I see the API server is down again 3/21/2020

General Discussions
106

This is the EXACT ISSUE HERE.

3 Likes
107

STOP.

Give me two minutes to write a proper reply.

108

This seems like exactly the core issue to me.

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111

Please grant me the courtesy of responding to everyone’s questions?

Thank you.

2 Likes
112

FYI: Nobody can reply until the thread is opened again.

I will wait until everyone takes a breath a civil discussion can be had.

113

How it works

Plex.tv manages all of Plex’s streaming operations.

  • Our servers register with it so it knows what it needs to support all our streaming requirements
  • Our devices register with it so we can seamlessly access our servers or any of Plex’s other streaming services with a single sign-on session.
  • Integrated with our servers and devices are all of Plex’s streaming services.

Because of world events, everyone has been forced to seek their entertainment from within the confines of their homes.

I am watching, as I write this, everything the Operations team is doing to stay ahead of the demands for:

  1. Local streaming from our servers
  2. Remote streaming from our servers
  3. Video On Demand
  4. Any other streaming from our servers (music & photos)

The central name for this is plex.tv. All the traffic goes there.
This is no different than ‘www.google.com’ or ‘www.netflix.com’

From there, it fans out to all the regions of the world and distributes everyone’s requests so they may be satisfied quickly and efficiently.

In plain simple truth, for as fast as the internet backbone is (where Plex.tv lives), it wasn’t fast enough.

Of what I saw, one of the facets of Plex.tv was processing upwards of 1 million requests per minute. This is independent of the other tasks it’s performing.

Operations has been increasing capacity to meet that demand.

What happened this afternoon was a sudden surge as a huge block of people from around the world turned to Plex.

Whether it be Plex or Netflix or anyone else, the result would have been the same.

Now, if we can discuss calmly, I will be happy to help in any way I can.

1 Like
115

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic (I think it’s relevant to the original discussion):

Would this outage interrupt playback if I’m already logged in?
I was watching a movie and the server suddenly became unreachable. This was about 2 hours 25 minutes ago. (I believe it’s all working now!) I was using it from a device on the same local network.

I just set up Plex for the first time about a week ago, and I’m still trying to learn how to recognize different issues, their causes, and their solutions.

116

Sam,
It shouldn’t have interrupted your playback. Any existing sessions should have continued as-is. I am willing work with you in a separate thread (not to cloud this one) to figure out why.

117

Thank you very much! I’ll work out how to start a new one :smiley:

118

This thread is not about any of your 1 2 3 or 4 online streaming points, it’s about locking us out inside our own home networks from our own local network hosted content because the current design isn’t scaling on unrelated Plex features that to many of us do not provide extra value.

What we’re asking is that if the auth servers get overloaded, that we at the least are able to use Plex within our own networks in a “local mode”, and that is not currently the case.

Can you address this point please?

119

Maybe just think about the ability of a fallback, if the api or login servers are down, let the user access the local content, disable all plex pass functions and thats it.

Please just implement this feature and don’t wait for 5 years and 1000 votes.

BTW: i opened a feature request for this.

Thanks :slight_smile:

1 Like
121

Typically, the Server/Network setting should be ‘Preferred’, not ‘Required’ or ‘Disabled’.

Player apps - as you’ll see in the “Player” tab of Plexweb’s Settings - should be ‘fallback to insecure on local network only’. That’s ALL clients, as that setting is client specific.

In the case of this outage - rather unique, so far - Desktop operations went out completely. No Plexweb, no desktop player, squat.

The Roku on the local network and Remote clients, however, suffered no outage.

Make those settings - when/if the internet goes out or Plex.tv goes down - you should still be able to access through a device client. If you didn’t have those settings like that before - that’s why your stream failed
 I think.

At my house, for this particular outage, as happens when the internet goes out - Plexweb stopped seeing the mothership and could not see the server. Local clients fellback to the network and streaming continued - exactly as expected.

@ChuckPa knows way more about operations than I do.
He can put a much finer point on it.

122

@alandudley

I’ll probably get my tuckus in a wringer for it but;

  1. Yes, increased tolerance is being addressed

  2. Further, I’m one of those who is championing the ability to “drop & run offline” because I live in a northern state where Internet isn’t always available. Heck, one icy road and boom, half the town is out for a day or two.

  3. PMS already has authentication caching built into it. Apps are already migrating to use it more and more so Krap like this doesn’t happen.

3 Likes
123

While I appreciate you very detailed explanation–what does that have to do with me running my plex server locally accessing my own local content?

124

My question was and still is: Why is so much of the Plex service dependent on the sentral infrastructure? Why is internet access a necessary requirement for adding media to my library? It makes sense that I won’t get any external metadata, but why not even temporarily with the locally available information? Why is this not split away from the streaming service?

125

As @JuiceWSA points out.

  • Set your preferences to Preferred. The moment you require SSL, you demand plex.tv authenticate the request. You’ve just sealed your own fate.

  • Settings - Server - Network — Define your Local LAN IP range to be permitted WITHOUT AUTHENTICATION. If someone gets in on your LAN, you have FAR bigger issues than worrying about your Plex system. If you don’t trust your own wires or WiFi, there’s a much bigger problem.

1 Like
126

@sensei321

How is your server and how are your apps configured? Is secure connection Preferred or Required?

127

Thanks for that. Offline features are critical to many of us. Plex is supposed to be my fallback if there are internet problems, so this was a shocker for me.
If you need more voices in support of you on this please let us know how and where we can help with that.

1 Like