I’ve been using Plex for about 2 years with no issues. Suddenly today I’m unable to direct connect to the server on my home network. I can still play movies but the quality is low because I do not have a direct connection. Any ideas what could be wrong?
What does on the web client dashboard when playing an item on one of these devices: Local, Remote, or Indirect? Have you made any changes to your network recently, such as a new router or DNS configuration?
What you describe could be caused by a feature of some routers/DNS servers called DNS rebinding protection. The way Plex implements secure client/server connections requires that the DNS server you use be able to resolve lookups for *.plex.direct to a local IP address; DNS rebinding protection can prevent this. This can cause the client to fall back to a remote or relayed connection.
There’s some additional information here:
Thanks for the response. I have google WiFi and have had it the entire time I’ve been running Plex. Nothing has changed with my settings unless there was a background update of some kind I’m unaware of. I tried following some of the steps in the link you provided but nothing made any difference.
It appears to be an indirect connection.
If you can, post your debug logs:
They may give some clue as to what’s going wrong. Also, can you confirm that your server and your clients are on the same LAN (what are their IP addresses)?
Plex Media Server Logs_2020-05-06_21-00-16.zip (4.5 MB)
Here are the logs. I can confirm the server and clients are on the same LAN.
server 192.168.86.97
roku tv 192.168.86.172
Thanks. The logs show that it’s timing out trying to connect to the WAN IP address; it doesn’t appear to be attempting to connect to the local IP address. So, it’s falling back to a relayed connection.
There are several instances of network change events in your logs in your logs:
May 05, 2020 22:01:05.053 [8112] DEBUG - Network change.
May 05, 2020 22:01:05.053 [8112] DEBUG - NetworkInterface: Notified of network changed (force=0)
May 05, 2020 22:01:05.223 [8112] DEBUG - Network interfaces:
May 05, 2020 22:01:05.223 [8112] DEBUG - NetworkService: Got notification of changed network (first change: 0)
May 05, 2020 22:01:05.223 [8112] DEBUG - NetworkService: Dispatch network change after two second delay.
Your logs aren’t flooded with them, but it could still indicate some network instability.
You mentioned using Google Wifi earlier. Do you have your server connected to your network via Wi-Fi, or via Ethernet? If Wi-Fi, it could account for some network connection loss. Also, if Google Wifi enforces client isolation, it would prevent network devices from communicating with each other. Are you able to perform a test with both the server and a client wired to the network via Ethernet?
As a final suggestion, can you change your clients’ DNS server settings to point to a public service, such as Google (8.8.8.8) or Cloudflare (1.1.1.1)? That could help eliminate DNS rebinding protection as the cause of the issue.
I can try ethernet this weekend, it would require me to move my computer to the room where my modem is. Yes the server is currently on wifi. I have however been using the exact same setup on my google wifi with plex for at least a year now and have had zero issues until this suddenly has happened. I don’t know if I can change roku settings for the DNS server, but it isn’t only that TV, its everything that I try using on my network. All TVs, phones etc. all have the issue of not being able to get a direct connection to the server.
Looks like it must have been a bug from the last update to the server. Another update was released this morning and after I downloaded it everything is working perfectly again. Thanks for your help.
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