TL;DR Let apps connect via Custom server access URLs
Recently I started traveling and as we know Plex does not do well with cross-country latency. Hence I decided to move Plex into a CDN, and found that gcore supports within ToS video streaming too. I have setup it by pointing the CDN to my origin address, left every other settings as it was earlier with domestic remote access working perfectly and expected everything to work just fine - well, except Plex fights back.
While checking from browser I noticed that even if I browse and try to view content over the CDN address, Plex connects back to the origin IP address and of course the streaming still sucks! I say WTF and change the firewall settings to allow only the CDN server to access the origin. After this, all video streaming went through CDN and the streaming was perfect.
However, this only works in the browser, NOT on Windows app and NOT on Android app. It seems the apps only work IF the Plex server has Remote Access enabled, which then tells Plex central server hey this is the IP:PORT you can use and these will be distributed to the apps.
Of course the solution would be easy: distribute the Custom server access URLs to the Plex central server and then to the apps, to allow overriding the direct IP:PORT connection. Please fix this!
Server Version#: 1.32.6.7557
Player Version#: Windows 1.80.3.4008-03daab12
This is exactly what should be happening. If it’s not what you’re seeing, then there is likely a configuration issue. On the Plex Media Server side, it should be as simple as:
Disable remote access in its settings; and,
Configure a valid custom server access URL in its network settings.
You can then check to see exactly what is being published to Plex’s servers by browsing to:
The connection information published there will give you visibility into what is being handed out to clients, and whether the connection is considered local or remote. You’d have to check the client logs themselves to check their connectivity issues.
Edit:
If your custom server access URL resolves (only?) to an IPv6 address, you may see varying results as not all Plex clients support IPv6 at this time. I don’t know of a definitive list of which do or do not, all I know for sure is that Apple devices do support it.
Thank you for the quick reply.
While I thought I checked all configuration, seems I missed something: the Custom server access URL was http, not https. In a different thread I read that the apps do not support non-encrypted, so changing this finally solved the problem, both Windows and Android app started connecting. I did not check the requests, only by observing that it works and by the fact that I have limited on firewall to CDN can I say it now goes through that.
