I’m not sure what changed, or if anything did, but what seems like out of nowhere, Plex server is no longer available on my local network and remote access is also broken. When I use the web app player on another desktop pc, it seems like I’m being relayed since I’m getting a limited connection message. “You are not connected directly to ‘Server name’ so streaming quality may be limited. You may be able to connect directly to this server by changing your home network settings.”
I should not be getting this within the local network. I also can’t reach my server when using the mobile android app. I’ve used both UPnP and also manual port forwarding separately with no luck. When I do try to enable remote access or retry connection is goes green for like a second and then back to red. But the remote access problems shouldn’t have anything to do with accessing media over my local network. I’m completely at the end of tinkering with this and basically about to give up and move on to another media center option but I don’t really want to. Any help would be appreciated.
Did you recently had a Windows upgrade on your server machine?
If so, take a look into the Network and Sharing center.
Inspect the properties of your network connection. It must be set to ‘private’, not ‘public’.
OK, then it is perhaps something with your router.
It might be, that your router got a firmware update, which activated ‘DNS rebinding protection’.
This is in principle a good thing, but the implementation is often coded too primitively, so it ‘misfires’ at Plex’s (completely valid) way to use the DNS system.
But before we take care of that, let’s verify some basic stuff:
Do you have several active network adapters in your server machine?
e.g. a wired connection and also WiFi
(if you do, disable one of these [preferably the WiFi] and then restart Plex server)
Please compare the local IP addresses of your server and the clients.
They must be in the same ‘local subnet’.
If, for example your server has an IP of 192.168.2.34 and the netmask is 255.255.255.0
then your clients are supposed to have 192.168.2.x as well, with only x differing.
Do you have a feature activated in your router called similarly to:
‘guest network’
‘AP isolation’
‘client isolation’
etc ?
Please determine the external IP your router has, by visiting http://canyouseeme.org/
it will tell you the external IP directly above the input field labeled ‘Port to check’
Compare this IP with the ‘public’ IP that appears in the Plex web app under
Settings - Server - Remote Access
(on the right side)
The two IP addresses should be identical. If they are not, you are in a ‘Double NAT’ situation.
First off, I really appreciate your time and the help you are providing, thank you for that.
The server only has 1 wired network adapter.
I’m at work so I can’t actually verify but I believe everything is on the 192.168.0.x scheme. Years ago I permanently assigned the server with a static ip for the very reason of Plex I believe. I think it was because of remote access. But honestly I don’t use that feature and I’m not sure if remote access is related to just getting media over my LAN. Anyway, last night I pinged the server from my desktop pc, so I’m pretty confident that my whole network is on the same ip scheme.
I do have a guest network enabled, I will have to check about AP isolation and client isolation. Are you recommending that I turn off the guest network?
I was checking ports with that canyouseeme site, my ip address and external ip that plex shows was the same. I was checking port 32400 since Plex used that port for remote access but that port checker kept returning errors.
@Fractal said:
Years ago I permanently assigned the server with a static ip for the very reason of Plex I believe.
Very good.
I’m not sure if remote access is related to just getting media over my LAN.
No, but sometimes it can be a valuable datapoint in diagnosis.
If you never, ever will be using remote access, you can permanently disable ‘Secure Connections’ under
Settings - Server - Network - ‘Show Adanced’
Afterwards, restart first your Plex server and after a few minutes all your plex client devices.
(Even if you do want to use remote access at some point in the future, it is a good test to diagnose issues with DNS.)
Are you recommending that I turn off the guest network?
No, but you need to make sure that all your plex clients are not using the guest network, but your own, internal WiFi SSID (the one, which is not isolated from your wired network clients).
I was checking ports with that canyouseeme site, my ip address and external ip that plex shows was the same.
Good
I was checking port 32400 since Plex used that port for remote access but that port checker kept returning errors.
That is interesting.
While you are looking through your router settings, look for a setting for ‘DNS rebinding protection’.
Do also seek for a way to define your own ‘DNS server’. ISPs sometimes block or fail to handle properly host names in the .direct TLD (which is what Plex is using to assign your server a unique, FQDN - necessary for ‘secure connections’).
After making any changes in the router configuration, reboot your router first
then after a few minutes restart your plex server machine
after a few more minutes restart each of your plex client devices
While you are looking through your router settings, look for a setting for ‘DNS rebinding protection’.
Do also seek for a way to define your own ‘DNS server’. ISPs sometimes block or fail to handle properly host names in the .direct TLD (which is what Plex is using to assign your server a unique, FQDN - necessary for ‘secure connections’).
After making any changes in the router configuration, reboot your router first
then after a few minutes restart your plex server machine
after a few more minutes restart each of your plex client devices
I’m not following this part. I have a setting for ‘IP & MAC Binding’ and ‘Dynamic DNS’ in my router.
@Fractal said:
“Do also seek for a way to define your own ‘DNS server’.”
I’m not following this part. I have a setting for ‘IP & MAC Binding’ and ‘Dynamic DNS’ in my router.
No, these two options have nothing to do with what I was talking about.
The ‘DNS server’ is one of the most basic preferences.
Usually, it is provided by the ISP and is assigned automatically as the router makes its initial connection to the ISP.
You may have to switch from ‘automatic configuration’ to ‘manual’ in the ‘WAN’/‘Internet’ configuration of the router.
May I chime in on this? I can no longer connect to my PMS on my local network either. The only way is to go to plex.tv/web, which connects flawlessly from any client on my local network to my PMS. I have always in the past connected via IP:PORT (IE: 192.168.0.1:32400/web). Is that still a working feature or has it been removed? It still shows as the private path in settings, remote access. Private 192.168.0.105 : 32400 Public 76.30.210.76 : 17138 Internet
Remote access works perfectly. Local access message is “the server unexpectedly dropped the connection”.
I’ve had a problem like above, which affected only my android clients, and not my TiVo, roku, or browser clients. The mention of DNS in the .direct tld was a turning point, and once I started packet captures of DNS matching .direct, I found that my androids were using IPv6 DNS request for plex.direct which failed. As soon as I removed IPv6 DNS servers from my DHCPv6 config, everything worked fine again. I’ll try not to rant on plex again for their intentional failure to support IPv6 and globally unique addresses for accessing plex media servers.
