Server Version#: 1.41.6.9685
Player Version#: 1.108.1.307
I have three PLEX servers
192.168.2.4 (Windows PC for Live TV recorder);
192.16.2.7 (Synology NAS TV Shows); and
192.168.2.9 (Windows PC for Movies)
I have a bunch of devices (PCs, Tablets, SmartTVs, etc) that have PLEX App or PLEX Player installed. A year ago, everything was working fine, I could see all three servers and play anything. However, something happened, and I can’t see all three anymore. Sometimes I can get one server but not the other two. Sometimes I can get the Live TV PC and the NAS at the same time, but almost never all three.
I finally kicked out all three servers from my plex account, shut down all servers, started one, logged in my plex account and “claimed” the server that was detected. Then proceeded with starting the second server and “assumed” it would show up for me to “claim”, but no. Silence!
I look everywhere in the forums. I really don’t understand what is the problem. Can anyone help me?
All three servers need to be claimed by your account and be able to communicate with systems at plex.tv.
Some steps to try:
Configure each server to use a public DNS server such as 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare), 8.8.8.8 (Google), or 9.9.9.9 (Quad9). Then restart Plex Media Server on each system.
Go to your list of Authorized Devices and delete any entries for old / non-existent servers. If you delete an active server, no harm is done. It simply unclaims the server.
Can you directly access all three servers via their IP address?
Using a PC on the same network as the servers (or one of the servers if not headless):
Completely quit the browser (close all windows)
Point an incognito / private browser window at the IP address of one of the servers. For example, https://192.16.2.7:32400/web.
Can you login and reach server settings?
If yes, go to Settings → Server_Name → General.
Is the server correctly claimed, “Server claimed by your_email_address”?
If yes, proceed to the next server. If not, claim the server.
Once all three are claimed, point a browser at https://app.plex.tv/desktop/ and login to your Plex account. You should be able to see all three servers, as the claiming process registers them with your account at plex.tv.
One server has the Over-The-Air quad tuner to record live TV using PLEX.
One server (NAS) has the TV Shows and is always on but has ordinary hardware.
One server has movies and much better hardware to play high quality media.
There is also space constraints: I can’t fit everything on my NAS.
For years I was able to have my three servers detected and listed nicely, and each had multiple libraries. Then something happened and I’ve not been able to get all three “claimed” by my account.
I was able to get #4 (Live TV Recorder) and #7 (NAS) successfully using the routine, but the #9 just is not getting detected in incognito mode. The only way it got detected was after deleting all servers and using the non-incognito mode to detect it. But once I started to work on the #4, the #9 disappeared. It’s like #4 and #9 are repulsing each other.
Note: The #9 and #4 reports the following DNS: 8.8.8.8 and 192.168.2.1 (which is my main router)
Finally got it to work. I believe the final issue was a DNS setting in my router. The Router is properly assigned a public DNS as suggested above. But my router’s internal LAN’s DHCP server was assigning a public DNS also. I changed it so that LAN devices’ DNS requests go to the router’s IP (which then relay’s it) instead of the public IP.. That made my #9 finally get detected just like magic. I now have all three servers present just like in the old days!
A big thank you to @FordGuy61 for taking the time to answer s quickly! You rock!
It was all a DNS setting issue, after all.
Would it not be nice if PLEX was providing these instructions to all?
Hello! I was wondering if you (or anyone else) had any other ideas. I have the same issue on my Linux Mint Plex servers and tried like hell to resolve it with your steps, but am failing to do so. I was indeed able to see both servers from another box in an incognito browser, and I can indeed try to claim both of them. But what happens is, authorized devices only shows one of them at a time, and whichever I restarted last is the one whose hostname appears under Authorized devices. It just seems to replace the one claim/registration with the other.
Now in my case this isn’t a HUGE deal, because the servers are identical. I made this second one as a backup so I can do some upcoming and possibly lengthy maintenance on my primary server. What this is doing will work, since people who sign in will get whichever server was active and the last one to restart, it seems. But it does force users to sign out and sign back in whenever that changes, which isn’t ideal.
I’m also pretty technically oriented and it’s bugging me why I can’t get this working. I normally run pihole-unbound for DNS so when you gave your DNS theory it seemed plausible, but nope. Even getting everything going through 9.9.9.9 and 1.1.1.1 (based on my router, I know that’s working cause I can get ads on normal websites to show up now), and even though the incognito mode recognized two different internal ip addresses when I hit claim, in the end Plex still seems unable to tell them apart, even though naturally I have them on separate external ports (though both forwarded to 34200 on each box internally).
What’s weird is, I had both servers showing separately and simultaneously for a short while, even on piholes. Then I reinstalled my OS and plex entirely, using the same source backup, on the second box, and I haven’t gotten it to work again after that. Tried like 4 reinstalls of OS and plex on the second box trying to reachieve that glory, but no go.
Did you clone the first server to create the second one? i.e. copied all the plex data folder over?
If so, the two servers have identical machine IDs. As soon as one of them is restarted, it contacts plex.tv and overwrites the URL of this machine ID.
You need to separate the two machines: Moving/Cloning Metadata - #4 by OttoKerner
(Replace any mentions of the Windows registry with the file Preferences.xml if you have a NAS or Linux server.)
For the record, in Linux Mint/Ubuntu and Preferences.xml, it’s “FriendlyName”, not “FriendlyServerName”. The parameter was actually unset and didn’t exist at all on my source server, defaulting to $HOSTNAME. I forced setting it so it would appear in the Preferences.xml for any future copies, and I now have a nice reinstall/migrate script that will, if the $HOSTNAME I’m installing on does not appear in Preferences.xml in that FriendlyName parameter, it removes all the keys you mentioned and sets FriendlyName to $HOSTNAME. If $HOSTNAME does appear in the backed up Preferences.xml, then it can be assumed it’s just a reinstall on the same box and it doesn’t need to make any of those edits. Works beautifully. Very happy now. Thanks!
