Downloads not initializing

Plex Players Mobile Devices
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Server Version#: Latest windows
Player Version#: Latest Android

Using android Plex app, try to download a movie to my phone S10, latest Android and app, Plex states I itializing but doesn’t progress and fails within a few seconds. Tried on home network and via remote acces, streaming works perfectly.

Could anyone please help? This is really frustrating.

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same issue here on Android devices S21 and Tab S4.

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I don’t think Plex cares whether their customer base is happy and feel supported. There’s plenty of other people with the same issue and they’ve had no response either.

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I’ve had the same issue for months on my Pixel 5a. Here is how I was able to work around the issue. I found that I was able to download successfully on cell data, so it has to be something with in-network wifi. I found several other threads that seem to indicate DNS-related issues.

After trying several things, here are 3 options (pick one) that all worked for me:

  • Set a static IP for my home wifi on my phone using Googles DNS servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4). No decrease in speed. This is the solution I ended up choosing, but the next two work as well
  • Use the (free) 1.1.1.1 app which can route traffic over a VPN profile for DNS resolution. The ‘Warp’ setting and the ‘DNS only’ setting both worked. I suspect any VPN would work. BUT there was probably a 25% decrease in speed over wifi using the tunnel. But it’s easy to enable and disable as needed. It’s also an easy way to test if DNS is your issue.
  • Start the download using cell data, then enable wifi. Downloads still proceeded.

I wish we didn’t need to do this, but the above solutions all worked for me. I think ultimately the issue seems to be inside your network DNS related.

Changing my network’s DHCP DNS servers to Google’s did NOT work (at least in my testing).

Hopefully this helps someone.

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Thank so much for the advice. I will try some of these.

Mine won’t even download over cellular network, would this likely still be a similar issue?

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Boy not sure. I suspect if it doesn’t work over cell, it may be something else. The 1.1.1.1 app was an easy way to test in my case.

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Sounds like a similar or same problem as described here: Unable to download to android anything ever
and Downloads sucks and doesn’t work “Error downloading item”

Can probably be fixed by adding plex.direct to the exceptions of the DNS rebinding protection in your router.

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