My local Plex Media Server running on Arch Linux appears in all of my local devices as a remote server. My local devices are two Raspberry Pi’s running RasPlex, and various wired and wifi computers running the web client. In the web client, my local library shows as “remote” instead of “nearby”:
and on the RasPlex devices I have to set the “remote” bandwidth to “Direct Play” or they request transcoding.
I’ve read through this thread: forums.plex.tv/discussion/219522/local-plex-server-showing-as-remote and double-checked to make sure that plex.direct DNS lookups are working properly. DNS rebinding doesn’t apply to me because I have a “real” home network address (199.85.99.0); I’m not using RFC1918 space. I wonder if that’s the problem? Do the clients check for “device on the same subnet” or are they actually checking for RFC1918 addresses?
I’ve configured Plex Media Server to treat my entire network as “local” using “199.85.99.0/255.255.255.0” but that hasn’t helped.
I’m not sure where to go from here - any assistance would be appreciated!
@“Bartlomiej Baraniec” said:
Wait, what you mean by “real” home network address? Whole public 199.85.99/24 is yours and each device has public ip?
The network 199.85.99.0/24 is assigned to my home LAN. It is not “public” in the sense that it is reachable from the Internet - there’s a NAT firewall in place. Plex Server successfully detects my separate “local” and “remote” IP addresses; the remote address is assigned by my ISP out of their address space.
Could be an issue with your modem/router or if you use a service like OpenDNS/Google DNS.
See this support article and scroll down to the section for DNS Rebinding
@hthighway said:
Could be an issue with your modem/router or if you use a service like OpenDNS/Google DNS.
See this support article and scroll down to the section for DNS Rebinding
Thanks for your response! The forum post I linked to discusses DNS rebinding, and how to test it, and (long story short) I’ve added “plex.direct” to the Domain whitelist on my router.
I installed plex media server on my laptop. If I run the client using my local IP address (199.85.99.32) the local media server shows as “Remote”. If I run the web client using 127.0.0.1 then the locally installed media server suddenly shows as “Nearby”.
Then I added an IP address to my laptop of 192.168.100.1. Now my locally installed media server appears as “Nearby” no matter which URL I use for the web client (local IP addresses, plex.tv, etc.)
It appears that the plex web client checks for 192.168 addresses specially? Can anyone confirm or deny?
Confirmed. Plex appears to treat RFC1918 addresses as “Nearby” and everything else as “Remote”.
I just built a pair of VMs, one running plex media server and one running a graphical desktop.
When both VMs are on network 192.168.1.0/24, the plex server shows as “Nearby” and videos are played with Direct Play. If I renumber both VMs to 199.85.99.0/24, the plex server now shows as “Remote” and videos are transcoded.
This is a bug. How do I log it with the plex team?
@kochhaus said:
Confirmed. Plex appears to treat RFC1918 addresses as “Nearby” and everything else as “Remote”.
I just built a pair of VMs, one running plex media server and one running a graphical desktop.
When both VMs are on network 192.168.1.0/24, the plex server shows as “Nearby” and videos are played with Direct Play. If I renumber both VMs to 199.85.99.0/24, the plex server now shows as “Remote” and videos are transcoded.
This is a bug. How do I log it with the plex team?
This is a bug. My private home network uses a publically routable address, so Plex treats it as a WAN even though it’s local (my server and my clients are all on the same IP subnet).
Conversely, I could run a VPN connecting my cloud-based server in Atlanta to a home network, and Plex would treat it as local even though it’s far away over a WAN connection.
I believe that Plex needs a better way to figure out what is local, and/or configuration options. “Same subnet” would be a good first approximation?
With regards to Bandwidth and Transcoding Limits, there is a setting LAN Networks where you could specify that it should be treated as LAN. See section headed LAN Networks in this guide Server Settings - Bandwidth and Transcoding Limits
That setting (LAN Networks) says in its documentation on the settings page itself:
“If left blank, only the server’s subnet is considered to be on the local network.”
My Plex Media Server and my laptop are on the same physical subnet (199.85.99.0/26), and yet (as shown in the photo above) the WebUI lists my Plex Media Server as “Remote”. So that’s clearly not working.
You’ll also see in my report that I tried setting “LAN Networks” explicitly to “199.85.99.0/255.255.255.0” and it didn’t help. (Yes I know that’s a different netmask). I just tried this setting again with no change in behaviour.
I think what the web says does not have a bearing on the streaming bandwidth functionality and use of the LAN Networks field. I will need to look into it but could you get server logs with debug and verbose logging enabled at the time of streaming and where you think it applied the WAN bandwidth controls on your local network - where you have the subnet specified within LAN Network settings
The event that first led me to open this ticket was that I tried to play a large, 1080p movie on my local network and it was denied because of a bandwidth restriction. That was many, many releases ago, though.
I’ll test it again, and let you know. I probably won’t be able to until next weekend though.
Mate, you just saved my evening! I have a AVM Fritz!Box which is a great router, but also comes with DNS Rebind Protection.
As a temporary work-around I disabled secure connection which “fixed” my local recognition problem, but obviously created the “I have no secure connection”-Problem. So your post just fixed it for me
Is that Subnet assigned to you/your organizatoin by ARIN? Or did you hijack the subnet for use behind your NAT?
whois 192.254.0.0
#
# ARIN WHOIS data and services are subject to the Terms of Use
# available at: https://www.arin.net/resources/registry/whois/tou/
#
# If you see inaccuracies in the results, please report at
# https://www.arin.net/resources/registry/whois/inaccuracy_reporting/
#
# Copyright 1997-2019, American Registry for Internet Numbers, Ltd.
#
NetRange: 192.254.0.0 - 192.254.15.255
CIDR: 192.254.0.0/20
NetName: NETBLK-GROUP-HEALTH
NetHandle: NET-192-254-0-0-1
Parent: NET192 (NET-192-0-0-0-0)
NetType: Direct Assignment
OriginAS:
Organization: Group Health Cooperative (GHC-2)
RegDate: 1992-11-16
Updated: 2004-12-13
Ref: https://rdap.arin.net/registry/ip/192.254.0.0
OrgName: Group Health Cooperative
OrgId: GHC-2
Address: 320 Westlake Ave N.
Address: Suite 100
City: Seattle
StateProv: WA
PostalCode: 98109
Country: US
RegDate: 1992-11-16
Updated: 2012-03-20
Ref: https://rdap.arin.net/registry/entity/GHC-2
