Please fix this. I use a Fire TV that’s sitting 2 feet away from my Plex server and knowing that it is streaming the content on that server via the internet instead of via my LAN is absurd. It effects my internet data usage each month, it effects the quality of the stream, it seems to be having an effect on Live TV recording (failures) and playback. If a local server is available it should be used by default. It’s hard to understand why this is even an issue. PLEASE fix this.
Ridiculous that Plex clients will not see the server offline. So when Cox Cable takes a dump we’re out of luck trying to use our top end QNAP NAS and server. By all means, require the servers and clients to be online to authenticate, but absolutely they should find each other when offline. I have been recommending Plex for yacht use, but will not continue to do so if this isn’t fixed. You can’t expect people to keep all their Plex devices online when you’re paying up to $20/MB. That’s right, it is $20/MB thru an Inmarsat satocm and that isn’t some type. Pretty shortsighted on Plex’s part to always require connectivity…
I agree with everyone here, Plex had an outage recently and I was unable to watch anything on my server including our Live TV…Plex team, This is our media and we should be able to watch it anytime we want at least locally. Like everyone else says please cache whats needed so internet is not needed to watch local content… You want to be the center piece of our entertainment and that cant happen unless this is changed.
My setup:
Plex Media Server (192.168.2.8)
Roku Streaming Stick+ (192.168.2.160)
I have Plex Home enabled, and do have user accounts.
Internet went out, while I was at work, and my wife couldn’t watch anything.
So, my work around.
On the Roku:
- Using the admin user, I set the Plex Media Server IP in “Manual Connections”
- Logged out of Plex App
- Signed out of Plex App
- Launched Plex App and pressed the >> remote button to skip Sign In.
- Said my Media Server was not available.
Then, on the PMS:
- Logged in with Admin User via web interface
- Clicked on Settings / Server / Network
- Clicked on Show Advanced
- In LAN Networks added: 192.168.2.1/255.255.255.0
- In List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth added: 192.168.2.1/255.255.255.0
- Clicked Save
- Stopped PMS service and started PMS service (just to be sure)
Back on the Roku, I closed the Plex App, opened it, and I was in. Mind you, it is in as my Admin user. No longer can I select a user, but it doesn’t require internet now. Tested that by powering my satellite modem off.
If the device is signed into Plex with the plex.tv/pin, it will still ask for user auth, and still requires internet.
Now, I can set the Plex App back to using user auth (via internet/secure), and then when the internet goes out I can just sign out completely. It does mean I have to go through setup again if I want to use user accounts again when internet is back.
It would be nice if the Plex Apps could have a Offline Mode that recognizes when the Plex (online) servers are not available. Making it fall back to un-authed attempts.
Anyways, I have babbled on enough on this. Beer is flowing.
-Z
There is a setting on the plex server to set local ip addresses that are allowed to connect without authentication. User error, “fix this!” is a tad demanding don’t you think?
Simply defaulting to no auth on the local network is a security risk.
And the outage of the central Plex authentication is another reason that this needs to be changed!
One of the main selling points of Plex, when I started with it well over five years ago, was for it to be able to be my OWN standalone server. STOP BREAKING YOUR BIGGEST SELLING POINT!
plex could keep an encrypted file on the server that is the beacon for authentication in offline mode…
BUMP
I was considering making a new post myself, but found this one.
Plex NEEDS to add in offline functionality. My parents are up in Northern California with no reliable internet other than tethering their phones. And as we all know, the backwards US carriers still have a tether cap, even though Europe and Asia have had unlimited data for YEARS.
I digress. I converted one of my old systems into a Plex Server, but without internet connectivity, its very difficult for them to use. Plex should be setup to have the accounts stored locally, and when its connected to the internet again, it’ll reach out to Plex and refresh/sync data and Metadata for shows and movies. The fact that it does not already do this is an utter failure of Plex. The Reason I have it is for offline media consumption. I don’t want to have to jump through hoops, like what is suggested doing Here and Here, I mean really?! What the ■■■■. This post was first made in OCT of 2016? It is now 2018! WTF!!!
Plex. Fix this.
Edit: I’m going to work on bumping this post every day until its fixed. And if it isn’t fixed soon, I’m going to find a different service that does support offline mode. I love plex. but it doesn’t do what I need it to do. And there is no excuse for it not to, other than laziness? I don’t even know.
I’ve been a Plex Pass member for a few years and I thought this was a bug that would be eventually fixed, but it turns out it was by design. This does need to be fixed ASAP. When the Internet went down, my autistic son couldn’t get to his TV shows and proceeded to have a meltdown.
One reason why I decided on Plex was it would provide entertainment to placate my son when other services went down. Internet services aren’t always on. There are planned outages, faulty ISP equipment, storm damage, etc. I worked for a telecom company and have seen customers out of service from a few days to several weeks after a storms blows through an area. I happens more often than you think. What do Plex users do then? I’ve got a home generator, but if utility cables are severed that service my home and the cell tower, how am I going to connect to the Internet? Ham radio? Satellite perhaps? I don’t have either of those and they wouldn’t work too well.
Local authentication is a basic MUST HAVE for a server. All authentication needs should reside on the local server. Profile logins, Plex Home, Quick Switching, etc. needs to be moved to PMS and not be cached remotely. To me, it is a security risk to have the credentials, to my private server, residing on “The Cloud” as a target for hackers. Face it. My Plex server is a smaller target than Plex, Inc.
Another point, would be performance. A proxied service for authentication and content diminishes UX. I have a gigabit LAN, 875M WiFI and 75M/75M WAN (Internet). My logging in, navigating and initiating content is sluggish at times. Connection can be unstable and streaming is throttled (it’s not my high-spec server). A DNS service, like DynDNS, would be better. Just tell my mobile devices where to find my server and let me use my full bandwidth. Let Plex, Inc issue server tokens, based on subscribed service (i.e., monthly, annually or lifetime), and block WAN streaming upon expired tokens/certificates. All handled locally and Internet only needed for remote access to local media, sharing, online content and refreshing service(s) authorization. Otherwise, all the game consoles, computers, smart TVs and mobile devices are useless on a LAN with out Internet.
If it’s because of DRM for plugins/channels, that shouldn’t be a problem. No Internet, no online content . . . no DRM required. Also, I didn’t know Plex could play protected media/media copies. If not, no DRM required.
Again. All account authentication, credential handling and service(s) verification should be done on the User’s local Plex Media Server. Plex Service(s) authorization certificate/token should be issued by Plex, Inc. servers when the Internet is available and required. If Internet is unavailable, extend authorization (locally fallback) for 30 days or until Internet returns, which ever comes first. PMS needs to work “Offline.”
This affects all users. Standard and Plex Pass user alike.
Tip of the Day:
No Internet. Use VLC media player on PCs and VLC for Android on Android mobile/TV to play media from your server’s network/public share (where my Plex content resides). It’s less convenient than Plex, but it will get you by.
NOTE:
All my media is encoded to a format common to all my devices (i.e., aac, mp3, mp4, etc.), at a low bit-rate that doesn’t affect perceived quality. Use Plex Optimizer for this, if you don’t have a stand-alone transcoder like HandBrake.
I want this too. Internet is down, I have a local server full of media and we can’t watch a damn thing. Makes no sense!
BUMP - Fix this issue
Oh, and as a reminder guys, thumbs up the original post of this thread.
BUMP - Fix this issue
I followed the instructions and made my Plex server work fine with no internet connection. I can serve movies all day…if only the Roku and/or Amazon Fire Stick didn’t require internet access. That’s my issue. With Roku I can make it work on some devices just not all of them. I think it would be nice if Roku would play nicer. Just my two cents. I want to run Plex in the RV and we rarely have internet when we camp.
This is never going to be “fixed”. It was intentionally added to Plex sometime ago to force all connections, even strictly local connections, to pass through their servers so they can monitor people’s viewing habits. They know it breaks people’s systems when internet is unavailable, they don’t care. There’s no point asking them to “fix” it anymore.
If the workarounds don’t work for you then you can try Emby, or Kodi, or Universal Media Server. None of those require an internet connection to play local files.
Same thing for me, can not use sync contend on android to listing to music in the car, without first going online …
(first post liked !! )
Thats nice and all, but it still needs to be fixed. I, personally, will continue to ask, and I am not alone in the users who have plex for offline use.
So Bump! Fix. This. Issue.
For those of you just viewing this post, please like the original post.
While I understand that ‘somehow’ there needs to be a way for an iOS/Android app to validate the user so that Plex knows that this user is actually allowed to use the service, as well as the ‘need’ to profile their clients, surely there are other ways to accomplish the same thing without the requirement to be ‘always online’.
In other words, if Apple Music can be used offline — both with content downloaded via the Apple Store as well as content uploaded to one’s own computer — and Apple most certainly validates their users (and profiles them!), then there is no reason for Plex not to do the same. Moreover, Apple Music allows partial offline usage — for example, my entire collection of music & videos is too large for my iPhone, so I sync only those that I’m always listening when walking on the streets or driving in the car; by contrast, the iPad I’ve got has far more on-board memory, so I have the complete collection there. To set this up just required a few clicks on boxes and nothing more.
Note that this isn’t a question of actually ‘downloading’ or ‘on-demand syncing’, which Plex already does reasonably well; it’s just the authentication (and possibly the profiling…) that currently requires a working Internet connection.
However, I’m pretty sure that Plex could work around this by simply encrypting the synced library in a way that only the registered user can access the content, by providing some sort of key to unlock the encryption (e.g. the PIN or the password…). Because allegedly the user is offline, there is no fear of accidentally changing the PIN/password and invalidating the synced data; and as soon as any of these change — and this will require an Internet connection! — then everything may simply be re-encrypted again. A more complex algorithm could change the user’s encryption key periodically (say, every time they connect to the Internet to sync their data!) just to make sure that a smartphone is not hacked with brute-force attempts to extract the encrypted library in it… all these solutions are easily implemented with existing open-source code which would be relatively easy to integrate in the Plex codebase (after all, the hardest task — the actual synchronisation process! — has already been done!).
As for the profiling data… well, there is nothing to prevent Plex to continue to capture that data during offline usage, store it in a buffer, and when the user synchronises again (or even when the device detects that its Internet connection has been restored), that data will then be sent to Plex’s servers, duly timestamped, for later processing. This would be similar to how Google Maps works: it certainly works in offline mode when it has no connection, and when in offline mode, of course, it cannot update traffic data; but once Google Maps detects that the Internet access has been re-established, it automatically synchronises traffic data (and eventually reroutes the user, based on the new data). Last but not least, it’s also known that at least Apple (and who knows who else) stores ‘hidden’ location tracking data even on an unconnected iPhone/iPad, which will be sent to Apple’s servers when the user connects the device to the Internet, which will happen sooner or later: at the very least, when the user does a backup, upgrades the operating system, installs a new app, etc.
In other words: it’s conceivable that someone might not connect their device for a long time and thus never send any profiling data back to Plex. However, such a scenario is not realistic: as we all add to our libraries and collections, the new information will eventually get synced to our devices, new apps are installed or upgraded, operating systems get patched, etc. and so forth… so, sooner or later, the device will be connected to the Internet — allowing all tracked data to be uploaded to Plex’s servers. Sure, there might be a delay in getting that data, but unless Plex has a very good reason to get all data in real-time — assuming that they actually have the computing power required for that level of number-crunching! — I cannot see why there is a ‘company policy’ to not implement true offline usage.
Also, this thread is three and a half years old; one might imagine that, in the time that has passed, new technological solutions have been developed that allow Plex to implement a true offline mode while, at the same time, get all the information they need. It’s just a question of some creativity and a bit of googling to figure out which libraries/packages are already out there and that can be easily patched to work with Plex. Here is an example for offline synchronisation for Django (a Python framework — parts of Plex are allegedly written in Python); here is a language-agnostic solution by Google to implement databases that can be used online or offline (it has a free plan, allowing some tests to be run, but also the possibility to offer limited functionality for non-Pass users, while reserving ‘full’ offline mode for Pass users). So… solutions abound, it’s up to Plex to pick one choice and implement it!
A request for the same feature exists already, and it has more votes.
Therefore this one is closed, to prevent spreading the votes across several threads, even though they vote for the same (or at least very similar thing).
Votes are given back to the users who voted on this request. Please think of re-voting in the other thread if you still want it.
Rules for the Feature Suggestions forum section:
- Please search before creating a new suggestion thread.
- Only one feature per thread.
See existing feature suggestions, sorted by most popular first
https://forums.plex.tv/c/general/feature-suggestions/l/votes
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