How to move Plex away fom port 32400?

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.42.2.110156
Player Version#: 1.112.0.359-0d79a49f

I am trying to move Plex away from the default port 32400 to have more options on wireguard vpn tunneling but every time I go into Settings–>Remote Access–>Manually specify public port and change it to like 34002, 49000 or 49500 and click on Retry it goes online for 2-3 seconds and then it shows “Not available outside your network” but if I go port 32400 there ain’t a problem.

It doesn’t matter if I Ethernet settings in Windows 11 Pro 25H2 is set to network profile type Public or Private network.

I have even tried in Windows Defender Firewall to create a custom rule where local port is 32400 and remote port is 34002, 49000 or 49500 and under advanced I tagged “Domain, Public and Private” networks and it’s still the same Plex refuses to go online, but if I start another application and set it to one of the 3 ports the ports gets active just fine.

So I believe it’s a Plex Server issue and not a OS/Firewall issue, and no I cannot do normal port forwarding which is why I use a vpn.

I just find it strange that the only port Plex wants to work on even remotely is 32400 while other applications just works.

So tell me why is it possible to “Manually specify public port” when it’s clearly ain’t working in software and requires a router?

2

Usually users try to work with exceptions when it comes to dealing with VPNs – not to squeeze remote access through that.

Kind of by nature… if you run traffic through the VPN, that’s supposed to be treated as a local network – not a way to make servers/applications accessible generally from outside your home network. Changing the manual port configuration inside Plex won’t help you much with that. That will only tell Plex what public port you’ve forwarded and tell Plex clients on what (public) port on your server’s public IP they can reach your PMS (a port you’re forwarding on your router, not some software-defined virtual network).

You could do a VPN setup for yourself or family… though that should (theoretically) give you / them a local connection. It’ll probably require some additional tweaking of your network configuration to avoid Plex getting confused with different (physically) local subnets and your VPN.

With a VPN, you’re pretty much on your own – unless you can find some guide for your particular provider.