Plex Media Server Status Unavailable within local networl

Plex Media Server
1

Server Version#: 1.24.3.5033-757abe6b4
Player Version#: 6.9.4.7254-ac0e86853-Plex

All my plex players (2 Rokus, 1 Smart TV) are receiving the “Media Server Status Unavailable” message when trying to connect to my home plex media server. All devices and media server are on the same local network (private IP space). This started within the last week or two. I’ve tried all the suggestions in the “Why can’t the Plex app find or connect to my Plex Media Server?” support article including:

  1. Downloading and installing latest media server version (as verified above)
  2. Confirmed my VPN is turned off
  3. Confirmed my media server and plex players are all listed on the Authorized Devices page
  4. Tried disabling secure connections.
  5. Tried logging out and re-linking players
  6. Confirmed media server is logged into and running
  7. Rebooted my Win10 desktop (which functions as my plex media server)

Nothing seems to work. Funny thing is I am able to successfully connect via remote relay, however the video quality is absolute crap (completely pixelated) because that connection is understandably throttled.

Why can I connect remotely via web relay but not within my own local network??? Especially if I haven’t made any changes to my local network any time recently.

2

OK. So I feel really dumb. I completely skipped a crucial troubleshooting step. Troubleshooting 101 type stuff. :confounded:

While I checked the local network settings, including the local FW on my router…I didn’t bother checking the local FW on my Win10 desktop that functions as my media server. Turns out that my local home network ( NATd private IP space) was somehow flagged as a “public” network within the settings on the host FW on my Win10 machine. So my local host FW was treating my internal network as though it was a public network and was blocking “suspicious” traffic. Once I modified the FW to identify my local network as a “home” network within the FW settings, access from all my clients to the media server were restored.