Plex Media Server and Apps can't handle an unavailable internet connection

Plex Media Server NAS & Devices
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1

I couldn’t help but notice that these days, without an active internet connection, plex media server becomes almost completely unusable :
-> You can’t access the Server UI because the server tells you it can’t find an internet connection
-> You can’t use the mobile apps because they can’t find your server

And this while all of them are residing on the same local network.

The only thing that works for me, kinda, is the Apple TV. If you can live with the occasional stutter and the fact that none of your libraries with trailers configured will play content.

I think this is quite striking for an app that caches all content anyway : why do we bother with this, if it doesn’t work when there isn’t an internet connection?

Is there any way to work around Plex’ inability to handle a broken internet connection so we can at least watch local content when this happens?

2

Try this.

On the server web GUI: Server | Settings | Network | List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth.

My LAN is 192.168.1.0/24 so that’s what I put in the box.

3

I can’t, I’m not geting an UI when I browse to :32400/manage…

Any config file I can edit somewhere to put this in? Maybe in Preferences.xml?

4

When I want to get to the UI I go to:

:32400/web/index.html#

Does that not work for you?

In Preferences.xml I have:

allowedNetworks=“192.168.1.0/24”

But I have no idea if where it is placed in the file is critical or not.

1 Like
5

I just get the message that plex isn’t available without the internet connection when i go to web/index.html.

Whereabouts is the allowednetworks tag located? I might try to add it manually and give the server a SIGHUP after.

6

When trying to connect to the UI you should be using the local IP address, not plex.tv.

In Preferences.xml I have it here:

TranscoderTempDirectory
allowedNetworks
CloudSyncNeedsUpdate

1 Like
7

Adding this to Preferences.xml made the web UI available again. :+1:

Casting and iOS apps still don’t work with local authentication turned off. The apps claim the server is offline. But at least I can configure all my libraries to be accessible on the Apple TV.

8

Some apps and devices will not work properly unless they have an internet connection.

My iPhone works OK without a net connection. But my Roku 3 box complains, but can be reconfigured to work.

See for more details:

https://www.howtogeek.com/303282/how-to-use-plex-media-server-without-internet-access/

9

The iPad app doesn’t work without an internet connection. Plex Media Player doesn’t work either. Basically the only thing that works here is the Apple TV and OpenPHT.

10

This support article documents the dependencies for internet connections

https://support.plex.tv/articles/200484903-internet-and-network-requirements/

The main categories are

  • some apps need internet to launch / run
  • secure connections needs DNS access
  • authentication
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