Let me start by saying that I’ve been trying to get remote access to my PMS working for months on and off… I try and try then it doesn’t work and I get frustrated and give up for a while. I’m determined to make it work, so I wanted to post on here and see if anyone can give some insight.
Every time I turn on remote access, it says it’s working for maybe 5-10 seconds, then it tells me “Not available outside your network.” I am running my PMS on my gaming PC that’s running Windows 10 Education (OS Build 17763.557). Everything is up-to-date on the PC, yes I’ve tried it with Windows Firewall off and on, no third-party firewalls installed. My ISP is through my apartment complex, but I’ve called them and asked them to give me a public IP so I don’t get a Double NAT situation. I have one Google Wifi router that is in standard mode (no need for bridge) and I’ve made sure that I do have a public IP by checking the WAN address in the router.
I have tried the automatic route (no port forwarding) multiple times to no avail, and I’ve also tried the port forwarding route. I go into my Google Wifi settings, set up a port forward rule for 32400 on my PC (and yes, I’ve assigned a static IP to my PC in my router settings) which is pretty straightforward and seems like it should work. However, when I use canyouseeme.org port check tool, it gives me the “Connection timed out” error every single time, no matter which port I try.
Have restarted router, PMS, PC, all multiple times.
If any other information is needed, please let me know and I’ll do my best to provide.
I’ve spent hours online researching but can’t find any solution that works so any help is much appreciated! Thank you!!
I am having the same issue. My remote access though has worked fine for a couple of years and all of a sudden it has quit working. When I re-enable it connects for 5-10 seconds and then quits. I am running my Plex server on a QNAP TS-453A. Please help.
Is the media on your gaming PC as well or on a NAS attached to the router or Google WiFi? If you have static ip and port forwarding right, just make sure the server settings match up with it as well. Also just came across this thread that may help.
Hi, i see you forwarded your port to ‘32400’. Try forward your port to ‘32401’ and add that as the external port forward rule on your router. That worked for me
I’m running 2 PMS on a 2 NAS, one is forwarded to 32401 the other 32402 (internally using 32400)
The media is connected directly to the PC. I believe all of the server settings match up, but I will double check. I will check out that thread as well, not sure if I’ve seen that one yet.
Thank you for the suggestion. Unfortunately I gave it a try and it didn’t seem to work. Again, when I clicked “retry” on PMS after changing the port to 32401, it worked for about 5 seconds, then goes back to “Not available outside your network.”
I don’t think it has anything to do with your setup. My remote access has always worked just fine. No strange network or port forwarding. But recently (like in the last 2 days), it stopped working as well with no network change. I have been keeping up with the latest PlexPass server releases, but that’s it. Plex Web and and Android client seem to fall back to an indirect relay connection most of the time; but direct remote connection is definitely not working.
Dang, that’s disappointing for sure. It’s weird because even when I tried this in the past, almost a year ago, I couldn’t get it to work either. I messaged one of the Plex Support members I found on a related thread directly but haven’t heard back from him.
$5/month isn’t much, but as a paying subscriber it’s a little frustrating that this feature doesn’t work at all. I use Jump Desktop to remote into this same PC and it’s always worked flawlessly with little to no setup effort required. In my mind, I don’t see how the technology that JD uses vs. Plex is that different… they are both remote-ing into the PC, but for some reason Plex isn’t able to do it successfully. Maybe not a good comparison, but still.
Sorry to hear you’re in the same boat. I feel like I’ve read every thread on this forum related to the subject, as well as Reddit, Tom’s Hardware, etc. Tons of people seem to be having this issue and I can’t find anyone that has found a reliable solution.
Sounds like you are using Google Fiber? I’ve had a lot of issues, hardwired seems to be the best but its not stable. Plex will even show to be not available but it will still work. I’ve been working on getting a Cisco router to bypass the POS Gfiber box but I haven’t had a chance to finish setting it up.
Sorry, I should clarify. Not using Google Fiber actually, my apartment’s ISP is Fastel or something, never heard of them before I moved there. Anyways, I don’t have a modem or anything in my unit, I just plug my Google Wifi straight into the wall. They have their own firewalls set up, but that’s why I requested that they give me a public IP so I don’t run into double NAT. I verified that the public IP address is working. I have a small Gigabit switch connected to my Google Wifi and then my PMS PC is connected to said switch via Ethernet. The connection itself is very fast and reliable, I consistently get 800-1000 Mbps up and down.
I’ve read about some other people saying that remote access still works even though PMS says it isn’t, unfortunately this isn’t the case for me. When it says it’s not working, it really isn’t.
I don’t have Google Wifi, so I can’t be specific, but be deliberate. Where ever possible look at network traffic on each device to make sure you can see traffic passing in both directions on the expected ports. If you don’t, either the problem on that device or likely “upstream” (e.g. the next device closer to the internet.)
Ideally you would start at the outermost device, ensure you see traffic, and work in towards your PMS server, but that can be hard if you don’t know your entire network topology.
Put Wireshark on your PMS server and ensure you see traffic flowing both ways on the ports you expect (e.g. to your server computer on 32400). Ideally you would be able to attempt initiation of the Plex remote connection while watching for traffic - such as by using the Plex client on a smartphone through your cell network or a neighbor’s Wifi. If you can’t see the traffic coming in on your PC then the problem isn’t actually with Plex. Network traffic isn’t getting to Plex.
If you don’t see the network traffic then work outwards to the next device/protection layer. It sounds like you have tried turning off firewalls and antivirus on your PMS server, but make sure you don’t see your computer’s firewall denying traffic.
Go to your “next outward” device - it sounds like your Google Wifi. Crank up the logging. Look for denials and/or traffic being forwarded. I don’t know the Google device so I can’t be specific.
It sounds like your “next outward” device beyond your Google device is either with your appartment complex or your provider. Ask your apartment manager if they have a central device that manages network traffic for your entire complex. They may be blocking something. You may also need to contact your provider to make sure they are not actively blocking anything.
Not fun or easy, but ultimately you need to understand if network traffic is getting to your PMS server, and if not where it is stopping.
One question: Are you able to watch your Plex content remotely using the Plex relay capability? If the “normal/preferred” remote access isn’t working then the Plex client should automagically switch to the Plex relay service. It is limited bandwidth and therefore lower resolution, but it should work and is a pretty cool service Plex provides. If Plex relay also isn’t working, then something strange is definitely going on.
Haven’t tried Wireshark yet, I’ll give that a try for sure.
I am a little confused here - if my PMS is running on my computer, turning off firewalls / antivirus on the computer is all I should have to do correct? I’m not aware of any separate firewalls / antivirus running on the actual PMS.
Silly, but it sounds like logging isn’t a thing for Google Wifi! I’ve been searching and on all of the Google Wifi forums people are requesting this feature but as of right now it’s not available. Dumb! That would be helpful in many ways.
I’ve talked to the ISP before and they claim that they don’t block anything since I have a public IP, but I will call them again to double check.
Honestly I am not at all familiar with the Plex relay capability, this is the first I’ve heard of it. Are you saying that if the “normal” remote access doesn’t work, Plex will automatically switch to the relay service correct? If so, how would I check that I’m running the relay vs. regular Plex service?
Does sound like a cool feature - would you mind expanding on it? I’ll do some research of my own in the meantime.
If you are doing port forwarding, then UPnP is not needed.
Not having any logging on your router would make troubleshooting tough. I can see why lots of people would ask for it.
You are right about firewalls and antivirus, I was referencing the ones on the computer where your PMS is running.
Check out this link for information on Relay. I’ve seen it work with the Plex app on my android phone, though since my remote access works I haven’t used relay for a while. They do say that not all of their apps support it, which I didn’t realize - I haven’t found the supported list yet.
Fair enough - does that mean if I have UPnP enabled and port forwarding set up it will break things?
Tell me about it, seems like a basic feature. Come on Google…
Awesome, thank you for clarifying.
This was really interesting. I couldn’t find the list of supported apps either, weird that they don’t provide it. The screenshots looked like an Android OS to me, maybe not available on iOS yet? That’s what I’m using. I’ve also never seen the “Direct connection unavailable” notification within the app, which I’m assuming is what prompts the relay service to begin. That’s too bad if it’s only available on Android, I imagine a lot of people would benefit from it.
I can’t see that having UPnP enabled on your Google device along with port forwarding would cause Plex problems. If in Plex you have checked the box to manually specify a public port, then it expects you have set port forwarding on your router, and doesn’t care about UPnP.
However, IMHO, if you are not using UPnP for Plex or elsewhere, then it should be off because UPnP has some security implications - but that’s just me. Also for security reasons I like setting the external port to something other than 32400 and redirecting to 32400 on my internal server - it looks like you have done this.
Wireshark results can be a little overwhelming if you haven’t used it before, so I hope this helps:
Focus your capture to only look for traffic coming from outside your local network and directed to port 32400, which is the port your internal Plex server listens on. To do this set your capture filter to be “port 32400 and not broadcast and not multicast and not src net 192.168.0.0/16 and not src net 10.0.0.0/8 and not src net 172.16.0.0/20”. Don’t include the quotes. I’ve included the commonly assigned local network IPv4 ranges, but if you are using something different you will need to change the “not src net” portion to exclude your local network traffic.
In Plex Web click on “Enable Remote Access”.
I’ve repeatedly turned off my remote access and turned it back on. When turning remote access on I consistently get 10 packets using this capture filter in Wireshark on my PMS server. These packets are from an external IP address and are directed to my Plex server when I enable remote access. In my case remote access enables.
Interestingly these packets appear to come in a second or two AFTER my Plex Web reports that Plex is fully accessible from outside my network. It could just be a processing delay, but I think it is why you briefly see it report as enabled, and then it disables. It is waiting for these packets to initiate from outside your network, and when it doesn’t get them it times out and reverts to remote access not working…
Sorry so long… I ramble, but maybe this will be helpful.
