How to get back to freedom?

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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For some years I’ve used Plexmediaserver on local servers without a plex pass.

Now I have tried Plex pass a couple of months, and decided to drop it, because the benefits are too marginal.

But … now i can no longer log in to my plexmediaserver without being redirected to plex central servers app.plex.tv and my plexmediaserver says it can’t find itself!

I feel like I’ve been taken captive!

I have even tried to completely purge the installation and reinstall.

I have tried to delete folders, and I have looked inside Preferences.xml for something to remove … which isn’t there!

I am sorry that I sound frustrated - but I am.

How do I get back to my nice independent system free of central Plex meddling???

My Plex pass still lasts for a few days, but I want to rid myself of this governance immediately.

Running latest Ubuntu.

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your sign in creds are in preferences.xml

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This is what was in my Preferences.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
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You should be able to remove the credentials listed here to remove the logged in user: Why Am I Locked Out of Server Settings and How Do I Get In

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Anyways:

I have made a small progress by going to the server itself, and accessing it as localhost.
Now I can use the server itself - after noticing the tiny “Whta’s this” down in the righthand corner.

But webclients on the same subnet are still redirected to login centrally at Plex HQ, and there is no “Escape” -button.

And yes, I have now entered 10.1.1.0/24 in the allowed subnets on the server - alas to no avail so far.

(I understand that Plex needs to make money from subscriptions, but jeeez they make it hard to use their “free” model.)

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Yeah, I’ve read that article and hence my reference to not being able to delete stuff in Preferences.xml that isn’t there.

Sorry I see that the contents of my prefs that I tried to post above have been filtered and are incomplete.
But the point was that those items described i that article was NOT in my prefs.

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Trying to post contents of my prefs again to avoid filtering:

?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“utf-8”?
Preferences OldestPreviousVersion=“1.13.2.5154-fd05be322” MachineIdentifier=“5…b” ProcessedMachineIdentifier=“d…6c” AnonymousMachineIdentifier=“1…6” MetricsEpoch=“1” GracenoteUser=“W…k=”/

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So there is no trace of the things mentioned in the article:

PlexOnlineHome=“1”

PlexOnlineMail="jane@example.com"

PlexOnlineToken=“B…C”

PlexOnlineUsername=“ExampleUser”

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But now my problem has changed to not being able to access the server from other client on my subnet - despite entering the subnet on the server.

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These are my current prefs:

Notice: allowedNetworks=“10.1.1.0/24”

?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“utf-8”?
Preferences OldestPreviousVersion=“1.13.2.5154-fd05be322” MachineIdentifier=“5…b” ProcessedMachineIdentifier=“d…c” AnonymousMachineIdentifier=“1…6” MetricsEpoch=“1” GracenoteUser=“W…k=” AcceptedEULA=“1” FriendlyName=“sofa” PublishServerOnPlexOnlineKey=“0” FSEventLibraryPartialScanEnabled=“1” FSEventLibraryUpdatesEnabled=“1” GenerateBIFBehavior=“scheduled” OnDeckWindow=“3” ScheduledLibraryUpdatesEnabled=“1” WebHooksEnabled=“0” allowedNetworks=“10.1.1.0/24” TranscoderH264BackgroundPreset=“medium” TranscoderQuality=“3” TranscoderTempDirectory="/custom/plextmp" DlnaEnabled=“0” sendCrashReports=“0”/

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Client on subnet is still redirected to
https://app.plex.tv/auth/#!?clientID=l…

It still appears really hard to get free of those chains of Plex Pass!!!

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During googling i found hints about “disableRemoteSecurity”, so I tried that to no avail, the googled disableRemoteSecurity, and discovered that it has been disabled.

Discussed in this thread:

In essence from this post:

“There appears to be a problem when whitelisting a WAN IP Address
This has been referred to the development team. Meanwhile - please ensure all access is authenticated”

It would appear that Plex has just (deliberately?) botched “unauthenticated” network access of plexmediaserver.

I wonder if my subnet is deemed to be “wan” because it is 10.1.x.x and not 10.0.x.x - which would be a misunderstanding of RFC 1918 - Address Allocation for Private Internets:

10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)
172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255 (172.16/12 prefix)
192.168.0.0 - 192.168.255.255 (192.168/16 prefix)

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So here’s hoping that plexmediaserver will become unbotched in a coming update.

But I fear that Plex is on a mission to shut down plex installations outside of their control.

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For now, I’ve succumbed to “authorizing”, and it works, but I wonder what will break, when my Plex Pass expires?

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10.1.x.x is included in this range: 10.0.0.0 - 10.255.255.255 (10/8 prefix)

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My point.

The question is if plex implemented the range correctly, or limited it to 10.0.x.x?

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IOW:

I have a hunch that a coincidence might be at play:

Plexmediaserver has been updated to 1.7.5 while I have been on Plex Pass, hence I run into a new limitaton when trying to liberate myself from Plex Pass.

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