For many months my remote access was working perfectly. I was able to listen to my music while at the gym (on my iPhone) and I was able to share my collection with you son-in-law (and vice versa). A couple of months ago we started having problems connecting to my server…but eventually it would connect. Now I have the red sign which is my question. I have gone through all the procedures I can find in “help” but to no avail. I recently installed a MESH network in my home…and still no outside access. Not sure where to go from here?
Mesh? Is your Plex server on wifi?
MESH is a type of (relatively new) WiFi server that more uniformly covers the whole home. Yes it is on WiFi and my devices can “see” the server locally, but not outside my local network.
Yeah mesh has been around for a long time and started as WDS regardless I would not recommend you rely on Wifi for your server connectivity.
With that said what is the make and model of your wifi equipment?
Do you have any options for like Wifi Isolation or segregation?
I found it helpful to consider Occam’s Razor when getting remote play to work (the simplest solution is often correct):
- Is port 32400 open to the outside world (or other port if you changed it)?
- Easiest way to check is go to http://canyouseeme.org/ put in port 32400 (your outside ip is auto populated)
- If its open, remote will likely work (else you have another device or configuration setting blocking your PMS from using port 32400).
- If its not open, go to the next simplest source of blockage.
- On your PMS do you have a statically assigned or reserved internal ip? (i.e 192.168.x.x that always stays the same?) if you port forwarded before but your internal IP is not reserved or static PMS could have gotten a different IP address and your port forward is no longer valid.
- For example you were 192.168.2.13 at the PMS when you setup remote originally (for example outside ip 201.12.12.1 forwarded traffic on port 32400 to 192.168.2.13) If your PMS now has 192.168.2.12, your not getting your remote traffic and therefore no connection to the pms from outside.
Other things to check
- If you have ethernet to the home then your mesh wifi network is likely also acting as your firewall if that is the case its likely as simple as making sure you have the reserved ip and port forward set up in your wifi router.
- If you have a modem feeding your wifi (i.e., cable or dsl) your modem may have its own forwarding settings but the config is the same.
- If all else fails and your port is still not open check your OS firewall - quickest test is disable it completely, then if successful you can turn it on and setup specific inbound and outbound rules.
- At each step check to see if the port your are forwarding is open (http://canyouseeme.org/) - has to be checked from inside, unless you want to run a port scanner, equally effective but not as user friendly to do.
- At any step if that port is open to the outside and also specified in your PMS settings then you should have no problems, if you do, then since you are a plex pass member I could only say check your account setup, is this the primary user or is it a restricted user you setup.
I have tested PMS on an all wifi network with similar performance to my current hybrid wireless mesh and wired setup, wireless network performance is all dependent on the protocol you are using (ac currently being the gold standard), and your internet connection (speed and quality) - upload/download speeds with low latency & jitter. I currently have fiber (70/30) running to a google wifi point with one additional point that is is wired (backbone) connected by a gig ethernet backbone with 2 additional wifi points running only on mesh. PMS is wired to the gigabit switch that is connected to the LAN side the primary mesh point. Currently all clients are on wifi, although as soon as I ditch my cable for good I will likely hardwire a couple of clients for testing purposes. But i have zero issues with wireless clients inside or remote, unless I am running library scans, while trying to play library content that is in motion (been testing external drives, ssd drives, flash drives, vs internal drives.)
AND I also use the PMS to run PlayOn.TV server to record media. AND all libraries auto sync my media content (TV/Movies/Music) to the cloud. My media library is quickly approaching 600GB so moving it around has caused issues if trying to play during a massive data migration/library scan/while uploading to the cloud. So i always have content on plex cloud to fall back on in case I am working my poor little box to death! Live TV works much better than playing library content while moving/scanning/etc.
Well, I’ve tried all you have suggested (micmcguire) and still no access from outside. I’ve completely uninstalled (according to PLEX instructions) and tried two different computers (albeit using the same network) and NOTHING !! I’ve gone into my MESH app and made sure the port forwarding all matches what PLEX is showing. I’ve tried all the tips on PLEX’ own trouble-shooting guide. Spent 20 hours on this…getting nowhere. I’m out of ideas, but your “white paper” gave me a lot of new avenues to try; unfortunately, none of them changed the outcome. I am NOT seeing myself on “canyouseeme”. I have shut off firewalls…which makes no difference. Would it do any good for my ISP to provide a static address? (at extra cost). The address for both of my Macs is static and remains constant with port 32400 Internal. Other ideas?
You can do this with a dynamic IP doesnt need to be static.
Can you post a quick napkin drawing of your setup?
IP ranges and default gateways?
The way I got mine to work, I had to make sure I port forwarded it correctly. After a long time I got it.
Here’s an example.
Service Name External Port External IP Address Internal Port Internal IP Address
Plex TCP/UDP: 27777 Any TCP/UDP: 32400 192.168.1.5
27777 as an example of the public ip:port, port being 27777
This being done under Settings / Server / Remote Access
Thanks to all for your efforts in my behalf. As it turned out the only thing that helped was to assign a static IP address (from my ISP). It was only after that that I was able to get a positive response in “canyouseeme”. After that happened, then I only had to match the port in port forwarding on my router and I finally got a “green light” on public access. My Internet is “different” than most. I live in the mountains of Utah and the incoming Internet comes on a microwave hookup to my home. From the receiving antenna I have an Ethernet cable which goes directly into my router, i.e. I do not have a modem from the ISP. Anyhow, it’s working and the synergy of all your ideas got me across the finish line. Thanks.
