Connecting to server via dns shows as remote vs ip which shows as Nearby

[richardlevene]

Has anything changed with plex in the last months?
The reason i ask is that i had plex set up and working totally fine. Nothing has changed on our network.

PMS is running on a device 192.168.10.145
I created a static ip entry for the device and a dns entry for my domain plex.home
I would always connect to plex with my devices in the network via the dns entry plex.home:32400/web/index.html#!/
Never any issues and i could watch my media

However today when i tried to connect and try and play i am greeted with the message that i need a Remote Watch Pass

When i look at the dashboard my device is showing as Remote.

With the same device in the same network if i connect via the ip address (and not the dns domain entry) 192.168.10.145, my device is seen as Nearby and can play fine without the Remote Watch Pass.

However i do not get what has changed.

The DNS entry resolves and sends me to Plex so it is not like the dns entry is not working to or not loading plex.

So has anything changed recently with Plex that has changed its behaviour to mark certain entries as remote vs nearby?

Thanks

[tom80H]

See #6 in this post from the tips & tricks section.

Client says it won't play from "remote server", although the server is local

This thread is not for discussing the introduction of the Remote Watch Pass and this restriction for free users as such. All postings trying to bring that up, will be deleted immediately. The same happens to descriptions of how to circumvent the requirement for Remote Watch Pass, or posts which are asking about it. Please stick to the topic: Here we are trying to collect various tips, which could help those users who are only using Plex within their home network, but see the message from t…

[richardlevene]

Oh thanks for the link!

Were these changes introduced from a particular date?

I feel like i am going crazy because things were working just fine so just trying to realise when this changed…

If i get a plex pass subscription as the admin, will that then allow the dns path to work and be seen as local from within the network?

Thanks

[pl_5309]

April 29th, 2025 when the Remote Watch Pass was introduced and secure connections became more enforced.

@richardlevene

If i get a plex pass subscription as the admin, will that then allow the dns path to work and be seen as local from within the network?

No you need to work on your network to support DNS-Rebinding the plex.direct domain to your local server.

[richardlevene]

I am really not sure i understand this at all as i had set up my plex server in june and this was not an issue at all and was working totally fine and nothing has changed.

I set the rebind-domain-ok= command on the pfsense but didnt make a difference.

If i simply set the allow fallback to insecure connections to the Same as the network server then i am able to get the dns address connection to work and it is treated as Nearby. Doesn’t matter if that rebind command is there or not it will work providing the allow fallback is set

[pl_5309]

Android and IOS were the first to be changed, other clients happened later.

If you are using PFSense then you are probably using Unbound for DNS which has different syntax:

server:
private-domain: "plex.direct"

Try deleting the DNS entry for plex.home. Show a screenshot of your Settings>Network page, all the custom fields should be blank. Debug logs would be needed to answer in any more detail.