My setup: Apple TV 3, DNS server on Apple TV set to 192.168.100.10 (the Synology NAS running Plexconnect), Synology DS412+ running DSM 5.2, latest PlexConnect 0.5-12, Plex 0.9.15.2 running on Synology NAS as well.
My Synology is connected to my network via ethernet as well as via OpenVPN to Private Internet Access. However, I have multiple gateways activated within the DSM, so it’s reachable on both the private IP as well as the VPN IP address. In Plex I added a DDNS domain updated by my network router to the “custom server access url” option and I can access the server through that address from outside my network. Inside my network I can access it via the private IP. The secure connection option in Plex is turned off.
The issue is: despite being connected to the Plexconnect Server and despite showing my plex sections, no individual items are displayed when I enter the sections and there is s message saying “PlexConnect: no content to display” (<–translated from German).
Here is my settings.cfg:
[PlexConnect]
enable_plexgdm = False
ip_pms = 127.0.0.1
You cannot specify 127.0.0.1 for ip_pms. In your case you must specify 192.168.100.10 although it may be preferrable to use GDM so that remote servers can be discovered by PlexConnect and accessed by ATVs logged in MyPlex.
ip_pms set to 192.168.100.10 and gdm turned on, plexconnect restarted --> still the same error. The thing is, the Apple TV clearly connects with plexconnect and pms, it shows my media sections but when I select any it says on the Apple TV “no content available”
Let’s wait for Baa/Roidy to analyze your log. In the meantime I’m curious about one point -> your VPN. I have a much simpler setup that works, but probably my requirements are different from your’s:
ddns client active in my router, with port 1194 directed to the NAS (I’ve also tried ddns client in the Syno, but for hibernation purposes I end-up putting it in the router)
VPN Server (from Synology) installed in the NAS, with OpenVPN service enabled
PMS “almost standard installation” (I’ve only disabled logs / automatic library updates / iChannels / DLNA, so that disks can “hibernate” for longer periods)
PMS not logged to MyPlex (all my external access is made using the VPN, I am not sharing content with anyone else), I don’t like to idea to have multiple ports open in the router, I just have 1194
PlexConnect 0.5-11 standard installation (no modifs to Settings.cfg, but I’m using my own certs), updates to PlexConnect are made using git. I also have some changes to XMLConverter.py and DNSServer.py (in my case PMS is stopped for most of the time, PlexConnect starts the service in the Syno automatically, and Syno’s task manager stops PMS everyday @ 2AM), to be removed if/when Baa decides to incorporate these changes in the base product
OpenVPN GUI installed on my laptop and smartphone, so that I can dial into my VPN
Two bookmarks for PlexWeb, one to be used when connected to my LAN, and another to be used when connected to the VPN (where the Syno gets the IP address 10.8.0.1 by default)
My ATV3 works Ok in the LAN and PlexWeb works both in the LAN and in the VPN. Clients that require login to MyPlex (such as PHT) only work inside the LAN (they do not work in the VPN unless I login PMS to MyPlex).
My main purpose for the VPN is Cloud Station. With the above setup I have my data automatically replicated to the NAS whether I’m at home or abroad.
Interestingly, PlexConnect actually picks the 2nd entry… which might confuse it later on. You know, when aTV requests fresh data it posts a tag like /PMS(:)/ as part of the path. This however is also used with “owned”, “shared”… as special tag, as soon as it starts non-numeric (ie. no ip address).
Now you server address (the one used for the ) is the hostname… which leads PlexConnect on the wrong trail.
Questions: Why doesn’t plex.tv show the real IP address of your PMS in the first place?
You could try to remove the server from plex.tv (Settings/Devices), then re-publish and hope that it gets the IP address right.
baa, thanks for this analysis. See above for my setup…the thing is that I’m using an openvpn connection to private internet access. PMS takes that vpn ip and publishes it to plex.tv. However, the vpn server blocks all requests to that ip, which is why I added a ddns host name to the “custom server access url” setting in PMS settings.
Is there a way to tell plexconnect to pick the local IP address instead of the published url? (even though it should work either way, as port forwarding is set up correctly on my router and other clients, e.g. iOS and plex home theatre work well from outside my local network.)
Got an idea, posted some changes…
I just redesigned the /PMS(ip:port) interpretation in a way to only check for the code words (owned, shared, …) instead of shooting for non-numeric string content. This actually should solve your problem, as well as a couple we had earlier - I remember one instance where we renamed the hostname to actually start with a number, to overcome PlexConnect’s shortcomings (this wouldn’t be necessary any more).
Please do a test with the latest XMLConverter commit!
Will do when I get home. Thanks very much in advance for the awesome support!
EDIT: another option I realized…editing the openvpn.conf to route traffic to plex.tv through my router and not the VPN. Although “route plex.tvip homerouterip” doesnt seem to do the trick yet. Another option…adding static routes, routing requests to plex.tv IPs through my router rather than the openvpn connection.
So I updated the XMLConverter, the plex.tv IPs are bypassing the openvpn connection. Now I can see content in the “all movies” and other sections, just not the “current” (or “aktuell” in german) section.
the other thing is, that even after taking off the custom url, restarting the server, taking it off and on again from plex.tv, the custom url still seems to be stuck in there somewhere…maybe thats the problem? I can see from the log that it connects through that rather than the local ip, even when I set gdm to off and specify the pms ip.
