Lost access to my own media after recent Plex updates – asking for subscription?

Plex Media Server
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1

Hi everyone,
I’ve been running a Plex Media Server on a cheap Android TV box since 2020 (Armbian on X96 MAX with Amlogic S905X2 SoC). It has always worked perfectly. I have an external hard drive connected with three main folders: Movies, Music, and Photos.Recently, after some forced updates, Plex suddenly added Live TV (which I don’t need). Even worse, I can no longer play my own local media from the hard drive — only music still works. Movies show a message telling me I need to pay $1.99/month, which makes no sense, because these are my local files on my own server.I already purchased the Plex mobile apps on Android and iPhone, and I even used Plex on my MacBook Air. Everything worked fine until recently. I don’t understand why Plex is blocking access to my own files now.

My questions:

  1. Why is Plex asking for a subscription to access my own local media?

  2. Is there a way to downgrade the Plex client or server to the older interface (single icon with Movies/Music/Photos)?

  3. Is this a known issue with the latest updates?

I haven’t changed anything in my setup — it just suddenly stopped working.

Thanks for any help.

2

Over the summer, Plex change remote streaming.

Remote streaming for previously free users now requires a Remote Watch Pass
This was done to help defer the costs of running the servers (plex.tv)

The full documentation is here:

https://support.plex.tv/articles/remote-watch-pass-overview/

For you, on your home LAN,

  1. Both server and player must be on the same RFC-1918 subnet.
  2. If either of the two are on different subnets / VLANs, they will be seen as remote (just as they always have)
  3. In the past, folks would set “Treat WAN as LAN” and ignore it.
    This won’t work anymore except for its specific purpose of Bandwidth Limits.

I looked at your Plex.tv account.
Your server is at 192.168.0.78. This is RFC-1918 compliant so all good there.

If your TVs and WiFi (for your phone) are on this same subnet, everything should be fine.
If you’ve setup an IOT vlan then this will cause the players to seem Remote even though they share your Public IP

3

I am suddenly having the same issue. I haven’t changed anything. I’ve been using it this way since 2012. and I only play from my PC to my bedroom Roku. And I am not a happy camper

1 Like
4

Thank you for the explanation. It seems that I can no longer watch movies in the hotel without purchasing a Plex subscription.

5

@texasbluebonnets

As I shared above for Pctre, check your network configuration.
If it’s crossing subnet/VLAN boundaries then that’s the issue.

Looking at your Plex.tv account, your LAN shows as 10.x.x.x.
Depending on how you carved this space, it should provide you with a lot of options for viewing at home freely.