I am on Mac.
I have DNSCrypt installed which connects to OPENdns servers and when enabled changes the DNS address to 127.0.0.54 on my network which encrypts the traffic and forwards it to OPENdns servers.
Whenever I have it active Plex gives me a server remote access error. “Not available outside your network”
What is happening here?
There is a field in DNSCrypt to “Bypass DNSCrypt to resolve these domains”
I am not sure which domain I would use for Plex? I tried entering 127.0.0.1 and it did not resolve the issue.
I tried plex.direct and it didn’t resolve the issue. I also entered plex.tv. When I look at DNSCrypt logs for blocked queries it is empty. So, it doesn’t seem to be being blocked locally. I am wondering if web content filtering is causing the issue and if so which domains I should allow through?
It’s interesting Remote Access flashes green for a fraction of a second before turning red. Is that normal?
Sorry, I can’t answer that. This was just the first idea that came to mind.
Heavy filtering can definitely mess with plex’s operation. It tries to ping different servers postioned around the world, trying to find the fastest connection to plex.tv.
If you also have other filters in place which mess with DNS, all connections between server and clients which use TLS can be suppressed. Plex assigns your server a FQDN on the plex-direct domain. Many routers or firewalls mistake this as a ‘DNS rebinding attack’ (which it isn’t).
Just for future reference. I turned off all filtering in OpenDNS and the issue remains. It must be DNSCrypt itself that is causing this. Or something on my system that is not handling DNS properly. Will continue investigating.
UPDATE
using OpenDNS DNS servers doesn’t appear to be the issue. It’s something on my system. Oddly if I close the current web page and open the plex server in a different browser the connection works again with DNSCrypt off. It stays blocked if I attempt to open plex server in the same browser after turning off DNSCrypt.
