How can I get Plex working in my car again?

General Discussions
1

I’ve been using Plex since the early days (around 2010) in my home, and not long afterwards I started using it in my car to keep the kids entertained on long journeys. Located under the passenger seat I have a Plex server (originally on top of Windows, now using CentOs) running on a headless Atom mini-ITX.
For many years this worked fabulously. The kids would each watch what they wanted on their iPod Touches (and more recently iPhones/iPads). Unfortunately, over the past couple of years, this has been getting progressively more troublesome. I suspect this is because the Plex Server has wanted access to the internet to function properly.
If I remove the server from the car and plug it into my home LAN (which has access to the internet), it all works fine. Periodically, I do this anyway in order to add new media, where the internet is obviously required for scraping metadata. As soon as it goes back in the car (which does not have internet access), I really struggle to even connect to it from the iOS app. It certainly does not play any media!
I have read this article: support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/200484903-Internet-and-Network-Requirements
Mostly, it states fairly reasonable requirements. Like it needs internet access to be able to index/tag new media. Fair enough. But I don’t understand why it is no longer working at the basic level of serving up media when it can’t see the internet. I’m not using Remote Access, or trying to sync with the cloud. I just want it serve up local, non-transcoded media. Which once it did just fine.
Since it is all on a very local network, I really don’t want authentication at all.

Further info:

  • I am currently running server version 1.7.5.4035. Several earlier versions have behaved similarly.
  • I have a Plex account and I have tried both being logged in and not logged in.
  • On the server, in Settings->Network, I have tried adding the following to the “List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth”:
    192.168.1.0/24

Ideas:

  • Could I run an older version of the server that would still work with an up-to-date iOS client? From where would I get this?
  • Is there some relevant server setting I’ve not found?
  • Is there an alternative to Plex better suited to this situation?

Hopefully, someone will spot something I’m doing wrong, as to me this behaviour seems at odds with ‘cutting the cord’.

2

Hi, how did you set up network in the car? Is there some Router/AP that handles WiFi and DHCP, or you use some dongle plugged in directly to PC to serve data over wifi in the car?

3

Hi,
Thanks for taking the time to help me!
I’m using a TP-LINK TL-WR802N (which is a wireless USB-powered “travel” router). It runs a DHCP server on the 192.168.1 range. It has no route to the internet (as my phone realises when I connect that to it).

4

bee_macfee,

I’ll be keeping an eye on this thread, because I love your idea! Low power processors such as the Atom are a perfect way to bring mobility to (in my case) a portion of my existing library for use on the road with no internet bandwidth necessary. I hope your issue is resolved! I wonder if you set it up so that it could connect to a home wifi network periodically (say, from your driveway?) once in a while for internet connection purposes? It might require you to periodically configure your TP-LINK as a temporary network bridge to your home wifi in order to do that. At least then it could do whatever phoning home it needs.

Good luck!

5

I’ve noticed that Western Digital make a portable HDD that has Plex preinstalled. This must get around this problem someway, or it is just a configuration issue:
wdc.com/en-gb/products/portable-storage/my-passport-wireless-pro.html
Any thoughts, anyone?

6

If you cannot access the internet for some reason (like using your TP-LINK router while traveling), your client device(s) may not find your server even if they are on the same local network. There is an article that may help you with this problem at …
–> https://www.howtogeek.com/303282/how-to-use-plex-media-server-without-internet-access/

I have not tried using the authors “netmask” method yet, however I plan to do so. Let me know if it works for you. I like your “mobile” idea – never considered it.

7

Sorry for letting this go off my radar for a while. Could you please try following:
Go to the admin page of the TP link and set up DHCP reservation for your device with plex server - the target is to get same IP adress for the Plex machine every time it powers up in the car.
Note down the ip address that you reserve for the Plex server machine.
Now take the kids ipads/ipods/iwhatewer devices, start plex player app Go to the Settings > Advanced > Manual connection, turn on Enable manual connection and fill in the server ip.
Try to connect.
Let me know if this worked for you.