Turned off GDM and everything immediately worked.
This had been driving me nuts for months!! Thanks, @Kevin.Cummings!!
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Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents that turning off GDM , as suggested above, seems to have helped me, too.
Prior to turning it off, playback on the Android app would stop every couple of songs and I would lose remote access daily.
Now playback continues like it should. It’s still only the first day, so it’s yet to be seen whether or not remote access will stay up. I’ll report back if it doesn’t. (I simply have remote access enabled and UPnP enabled on my router … haven’t done anything like manual port forwarding etc.)
Nope! Still had to “reconnect” remote access this morning despite server being always on and no loss of internet connection. Playback is still more reliable once connected though, so I guess that’s something.
Aaaaaand it’s stopping playback after every song or two again. 
Update: I started using manual port forwarding, following Plex’s instructions. I still lose remote access 2 or 3 times a day. I can tell when I’ve lost it, as that is when playback begins halting in the middle of songs or after playing 1 or 2 songs. I have to go to my server and hit the Retry button on Remote Access (sometimes twice) to re-establish the connection and resume normal playback.
I’m not knowledgeable enough to troubleshoot what could be causing it to drop remote access so often.
Turning off GDM seems to have done the trick - been working on this for weeks so thanks for the tip!
I have been having this problem, also. Every day or so I get an email notice from my Synology NAS, telling me:
“Due to changes in default gateway settings, the feature of port forwarding rules has been disabled. Please check your network settings.”
And I look to see if I still have remote access and find it indicating not working. So I click the button to enable it, and it works for a while. And then stops.
I recently installed ExpressVPN on my NAS, and I was wondering if that could be causing the problem. I’ve disabled it just now, to see if it makes a difference.
I’m having the same problem with Remote Access intermittently dropping.
Plex version, 1.20.2.3402 running on a QNAP server, version 4.4.3.1439, and my laptop using Windows 10 Home version 1909. I’m using an old Belkin N600DB Router as an access point with UPnP enabled. That’s as technical as I can get!
I was out of the country for the past few weeks and that was how I found out that remote access wasn’t working. I’ve updated both the Plex and QNAP versions before enabling Remote Access, you can see by the attached pictures that it is enabling and disabling, I’ve also attached the Plex log.
Any support appreciated.Plex Media Server Logs_2020-10-13_10-41-28.zip (2.8 MB)
I’ve checking further and it happens every time I log in to Plex, remote access is disabled. Enabling is fine when on the network but not possible when not!
@sa2000 - any chance you could look at my log and suggest a solution please?
I had a double NAT situation I couldn’t avoid and had this problem. I had port forwarded the default plex port on my att residential gateway to my google wifi mesh network and then from there to my plex server. It would show working when I clicked save then turn back to no connection later.
It stopped breaking when I set plex to use a manual port but defined the manual port to be the default port.
I’ve since switched internet service providers and have full control over the modem and don’t have the double NAT situation. I’ve kept it with manual port assignment (and still use the default port).
I had a long-standing issue with my remote access looking good for about 5 seconds then flipping to unavailable. I tried several approaches by using port forwarding and using PIA VPN with port forwarding or not.
I have Rogers in Canada and the Ignite internet that is similar to Xfinity xFi in hardware and configuration.
Initially, I thought it was related to Traffic Shaping or something by Rogers, but even when I used VPN it would still happen. I started investigating the firewall in windows and ISP, nothing seemed to restrict it. I even moved the ethernet connection from public to private and disables IPV6 (In case that was related) Nothing seemed to fix the issue.
As it was Windows 10, I ran the troubleshooter and the only solution offered was to RESET NETWORK. Once I performed that, and the system came back online, the connection was stable again.
I am not sure why this is, but it would seem that Windows 10 network adapter and the stack has some nuances that interrupt the connection.
If you encounter this connection issue, give the network reset a thought.
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It looks like my Plex remote access is finally working!
My new ISP is CenturyLink and they provided a C4000XG Modem/Router (fiber optic). I connected my new Asus ZenWiFi AX Mini (XD4) mesh kit behind their router, creating a double NAT. Most everything seemed to work alright with that, except for Plex remote access. I am NOT savvy in networking, but stumbling along it all seems to be working. Here are some of the steps I went through:
- On my new C4000XG, I did some basic security configurations like changing the admin password, disabled UPnP, turned off the WiFi radios, disabled WPS and remote management.
- I thought about putting the C4000XG into bridge mode, but my first attempt was a total mess and required a factory reset. I decided to try port forwarding, instead.
- On the C4000XG, I enabled DMZ, entering the WAN/IP from the XD4 and forwarded port 32400 to it. DHCP reservation is automatic.
- On the XD4, I enabled DMZ, entering the IP for my Plex server and forwarded port 32400 to it (source IP was the XD4’s external IP). I also set up DHCP reservation for the Plex server.
- In Plex, I manually specified port 32400.
- Even though CanYouSeeMe.org verified the port was open, remote access was still intermittent.
- Reboot everything – C4000XG, XD4 and the Plex server. So far, so good!
Hello,
i hope all had a nice christmas time and are healthy (not infected by covid 19).
i have the same issue, sometimes the remote access holds 1 day, most of the times 15min - 30min. than not remote access.
i have switched on port forwarding on the router as in the manuel. i run Windows 10 Pro.
is there any solution that the remote access is not killing/switching itself off, every time?
stay healthy
greating to the developers
My Plex Remote Access is back to it’s old nonsense of staying connected for a few hours, then dropping. It’s very frustrating.
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Well it’s 2021 now, several updates later and this is still an unsolved problem which causes a lot of grief for my family, especially during lockdown. Is this issue ever going to be sorted. Surely hundreds of subscribers can’t have duff routers.
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Lets have fresh server debug logs and details of the configuration - if manually specifying port with a port forward rule in the router or dynamic port allocation using uPnP - would need router screenshots showing details of the port forward
This article lists problem areas
with all due respect, its not any of our configs, I was running plex on my readynas just fine. I bought a dell poweredge and install plex. RIght away it started to disconnect with DEFAULT settings/config. I’ve let the QOS on my netgear switch to highest priority based on the port my server is conencted to on the switch, still same issue. I’ve get my server to DMZ, still same issue, so its not a port issue. Its the software, or at least a bug somewhere. In this time of covid I have a lot of friends and family using plex and now they cant even connect. I have set up a imacros script on my server to click on retry as soon as it pop up but at that point its too late and any connection has been dropped. please fix this as this is veru annoying to us thousands of users!
I have run plex with not issues for a long time, but in December of 2020 is when I noticed it was disconnecting from the remote access. I have read forms and tried a number of things to get this to work, but nothing. It will allow remote access for less than 30 sec. I am so frustrated that I can not get this to work. I do not know what to do. I have port forward the Plex port I have looked at the NAT and UPnP and played with that, I made sure I was on the latest ver of the server. I am running 1.21.3.4021. I am at a loss on this.
Any changes in the network your PLEX server is on?
Do you have the sever assigned a static IP?
nope, its still on the same network, nothing has changes. its on the same port on my network switch. My server has a static IP and has never changed (its an dell poweresge rack mounted server). If I enable plex on my readynas it never looses connection. Its running an older version. its something with the newer versions of plex. I noticed today there was another update, my server doesnt disconnect as often put it will still disconnect. its to the point where I am toying with the idea of trying to get a refund for my plex pass. This is ridiculous
EDIT: I have a quad nic on my server and double cheked the link aggregation and everything is working as it should. I have my nas that has a dual nic with the link aggregation and no problems there. I also disabled link aggregation on the server and used only 1 port of the quad nic and still same thing. I tried a different nic, same thing. Its not the set up.
with multiple people having the same issue I’m willing to bet something wasnt codded correctly in the most recent updates since the older versions have no issues. However, plex refuses to listen and still keeps thinking its an issue on out ends. I get they are trying to troubleshoot but common sense would say if multiple people are having the SAME issue its not somehthing on our end.
plex on poweredge server: 1.21.3.4046-3c1c83ba4
plex on netgear readynas: 1.21.2.3939
1.21.2.3939 is very stable. I even installed it on my laptop to rule out any issues and did a test for 48 hours and had no dropped remote connections
1.21.3.4046-3c1c83ba4 seems to be dropping remote connections anywhere from every 15 seconds to every 5-10 minutes
