Here’s what I have;
- Raspberry Pi 3 running PMS
- Netgear Router (Offline Router)
- Several mobile devices with the Plex app
My goal is to use these items in my car, in offline mode. I’ve had some success and several failures.
Last night I was able to get PMS running on the Pi and connect to Plex via wifi through my offline router. 4 HD transcodes at the same time, on a Pi! Felt pretty good about that.
Connecting to Plex in offline mode hasn’t gone smoothly. To get to the Plex GUI, I first had to connect my router to the internet and login to Plex. Then while I was still logged into Plex, disconnect the router from the internet. This would successfully connect me to the PMS on the Pi in offline mode. If I tried to connect to the Plex GUI from just the offline router, it would ask me to select a user and then tell me that Plex was unreachable. This was on my PlexPass account with Plex Home.
I then read that Plex Home doesn’t support offline mode, and that I’d need to either remove the home or create a new account. I chose the ladder, and have similar issues. I cannot login with my Plex credentials in offline mode. I can connect the router to the internet, open the Plex GUI, and disconnect the router from the internet and get offline mode working.
More oddness, when I was using my PlexPass account the Android Plex app could always connect to the server in offline mode. It would only show the admin user and take about a minute to find the server. Very nice, considering I would prefer to use my PlexPass account for this. The iOS Plex app however, would list all users in my home and wouldn’t load the server no matter which user was selected.
How can I get Plex to behave in offline mode?
Thanks,
Eric
I have a terrible solution, but still a solution. Since the mobile devices connect successfully when the router has an internet connection and stay connected after the router loses its internet connection, I could use my phone as a hotspot with a wifi bridge connected to the router. Then connect all devices to the server, and finally turn off the hotspot. Tested this and it works, with my PlexPass (Plex Home) account no less.
Please tell me there’s a better way @-)
Hey there. Let me clarify a few things.
Plex Home does not work well in offline mode. To use Plex Home properly you need an internet connection to authenticate the users that want to connect. If PMS losses internet it does have a cache of the users that are allow tot authenticate. So once your PMS is authenticated atleast once, it will work offline. The focus now shifts to the clients. Again, the clients need internet to authenticate the user. So the clients need an internet connection at least once to authenticate the user. Once this user is authenticated, the client can also go offline. The client will cache the last user that was authenticated and allow you to use that user. So again once the client is authenticated that authenticated user can continue to use the app offline.
If you are trying to set everything up without internet it won’t work, since nothing can be authenticated. In this case, you need to either run PMS without singing into plex.tv (i.e. no Plex Home) or provide an internet connection to authenticate the server and clients at least once. Note that you cannot change the user that authenticated the client without an internet connection, after which this new user will be the only one that can use the client.
Thanks for the info. I guess a feature request could be for the PMS and clients to store authenticated users locally and “handshake” in offline mode. Although this may not be a widely enough used/requested use case to warrant adding to your backlog.
For now at least, [hotspot -> bridge -> router -> Pi] seems like the best option. While the hotspot is active, a user (or users) can authenticate, then kill the hotspot. If anyone else wants on, hit the hotspot again.
Update: Plex in the car is real, people!
Thanks again for the help MovieFan.
