Hi,
I recently noticed Plex isn’t working for me outside of the network anymore. Havn’t made any changes since the last time it was working, so no idea what and why. BUT Plexamp IS working outside of the network, which baffles me.
Another weird thing I noticed, if I go to app.plex.tv and check my Remote Access settings for my server, there is a different behavior depending on where the client is: if the client is in the network, I can see the “Fully accessible outside your network message”, but if the client is outside the network, I receive the “Unable to connect to [server] securely”.
I bet the reason your music works while mobile is because the Plex relay system (which kicks in if a direct connection doesn’t work) is restricted to about 2Mbps, which is way above what is needed for music.
Strange that your mobile ISP (cellular data?) cannot connect you to your home. If the external holes are punched, then the only other option is your cellular provider intentionally blocking (most? music still works) Plex connections to prevent you streaming.
To be honest, I’m not sure what’s going on. Funnily enough, I had a similar situation a couple of months back, when Plexamp wasn’t working remotely, but Plex was. Some combo with my mobile ISP & DNS & Plexamp. This time I ruled out my ISP because for some reason Plex wasn’t reachable from my work VPN (Austria), when it used to work, so I believed the issue was with Plex.
Even full CD quality uncompressed maxes out already at 1.411 mbps. Only if you go into hi-res and lossless multichannel music, you will be restricted by the relay bandwidth.
But the argument doesn’t make sense anymore, if you edit it. If the bandwidth limit is not crossed over, then it cannot be the reason for transcoding kicking in.
Hmm? Nobody mentioned transcoding. The OPs issue is that Plexamp works on remote, but Plex (for video, I assume) doesn’t, giving a “unable to connect securely” message.
I corrected my mis-type about the relay limitation being high enough to allow a connection, but I am not so confident about the video side. I guess I was speculating what a mobile ISP could either:
Recognize Plex-app traffic vs plexamp traffic, and was blocking Plex app traffic (under pressure from movie companies) or
Recognize video traffic, and blocked that but not music traffic.
2 may be possible if secure connections are disabled in the server settings, but on the other hand relay connections are always encrypted
1 is an effort that a regular ISP is not making, as it requires much more processing power than regular routing. A corporate firewall may do that, but not a regular ISP who sells internet access to domestic users – IMHO.
Sadly, Plex doesn’t work at all remote, not even music. No connection can be established.
But I have confirmed it’s an issue with my mobile ISP and not with Plex itself. For now, I’m using the Private DNS (with cloudflare) feature in my Android phone as a workaround.
