first of all thank you for the amazing product and the great community and support! I’ve been using Plex for several years now and have also recommended and implemented it for many of my friends.
I am currently having a very unexpected and annoying issue with Plex, however. Here’s the situation: one of my friends, with whom I share my library is going on vacation for 3 weeks to a location with very bad / often completely non-existent internet connection. She want’s to use the downtime catch-up on some series and movies, however.
My solution was to install a Plex Server on her MacBook Air and copy some of my movies / series to her drive. This way she can watch them offline when she doesn’t have an internet connection and still have access to my server when she does have good connectivity. Here’s my problem however: it seems it’s impossible to authenticate offline and watch the content that is already sitting ON HER HARDDRIVE without an internet connection. How could that be? This is the dumbest solution I’ve heard of - or am I missing something?
I tired putting 127.0.0.1/255.255.255.255 in the list of clients who should always be authenticated under the “Network” tab in the Server Settings, but that didn’t do anything… I can’t think of any other possible solutions.
Can someone please help? Thank you very much in advance!
Installing Plex Media Server on her MacBook and having her own copies of movies gives her her own server and this would be separate and has no relation or bearing on what you have and what you shared. Of course if she has her own Plex Media Server and her own Plex Library setup then she can use her own server on her own MacBook offline through Plex Web App directly to url http://localhost:32400/web provided that she is not setting up Plex Home. This access would be unrelated to her access to your server which of course would need internet.
Yeah, that’s the theory and what I thought too. However, it doesn’t work that way in reality unfortunately.
When I try to open the local server without an Internet connection I get a message that there’s no connection to the server. Apparently the local server still needs an Internet connection to authenticate.
@mandadzhiev said:
Hey sa2000, thank you for your answer.
Yeah, that’s the theory and what I thought too. However, it doesn’t work that way in reality unfortunately.
When I try to open the local server without an Internet connection I get a message that there’s no connection to the server. Apparently the local server still needs an Internet connection to authenticate.
Any ideas?
Are you using PlexPASS version ? Any Premium Music libraries? Is Secure Connections set to Required? Have you gone through the initial setup wizard and signed the server to plex.tv account ? I presume it is her account that owns and manages the server
And when Plex Media Server app is running - what does this bring in on the screen? http://localhost:32400/web
Are you using PlexPASS version ? Any Premium Music libraries? Is Secure Connections set to Required? Have you gone through the initial setup wizard and signed the server to plex.tv account ? I presume it is her account that owns and manages the server
And when Plex Media Server app is running - what does this bring in on the screen? http://localhost:32400/web
She’s signed in with her Plex.tv account, owns the server and Secure Connections is turned off. Unfortunately I don’t have her laptop here now so I can make a screenshot of what I get when I go to http://localhost:32400/web but it’s something about the server not being reachable, check internet connection etc.
I have PlexPass, but that should be irrelevant, because my account doesn’t own the server on her laptop - I’ve just invited her as a friend to share my server…
Are you using PlexPASS version ? Any Premium Music libraries? Is Secure Connections set to Required? Have you gone through the initial setup wizard and signed the server to plex.tv account ? I presume it is her account that owns and manages the server
And when Plex Media Server app is running - what does this bring in on the screen? http://localhost:32400/web
She’s signed in with her Plex.tv account, owns the server and Secure Connections is turned off. Unfortunately I don’t have her laptop here now so I can make a screenshot of what I get when I go to http://localhost:32400/web but it’s something about the server not being reachable, check internet connection etc.
I have PlexPass, but that should be irrelevant, because my account doesn’t own the server on her laptop - I’ve just invited her as a friend to share my server…
The investigation into the issue should be done as one for her server for her plex.tv account for her library and not bring your server sharing into it. She needs to be able to access her own media and her own server and you would need access to her machine to troubleshoot the problem.
I’ve taken her out of my friends list. Still, when I connect to the local server on her laptop from a browser, it first asks me for her PIN and then it shows me a message that Plex is not reachable and I should ensure that I am connected to the internet etc.
I’ve taken her out of my friends list. Still, when I connect to the local server on her laptop from a browser, it first asks me for her PIN and then it shows me a message that Plex is not reachable and I should ensure that I am connected to the internet etc.
Ideas?
Are you using her laptop where her Plex Media Server is running to access her server in a browser going to url : http://localhost:32400/web ?
Is the browser plex.tv session logged in with her plex.tv account (top right corner drop down) ?
Did she have a pin for her account as part of Plex Home setup ?
I am opening http://localhost:32400/web locally on the same MacBook Air, on which the server is installed.
She’s logged in to plex.tv - on the top right there’s a circle with her first initial letter in it when there’s an internet connection. When we turn-off the internet we never get to the main screen where the circle is, because of the aforementioned reasons.
I don’t remember anymore when and why we set-up the PIN. However, even if we disable the PIN, this doesn’t change anything. Also she did create her account independently, just by going to plex.tv and not as a part of a Plex Home set-up, by creating a “managed user”.
Well, there’s no registry, because I am on a Mac. Also the the com.plexapp.plexmediaserver.plist file doesn’t contain the lines that are listed in that guide.
I also just noticed another problem: even if I am online and I can login and see my local movies, when I tried to play them nothing happens and the status section of Plex also doesn’t show that I am playing anything…
ok so if no PlexOnlineHome key - why is it asking for pin. Is her username part of a Plex Home on your system?
May be sign out of plex.tv on her laptop and clear browser cache
As I already wrote, the file is there, however it looks scrambled and doesn’t contain all the keys listed in the guide and for example the <key> </key> strings are missing.
Is there a way I can do a clean install? I tried removing the app and deleting the com.plexapp.plexmediaserver.plist file but once I install the app again, the same file is there again and I am even still logged in the browser…
OK, after deleting everything, rebooting and clearing Safari’s cache it now seems to finally work offline too.
Does that mean however, that the moment I invite her to share my server as a Friend (NOT as part of “My Home”) she won’t be able to access her own movies offline again? That doesn’t make any sense to me… She should be able to have access to her own server, even when she has not internet and my server is inaccessible…
You are right - sorry and i have corrected myself in my posts
@mandadzhiev said:
As I already wrote, the file is there, however it looks scrambled and doesn’t contain all the keys listed in the guide and for example the strings are missing.
what do you mean scrambled ? There should be text content with a number of keys and values
@mandadzhiev said:
OK, after deleting everything, rebooting and clearing Safari’s cache it now seems to finally work offline too.
Does that mean however, that the moment I invite her to share my server as a Friend (NOT as part of “My Home”) she won’t be able to access her own movies offline again? That doesn’t make any sense to me… She should be able to have access to her own server, even when she has not internet and my server is inaccessible…
So going forward - you can share your libraries with her as normal library sharing and not as managed user as part of Plex Home and as long as a pin does not get added to her account and she must not be part of your Plex Home - it should be ok. Her own server should be accessible to her through localhost:32400/web with or without internet
