously done a lot of installing/uninstalling of other applications that I no longer needed. Before the rebuild, the PMS was working great. Remote access didnt flake, and I had no issues.

After rebuilding the server and installing PMS to identical configuration of the previous install (I had documentation), I now cant get Remote access to work. When I enable it, it sticks for about 15 seconds, then turns off and says “Your server is signed into plex but not available outside your network”.

I have checked for some sort of port forwarding issue, Double NAT, etc. Nothing that I can find is causing this. and like I said, this all worked last month when I started my rebuild. I have changed nothing on my other players and nothing on the network/router.

I can provide other documentation/logs if needed, and all help would be appreciated!

Thanks
Tony

2

Update: I also maintain a second identical server (ubuntu 16.04, PMS Version 1.13.9.5456) and it has remote access enabled and working without an issue. I checked the router settings and the 32400 port is forwarded to the right IP, there is no manual forward in the PMS settings, and canyouseeme.org says 32400 is open. If I use the webGUI, I can connect to my server with an indirect connection, however, I cannot with my amazon firestick (again, this is all from remote).

Any assistance on this would be appreciated.
Thanks
Tony

3

If both servers use the same external port, there will be collision. Only one will win.
Indirect on LAN means machine’s firewall

4

These servers are on different networks.

5

Anyone have any ideas? this is still a problem for me. To clarify, the other server that I maintain is on another network altogether, there cant be any collision. On LAN, I can connect to the server directly without issue, the problem is only while remote. My PMS settings says that the “Your server is signed into plex but it is not reachable outside your network”

6

There is only one server signed into your plex.tv account - server on local IP 192.168.1.50

Please provide Logs after restart and trying to enable remote access + screenshots of router port forward / dhcp

See
https://support.plex.tv/articles/201643703-reporting-issues-with-plex-media-server/
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200250417-plex-media-server-log-files/

7

Thanks for the response. In efforts to save time, I had already had logging enabled and have attached those logs here. I will perform the reboot and post those as well, but my last reboot and attempt was just a few days ago. Plex Media Server Logs_2018-11-30_21-21-19.zip (1.1 MB)

8

Here’s the screenshot of the router port forward. A screenshot of the remote access error. and The logs after a fresh reboot and two attempts to enable remote access. Thank you for the help!port%20forwading

remote%20access
remote access.JPG915×443 35.9 KB
Plex Media Server Logs_2018-11-30_21-36-11.zip (1.1 MB)

9

can you tell me if your router had at 22:11 on Nov 29, a port forward as follows
TCP Public Port 32405 forwarded to :Local Port 32400 for 192.168.1.50

and can you tell me why you decided to switch from a Manually Selected port to uPnP automatic mapping at 22:14 ? And if you now to want to use automatic port configuration, is uPnP enabled in the router?

10

Well that router screenshot is incompatible with what was going on at 22:11 when a manually selected port of 32405 was specified. Fot that port forward 32400 public to 32400 local, you need to tick manually specify port and enter 32400 in the box

11

In my troubleshooting, I was changing between the manual specified port and auto config. I couldn’t tell you what times I did what last week, but I assure you I changed the port forward in the router when I changed the port in pms

12

I also tried the manual forward in PMS without touching the router settings. It did not work.

13

I need consistent set of evidence - so if the server log shows it is trying public port 32405 I want to see a port forward screen in the router showing a forward of 32405 to 32400

Note that some routers do need a restart for a port forward to take effect

I also need you to stick to one approach. So just have manually specify port set. Do not unset it and flip flop between the two methods

  • Have a port forward in the router
  • Have manually specified port ticked and the public port that you forwarded to 32400 entered in the box
  • Ensure the IP address of the server is DHCP Reserved or static outside DHCP range
  • Restart the router
  • Restart the server machine

Then test remote access. Do not untick manually specify port

If it still does not work, see if you get all the screenshots (router DHCP reservation and Port Forward entry) + server logs + server settings page for remote access with show advanced selected

14

Alright.

I currently have it set to manually specify port 32400 and port forwarding in router set to 32400. I’ve rebooted the router once and the server several times last night and got remote access to stay active for almost a full minute then it reverts back to the same error as above. I’ll get the logs for you as soon as I can. Thanks

15

ok. Sorry it took me so long to get this information. Battling a few illnesses with the young ones and been a little crazy. I was not sure where I left off on Saturday, so I did the following:

Cleared the port forward in the router.
Rebooted the router
Added the port forward back to the router.
Rebooted the router. Pic below.

port%20forwading

Ensured the DHCP reservation was correct. .50 is outside my DHCP range of 100-200 (pic below)

DHCP
DHCP839×415 37.5 KB

On the server, I Turned off remote access.
Rebooted the server.
Turned on remote access and manually specified port 32400.
Rebooted the server again.
Hit retry on the remote access screen and still have the same error:

remote%20access
remote%20access891×561 46.9 KB

Please let me know if there is something else I can do to help. Thanks!

16

Looks good - the logs for the above. Always want to see the complete set of evidence captured at the same time. So we know the port forward was there. We know the IP was outside DHCP range and then disabling and re-enabling remote access and see what happens and what gets logged in the server logs

could you also include output from ifconfig -a

any firewall that may be blocking inbound connections?

17

Here are the logsPlex Media Server Logs_2018-12-05_20-41-29.zip (2.2 MB)

Also here is the ifconfig -a

tmataraza@PlexStorage:~$ ifconfig -a
enp5s0f0  Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 78:ac:c0:10:0d:9c
          inet addr:192.168.1.50  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::7aac:c0ff:fe10:d9c/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1035624 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:642148 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:239870410 (239.8 MB)  TX bytes:4790962365 (4.7 GB)
          Interrupt:47

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:345985 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:345985 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1
          RX bytes:165778920 (165.7 MB)  TX bytes:165778920 (165.7 MB)

Also, I have my server IP reserved in the Router by MAC Address. It’s DHCP on the server side.

18

The logs are just showing that the attempts to connect from the plex.tv servers to your public WAN IP 71.73.xxx.xxx on public port 32400 are simply not getting through. Each attempt to connect to this IP and port is resulting in a logged event to say it was not possible to get through - eg

Dec 04, 2018 21:45:35.092 [0x7f29f97fe700] DEBUG - EventSource: Got event [data] '<Message address="71.73.xxx.xxx" port="32400" asyncIdentifier="d9778e82-4bfc-4504-8898-d2a518e1f304" connectivity="0" command="notifyConnectivity"/>'

When you go to the router WAN / Internet connection page - does it show the WAN IP as being 71.73.xxx.xxx ? - the same IP as you would get when you go to canyouseeme.org on the web

This is actually incompatible with your router setup shown here Cannot enable remote access - #15 by mataraza

Your DHCP Range in the router was shown to be 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.200 and so a DHCP reservation for 192.168.1.50 would not make sense. You could change the range to 192.168.1.50 to 192.168.1.200

I am not sure if it would cause any issues but it is wrong. It may lead to an error getting returned when the DHCP renewal is attempted. I would not know what the OS would do when it gets the error

If you want it to be outside DHCP Range then on the server side it would need to be static and not DHCP and of course then you would need to define your netmask and dns servers etc

If correcting this does not make an impact, You could run wireshark or similar network packet capture on the server to see if the connectivity test requests do get to the server machine from the router - would need logs to go with the pcap evidence. If you do this, the pcap should be sent zipped in a private message

19

Thanks for the response. I understand what you’re saying here, but I do not understand why this is making a difference. I have not touched router DHCP since I installed it new 3 years ago. I’ve been running a plex server at .50 for that entire time. A simple rebuild of the server is all I did. Next time I sit down at the server, I will extend the DHCP range to .50, reboot everything, and test again.

Here is the screenshot of my router with the external IP
router

20

I am not sure if the dhcp issue has any impact - it was just an observation of incorrect configuration

Any reason as to why the local network on the router page is showing as switch0 and switch rather than eth0 and ethernet

what firewall configuration options are set in the router ?
and on the server ?

we need to establish if a request in a browser for example from external network is reaching the server computer/device - and products like wireshark would allow you to do that. So for example you can type a request with your full wan ip and port 32400 and then check if it gets through the router to the computer/device PMS is running - eghttp://71.73.xxx.xxx:32400/web`