My brother and I have had a Plex server for a few years now and I never ran into this problem. I can only connect to his server indirectly, and the same for him. He can only connect indirectly to my server. We are both stuck using relay only. Remote access is fully accessible on both ends. What I don’t get is why no other person that has access to my server has this problem. Granted they don’t have a server but they are playing all media directly on my server and no relay. So why is it my brother, the only other person that shares his server with me, the only person that cannot connect to my server directly?
Sounds to me like something on your brother’s network is preventing the connection either in or out. I would start looking there.
Are you two relatively close to each other and share the same ISP?
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we are in the same city and we do use Spectrum if that’s what your asking.
My brothers server is fully accessible from outside his network. And so is mine. And we both have friends and family using our servers. They do not have a problem playing directly without relay. The problem lies between my brother and I. The only two people that have a server setup. I can only connect thru relay to his server. And my brother can only connect to my server thru relay. This is so confusing. It says the server doesn’t have enough bandwidth to play directly. We have both tested are connection. My download speeds are 117mbps and my upload is 11mbps and my brothers is similar speeds.
See Suddenly Remote access isn't working - Outside network appears and then fails - #5 by OttoKerner for some ideas.
Umm… but remote access is fully working. Outside network doesn’t appear then fail. So those suggestions wouldn’t pertain to me. Thanks for trying to help though. I guess I’m going to have to live with connecting to my brothers server thru relay.
They would still pertain to you. Just try them.
Anyone on my server can connect and play media without any problem except for my brother. And for my brother, anyone can connect and play media on his server without a hitch, except for me. When I look my brothers server on my laptop, I see a Earth symbol over his username. It’s grayed out. If I remember correctly it should be green.
Sometimes you can’t communicate directly between adjacent modems on the same ISP network.
Can he visit your https://public.ip.addr.ess:port/web/ in a web browser? Can you visit his?
For this test only, getting a certificate error would be a good sign; it would indicate that basic direct connectivity is possible.
Are your public IP addresses very similar, differing only in the last part(s)?
Is the gray Earth symbol the certificate error you speak of?
I’m not sure what gray Earth symbol you mean. Is that an error that your web browser is giving?
The intention of this test is to confirm (or deny) your ability to make a direct network connection to each others’ servers.
Other ways to do the same thing:
Mac Terminal.app:
% nc -z <address> <port>
Connection to <address> port <port> [tcp/*] succeeded!
Windows PowerShell prompt:
Test-NetConnection -ComputerName <address> -Port <port>
If you notice, there is a gray symbol that resembles Earth on the username icon. If I recall correctly it should be green.
The little Globe icon just means a server isn’t on the LAN.
I don’t think the Globe icon changes color, or indicates whether a connection is Direct or Indirect/Relay.
I can visit my brothers https://public.ip.address:port/web/…but only insecurely.
That’s a good sign, but it’s confusing.
- Plex works locally.
- Plex works remotely, EXCEPT between your locations.
- You CAN connect to his server.
Right?
Yes to all those. I can even play media on his server. But I’m forced to play thru relay every time.
I made a mistake. I cannot connect to his https://public.ip.address:port/web. The only way I can connect is if I have my vpn turned on. Strange. Now it says to check the proxy and firewall. It times out actually.
Ahhh! That’s not encouraging, but at least it makes sense. Some ISP networks don’t allow individual adjacent subscribers to communicate directly with each other.
Are both of your public IP addresses in the same subnet?
This problem all started when my PC completely lost remote access and no matter what I tried… I couldn’t get it back up. So I ended up doing a complete PC reset to get remote access back up and running. Remote access now stays on all the time. But I cant connect to my brothers server anymore without relay. I’m starting to think its my ISP like you said though. If I were to call them… What question should I ask them? I don’t know what to say.
