Two days ago my Plex server on my windows 10 computer was working fine and was able to watch movies on my Samsung TV. This morning I tried to watch a movie and all I get is initially a message top right of screen “Checking connection speed to desktop-12lm91” and then yellow spinning circle.
I have not changed anything.
I have rebooted my modem and router and computer, also deleted app on my tv and reinstalled app on tv. Same thing is happening.
I disabled “Quality suggestions” in settings on my TV and it allowed me to play movies, but are low quality.
I can watch the movies on my computer where they are stored in high quality in Plex.
Low quality video is usually a symptom of using the Plex Relay. If your client cannot communicate directly to your server, then it uses the relay to bounce the video connection through. This is caused by a network issue, such as a firewall blocking traffic between two subnets, or a Windows firewall/antivirus being too over-protective.
To double check that this is the case, log into your account at app.plex.tv, and check the dashboard when you attempt to play a movie. Under the client type, does it mention the connection is “Remote”, “Local”, or “Indirect”? You’ll also see a (!) in yellow, like the middle connection in the below image:
Check the IP address of your server and TV, make sure that the first 3 sections match. If they do not, then you have two networks and they aren’t talking to eachother. This is unlikely, since you mentioned nothing changed in the last while. But it’s possible that your TV, if using wifi, has changed in your router to isolate network traffic from the wired home network (assuming your comp is wired in). If this isn’t the case, let’s move on.
The more likely possibility is firewall related. Your Windows firewall might be preventing the incoming connection from the TV. I don’t have any experience with a Windows server, so I don’t know how to fix this, but a quick search led me to a post where someone suggests changes to the firewall to fix it. Check it out here.
Oh, lastly, double check your home network type is “Private”, not “Public”. A “Public” network is telling your computer you are in an untrusted area (wifi in a coffee shop, for example) and want to lock down your computer heavily. This should not be required in your own home network.
Thanks. I got it fixed, it was firewall related. Read the link and figured I would try something.
Went to cmd prompt (as administrator) typed:
netsh winsock reset, and hit enter; then typed
netsh intip reset, and hit enter
it said I must restart computer, i restarted computer and a popup came on and said firewall is blocking plex???. I forget exactly what it said, but I clicked on allow and it worked.
