Can't access videos outside of network but can play music

Plex Media Server Remote Access
1

Hi, first time post.

Just signed up for the lifetime plex pass. I have the Plex server set up on an old windows machine that is wired to the network.

on the plex server I have the dreaded " Not available outside your network" message in the settings.

When I try to play a video file outside the house, I get an error. However, using the plex amp app on my phone it plays the music just fine.

Does this point to a problem with the plex desktop app? Seems strange that I can play music but not videos.

Any help would be useful.

All latest apps installed.

UPDATE:

I downgraded to previous version of android Plex app and still get the same problem viewing videos.

However, I signed in to the app.plex.tv address on chrome in the same phone and can play videos fine that way.

Does this point to the app being the problem?

2

No. Most likely explanation is that you have indeed no proper remote access.
There is Plex Relay, which can help in a pinch. However, it is limited to max. 2mbps bandwidth for Plex Pass holders.
That is usually plenty for music.
For video, although it is theoretically possible to reduce the bandwidth of a video to 2 mbps, but it requires

  • the ability of the server to perform video transcoding at all (ensure it is not disabled in the server settings)
  • the ability of the server to use hardware transcoding to the HEVC/(H.265) codec. https://support.plex.tv/articles/115002178853-using-hardware-accelerated-streaming/
    (The default AVC/(H.264) is only able to achieve bad looking picture at only 2 mbps, thus you will need the more modern HEVC codec. However, old CPU/GPU chips don’t have support for this.)

The best way is to try and resolve the remote access issues.

3

It’s doesn’t work with relay enabled either.

This is solely down to the plex app. I can access the server from my phone’s chrome browser and play files. I can see the files in the app, but when I select a video file to play it says source error.

I’ve even tried setting up Tailscale service to get around this but still the problem persists.

When I look at the dashboard on my server and try to access the file from my phone, it shows that the phone connects and is trying to serve the video, but then disappears when the error message appears on my phone.

There are others having the same issue here:

4

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