I introduced my son on the other side of the country to Plex, but his user experience is somewhat bandwidth limited. My 720p HD content always transcodes to SD. I don’t mind the audio transcoding, but the video is rather starved. Tautulli indicates he is getting 0.7Mbps, which is disheartening as my upload speed is a steady 40Mbps and his Roku speed tests at 40 Mbps as well.
I’m not asking for 4K resolution but at least 720p looks better than 383i. All my settings are in line with maximum bandwidth allowance. I have a Plex Pass but he does not. Still, 0.7 is kind of draconian. I hope someone here can explain. I have Remote Access working and port forwarding set up.
Server Version#: 1.41.4.9463
Player Version#:Roku (it’s remote)
Basically when the ping is high, the default algorithm thinks there’s a lot of congestion on the network so it slows (throttles) down the transfer speed. But high ping is very normal when your client or server is far away. You have to enable TCP BBR. Not sure what your OS is.
My OS is Windows 11.
Thank you for this information. I Googled how to switch to TCP BBR for W11, and apparently my son will have to enable BBR on his Roku box, which is confusing to me as I’ve never seen a handle for that in Settings.
I googled it and windows 11 doesn’t have it enabled by default, and it’s called BBR2. But also it only needs to be changed on the server, the clients don’t have to change it. If you’ve enabled it, restart your PC and have him see if it’s faster now.
Install OpenSpeedtest server on your server and open/forward the necessary port, that way you both don’t have to guess the speed.
Thanks! I had already port forwarded, so on OpenSpeedtest server do I have it look at the port that’s forwarding or the original port? As you might tell, I’m no networking wiz!
I’m reading on Reddit (r/Plex) that while enabling BBR2 works great for remote clients, but caused a lot of local buffering. But that’s just one guy…
EDIT But another redditor says "It breaks ‘localhost’ (the loopback interface) TCP traffic leading to slow or unresponsive connections within the same machine. "
It’s like it breaks local TCP but really improves remote bandwidth.
Relay is limiting the available bandwidth to 1mbps for users without Plex pass.
So what you are seeing is what would happen if Relay is being used.
Look at the server’s Dashboard during such a playback. If Relay is being used, the connection type will appear as “indirect”. https://support.plex.tv/articles/200871837-status-and-dashboard/
If Relay is being used, it means that the client app is unable to reach your server directly.
This can be caused by several things. Among the most frequent are
no publicly accessible IPv4 address on the server’s router. Typically caused by the ISP putting you behind a Carrier-Grade NAT, to save on scarce IPv4 addresses
“double NAT” caused by using either more than 1 gateway device (i.e. “router”) or by running the server in a container or virtual machine with the network of that container being separated from the host machine’s network
misconfiguration of the router on the server’s side. Usually either by disallowing UPnP, or by telling Plex that a manual port forwarding is used, but it was never created in the router’s settings.
In general: the longer the geographical distance between server and client, the more important the network packet roundtrip time is becoming. Particularly if the file must be transcoded. Because if that happens, it is transcoded in little chunks, which are transmitted each on its own, instead of one contiguous stream of data.
Packet roundtrip time is particularly long if wireless networking is involved or (worse) satellite links.
Have you ever tested to access your own server while being out of house?
He’s definitely not using Relay. Just to try, I enabled it and it wasn’t used. Turned it off again. He’s still getting 720kbps, with a 328p picture. My server is set to No Limit in Remote Access, and his Roku Plex Client is also set to No Limit on remote server. I am deeply frustrated, it has to be something simple. His Roku reports download speed at 27Mbps. My upload is at 40Mbps. I checked and rechecked the support article. I’m concerned about Double NAT, but I can’t figure out how to see my modem’s Public IPv4 address. My router matches my WhatismyIP.Host number but Windows shows the local IP address as IPv4, not the geolocated one. I would appreciate any help I can get!
I have been able to watch my Plex server on my phone away from home. My son is pretty far away. I tried BBR2 and his bandwidth was still 720p. My uploads are ethernet to the modem. He uses a wifi6 wireless router even though his Roku Express doesn’t. His Roku reports a download speed of 27Mbps. My upload is 40. My dashboard shows little bursts rather than a continuous stream.
No, my son gets 382p from a 1080p source, with a bandwidth of 720Kbps. My upload speed is 40Mbps, and his Roku says it has 27Mbps. His client’s Plex settings are Unlimited. My PMS is set to unlimited. Relay is not being used. My Plex server shows fully dicoverable, and he sees me, but his PQ is awful.
I found this on the web:
*Plex allows you to set limits on how much bandwidth a remote user can consume.
You can specify the maximum upload speed for individual streams.
These settings are found under “Remote Access” in the server settings.
Not for me. I have show advanced enabled, and all I have is one overall upload limit, which is set to my rated 40Mbps. Nothing for individual streams.
Running version 1.41.4.9463
