Indirect Connection within local network

[Divideby0]

Android TV: Whatever Nvidia Shield’s latest is
Chrome: 4.152.0
Plex For Windows: 1.110.0.351-4e48eb83
Server, Ubuntu Docker: 1.43.0.10231

Long story short, I am getting forced into Plex Relay within my local network, sometimes while in the middle of watching something on Plex.

This issue has come up within the last few weeks multiple times. On my Nvidia Shield, I was in the middle of watching a movie when it hung while rewinding the show a few seconds. This must have dumped my cache, so when it went to re-fetch the video data it was unavailable. From then on, I was unable to play the media, and the client claimed that my server was unavailable. After several minutes of closing the app, rebooting the shield, and restarting the server, the server was finally reachable by the client, but it was using the Plex Relay, and was transcoding the video to HD quality. After a few more minutes (and a switch reboot), it seemed to fix itself.

Last night (and right now), my Chrome client I use to manage (but not watch) the server is showing no connection. After a few seconds, it connects, but informs me that it is using a Plex Relay. Any media I attempt to play is transcoded due to the relay.

You can see that someone else within my household is able to play directly without issue.

The strange thing, is that I can load up Plex For Windows or Firefox, log in, and play the same file, and I am not indirect. So it appears to be a client issue where it failed to retrieve the IP of my server, and falls back on the Plex Relay. What might be causing this? It can even happen mid-stream, as happened yesterday to my Plex-For-Windows in the middle of watching something (fixed itself after server reboot), and earlier last week with the Shield (resolved after switch power cycle, or just time). As of right now, I haven’t been able to get the chrome client to fix itself, even if I close down Chrome entirely and reload it.

Here, I have the same movie loaded on my Windows player, and in chrome, while my family member is also playing just fine on Roku.

Solved Edit:
Click the double bar next to the URL in your browser, and allow “Local Network Access” for this site and refresh. If you declined it, this slider bar will be off.

[veeejay]

If it’s just Chrome, make sure it has access to the local network in the settings.

If you don’t have multiple subnets/vlans, it could potentially be related to DNS rebind protection. Change the DNS servers on your router to 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4 or 1.1.1.1/1.0.0.1 so devices on your network use them. If needed change them on the devices themselves as well. Give everything a reboot and try again.

If you’re using an ISP gateway/router that won’t let you change the DNS servers, change it on the devices directly. Some devices, like Rokus, won’t allow this, so you would need to get a separate router and either bypass the ISP one or put it into bridge/passthrough mode.

[Divideby0]

I feel like I am a pretty strong Plex user, and I have changed nothing in chrome from last week to last night/today. As of right now, Chrome still fails to connect directly to my server.
I had attempted to log out then back in, and even tried it in incognito mode. In the latter settings, I got an interesting error when I logged in, it stated “Your credentials have expired, please log in again.”, but upon hitting OK on the prompt it did nothing more than present my normal server homepage. A page refresh did not yield a prompt to login, nor did it warn me of my credentials. This is the same error you get when a client has been deleted from the “Authorized Devices” panel of account settings.

As for DNS rebind protection, I have not had an issue in the past, and have not logged into any of my routers to enable the feature recently. I will check for the existence of the setting, and whether it is set, but as this issue does not happen on a different browser on the exact same computer, it seems unlikely to be a router-based setting.

DHCP on the router is currently set to use the ISP’s default, and I am not using an alternate DNS in my own network settings. I may fiddle with that in the future, but again seems like a bad direction to go if this exact same computer can connect directly using Firefox, but not Chrome.

My network is fairly simple. While I have a wi-fi router in the home, my computer and my server have no wireless card, so use the home modem/router’s DHCP setting in the 192.168.0.x network. Wireless devices are on the 192.168.5.x network, but are routed properly and do not currently have this issue, only Chrome on my Wired desktop computer.

Edit: I’m going to check out the rather large forum post I’ve seen here lately about people being unable to log in, getting an Internal Server Error upon login. I am not getting this issue myself, but I wonder if my inability to connect directly might be related somehow…

[veeejay]

If your ISP changed something on their end with their DNS servers and you are using their servers, you wouldn’t have had to change anything. Also, rebind doesn’t always affect all devices the same way.

[Divideby0]

I glanced through Chrome settings, but there didn’t seem to be a “network access” section. After discussing with a family member who works for a big company, he mentioned that Chrome has now apparently blocked local network access, and some online sites require it for their intranet to work. Oh a hunch, I checked the two bar icon on the address bar and it was indeed turned off. I looked around a bit more, and it is a PER-SITE setting I enabled. I don’t recall declining this permission, but it is on a “Ask me” setting for all sites, and plex is now explicitly allowed to access local devices for this site specifically.

After enabling that for the site, and refreshing, it can connect to my server now. Devs or other forum lurkers might want to be aware that Chrome seems to be more “secure”, which may block standard Chrome users from accessing their server directly.

Sorry I glazed over Veeejay’s first line of his first post telling me to check if it had access. This is a new setting I was unaware of, and didn’t know existed, or where to look.

[Palom0]

I also have the “indirect” connection issue. Only that for me it happens while using the Plex App on my Mac computer. To make it even weirder, my other Mac connects directly using the same Plex App, same WiFi, same network and same settings.
Any ideas?

[Divideby0]

Windows has a setting to specify if a network is “Public” or “Private”. A “Private” network will configure your firewall to prevent access to local networks. I do not know if Mac’s have this setting as well, but it sounds like your Mac is possibly restricting local network traffic or is otherwise unable to reach the server. Double check the Mac’s IP, and the server IP. See if they are in the same subnet (such as 192.168.0.x), or if there is a change in one of the third octet’s number.

[Palom0]

Both my two MACs and my Server have the same IP address. (I checked it with whatsmyipaddress.com)

[veeejay]

On your Mac, the setting is not in the browser. Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Local Network and make sure the Plex App has the toggle turned on for local access.

That IP is your public facing IP, not the individual devices. You would have to go into the network settings > WiFi > Details to see the IP for a Mac device.

[TheLivingBubba]

Mac OS also has some anonymity features under settings → Wifi → Details, you can try turning them off and see if it helps.

[Palom0]

Uauuuu!!! Thanks, that fixed it. Thanks
Now if I could fix the “Indirect” connection I have in both of my Macs when going to the Plex website using Chrome at home. If I use Safari, I get “direct” connection on both Macs, but not on Chrome.
Suggestions?

[veeejay]

It should be in the same place. You give Chrome access to the local network vs the Plex App itself.

[Palom0]

That’s kinda strange because on one Mac I got about 30 instances of “Google Chrome.app” with the toggle “on” and on the other Mac I get also ~30 instances with the toggle “off”.
What the hell is going on???

[veeejay]

Check here also when you go to the app.plex.tv site…and ensure it’s toggled on. It prob shows up in the system settings for each tab, and just shows Chrome there, maybe?

[Palom0]

Veeejay,
This keeps getting better. I was able to find that option on one of my MACs and your tip fixed the “Indirect” issue on that one (thank you) but on the other Mac, the Local Network Access option is just not there.
This is what I see on each one:

[veeejay]

For the one without it in Chrome, in the main system settings, is chrome toggled on?

[Palom0]

It wasn’t, so I toggled it on and restarted Chrome, but the “Local Network Access” option is still not showing…

[veeejay]

Try an incognito window in Chrome, see if it gives you the prompt.

I haven’t tried these, but here are a few things you can try: Chrome not able to access local network, … - Apple Community

[Palom0]

Solved it!!! Thanks

This is what I did (using your instructions)

- Start up your Mac in recovery mode (follow procedure for Apple silicon or Intel based Macs)

• Select your User and Password
• On the top menu, go to Utilities>Terminal
• Disable SIP by entering “csrutil disable” at the prompt
• Type “Reboot” at the prompt

Delete the following files
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.networkextension.plist
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.networkextension.uuidcache.plist
~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome
~/Library/Caches/Google/Chrome
~/Library/Preferences/com.google.Chrome.plist

Reboot

Relaunch Chrome and make sure you are prompted:
“Allow Chrome to find devices on local networks?”

Make sure to ANSWER “ALLOW” !!!

If not prompted, force Chrome to do so:

• Go to “chrome://flags”
• In search bar type: "local-network-access-check
• Find “Local Network Access Checks” and set flag to “Enabled (Blocking)”
• Relaunch browser.

-Go to Apple Logo>System Settings>Privacy & Security>Local Network
Check that Local Network is clean with a single entry
-Shutdown and start up Mac in recovery mode again

-In Terminal, Enable SIP by entering “csrutil enable” at the prompt
-Type “Reboot” at the prompt