Nearby to Remote

Plex Players Gaming Consoles
1

Hi all,

So i load plex on the xbox one and check the server status and its padlocked and classed as nearby, which is correct because xbox and win10 server are on the same local subnet in my house.

I play a movie and its fine for around 10-20 mins then it pauses, buffers and times out with cannot play error.

I then notice that my server has changed class from nearby to remote. If i then play the movie again it will be fine, but will then be classed as a remote connection so will be subject to remote profile quality settings etc.

Does anyone else have this issue ?

I already have direct play turned off due to issues with some mkv’s and i also allow fallback to unsecure always. And server is set to secure preferred to allow fallback.

Is this a known issue with the xbox app ? Because its driving me crazy.

Thanks

2

Sorry, just to add that the connection from xbox to the server pc is ethernet not wifi.

I have also tried setting the manual server ip to my local server ip and it makes no difference.

3

I have now changed my xbox to use opendns as the dns server rather than my router (bt home hub 5). This will hopefully rule out a dns rebind issue.

Done a bit of testing and its behaving at the moment, but early days. I will keep this post updated.

Does anyone else have a bt home hub and had to do any changes for dns rebind issues ?

4

I can confirm that I am unable to get a response from a DNS nslookup against my local entry from the Plex resources XML when I use my default router provided DNS.

192-168-100-10.!token removed!.plex.direct

When I switch the nslookup query to use an alternative DNS such as Google 8.8.8.8 the query resolves to the internal IP properly.

So it does seem that when I use the DNS server/service provided by my router, a BT Home Hub 5, it will block DNS responses which would be classed as rebind protection i.e. those responses which map to an internal subnet IP.

What I don’t understand though is why does the server get marked as Nearby and Secure for the first 10-20 mins of playback ? Surely if the DNS query for the local server address does not resolve via DNS then it can only fallback to the remote server address and use that straight away ?

Bit confused.

5

I have had no problems with playback since changing my xbox dns server to use opendns.

This is a great solution for me, and am much happier with the xbox one client now.

6

Glad you’re up and running, and thanks for posting your solution here! DNS rebinding and router-related issues can be quite tricky to diagnose, so this is useful information for other users.