My internet went out while we had company during the 2025 Christmas holidays. The TV was keeping the young kids entertained. I thought no problem, I’ll start plex. Roku Plex would not load my library’s, thus it wouldn’t work. I downloaded Roku media server and couldn’t get it to work either. I need to revisit this to find out why. I need to find an alternative work around. 2020-21 power blackout in Texas panhandle was not an issue due to plex working without internet. Since plex now fails this requirement, I really just need an alternative. Lifetime Plex pass member. would Jellyfish fill this void?
Plex on Roku doesn’t require Internet to be working, but it’s kinda wonky to get it to work. Poor programming has it sitting there for a long time waiting while it tries to load the home screen (which apparently requires communication with Plex’s servers via the Internet). Eventually, when it errors out with a poorly-worded error message, you have to click up and over to your library tab, at which point it will display your libraries on the drop down menu and let you get to your own content. It ought to be able to determine that you have no Internet connection and automatically default to your own library menu, but I guess that would be asking too much.
I have the roku.com domain blocked at my firewall because I am tired of them injecting ads into my Roku device menus. Apparently this makes the Plex app very unhappy as it sits forever turning while getting to the recommendations screen or the live TV guide screen. I don’t understand why the inability to talk to that domain should affect the Plex Roku app’s ability to communicate with my Plex media server that resides on the same home network.
