One of the reasons I committed to Plex was to be able to watch movies/TV shows from fair-sized media library when there was no internet, which in our rural, middle-of-nowhere neighborhood is sometimes hard to come by (as yesterday, when the fixed wireless broadband radio 100 feet up in a nearby tree quit working).
When this happened before, I was told here in the forums to use http://192.168.100.10:32400/web/ (or whatever the IP is for the server) instead of the usual https://app.plex.tv/web/app. And that worked. Since then, however, in a continuing commitment to Plex (and to solve other storage problems), I used your coupon offer and bought a Western Digital PR2100 NAS, which seems to work fine as a PMS, even for two and sometimes three simultaneous connections.
Now, the internet is gone and when I go to the IP address/port for the NAS’s Plex server, Plex starts to show up but then resolves to the dreaded No Internet Connection screen.
We are using Plex Home (I believe, if Plex Home is the system that lets you have named users) . Seems from other forum posts that I should be able to sign in as the last connected user or something, or turn off Plex Home — but there’s no chance of doing that. And attempts to reach Plex from an iPad and iPhone just get the can’t-reach-the-last-known-Plex-server screen.
Did I make a mistake buying a Plex Pass? And is this behavior related to the PMS running on the WD PR2100? (In which case, did I make an even more expensive mistake?)
Thanks. If this offline/off-media thing weren’t a problem I would be happy to post something that talks about how impressed I’ve been otherwise with Plex.
Thanks,
Roger
You may want to post this in the Plex Media Server section for your OS. Since the NAS software varies and is not as widely used as Windows and Mac for Plex, users in those forums are much more likely to be familiar with the software you are using and may be able to help you find a way to disable Home when your Internet is down.
Plex Home requires an internet connection to authenticate the users. They cannot be authenticated locally. If your internet on the server goes out, it should continue to work. Your clients will be restricted to the last user (you cannot switch users). However, if you turn off PMS (or turn off the device itself) and restart without internet, PMS cannot authenticate itself so you get the internet message and nothing can connect. In these cases, you can follow the instructions in this article, https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/204281528-Why-am-I-locked-out-of-Server-Settings-and-how-do-I-get-in-, to basically turn off Plex Home. You can then access your server locally through most Plex clients. Although there are some clients that cannot search for your server automatically and you need to setup a manual connection to the server.
Thank you, @MovieFan.Plex This was helpful. I decided not to try to hack the preferences file on the PR2100, since I don’t really even know how you get into the operating or file system outside of what’s defined on the box as a file Share — and doing some internet research on that was going to be difficult without, you know, any internet. Anyway I waited until the internet service returned today — but what really helped was to know, when this happens, NOT to turn off the device or PMS if the internet goes out. Unfortunately I had done that, dummy that I am, and was locked out.
