New plex user … question about lan only streaming

General Discussions
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i installed the media server on my nas and use the desktop app on a few computers and also use it on my roku device.

using plex strictly as a media server for content on my nas to serve my LAN devices. i have remote access turned off.

my specific question:
when i disable internet access to my nas (at the router), local clients inside the same LAN as the nas will not play content.

if the server and clients are directly connected, why does the media server need an internet connection in order to serve content locally ?

users are already setup and pin verified on each client.

3

The two things I can think of off the top of my head. without knowing anything about your network

If you are not logged in, authentication requires the internet.

If you have secure connections set to required on server and/or the player app is set to never connect to an insecure server, the encryption requires the internet for the security cert to be verified.

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By default, Plex will try to authenticate users that connect to your server using the Plex API servers. This prevents outside users from being able to just connect to the server and browse everything. Even if remote access is off, it still uses authentication to verify who is “allowed” to view your server’s content.

If you want to disable that, you can. You need to tell each client to allow “insecure connections”. This means that if authentication cannot be done, they may try to connect to the server anyway. Next, you need to specifically tell the server itself which computers (or networks) are allowed to connect “insecurely” to it if it can’t authenticate.

All this needs to be done with an internet connection in the first place (so I hear) but once done Plex can run entirely without internet from then on. Adding of new media may need to retrieve metadata for those media depending on server settings/libraries, but otherwise can be used offline if you don’t care for metadata (file names, descriptions, etc).

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Local login
5

@BigWheel
my network is as tight as i could possibly make it while allowing practical use of the internet from LAN devices we care about. when i don’t need NAS access remotely, i block it at the router. i can always access my router via private vpn and enable internet for the NAS.

back to the OP, i found what was preventing playback … in Settings/Network ‘Secure Connections’ was set to ‘Preferred’. i disabled it and tested media playback on one of the LAN clients, works fine now.

thanks for chiming in.

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@Divideby0
thanks for linking that reference, i’ll check it out.

still taking some time to digest the inner workings of my new NAS and plex media server as well. i come from more ‘crude’ roots, if you will.

either way i get it done, it’s good to know there are controls in place to define when and how plex works with/without internet access.

my employer’s policy “internet computer systems are subject to monitoring at all times” unwillingly paints a target on my back and my home internet … so you can understand if i try to keep my personal life as private as i can tolerate.

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I was unable to access the Plex server program from the PC hosting the server. The changes I make on my server keep getting reset. For example, automatic login keeps getting unchecked. Allow unsecured connection also keeps getting reset.

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Neither of those are server settings. They are player settings, if you are using the player in browser makes sure browser it not set to delete cookies/site data for URL after you close browser

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