I have a plex server setup on my local network and I purchased a Plex pass to enable local streaming as every time my wife tried streaming from her android phone it prompted to activate. It works fine from my android but I’m logged in with the same account that has plex pass enabled.
How does my wife (or anyone else) stream on our local network without having to activate plex on their android device?
What version of the app is being used?
Local Streaming itself does not require a Plex Pass. The old (what they now call “legacy”) plex app had a limitation of one minute for usage unless you paid the one-time $5 unlock fee for the platform you were on. This fee did not apply if you (the Plex user) were a Plex Pass holder.
The NEW app has no restrictions at all regarding the one-minute limit. It’s gone. It works for free on the same network as the server. A Plex Pass on the server owner or the user’s Plex account would cover all remote streaming.
It’s the new version of the app and it was prompting to activate every minute or two. I don’t have remote access setup so there is no chance it was accessing it remotely. The server is the latest version also.
Probably a bug then. Might want to get logs for the app on that phone so Plex can see the startup of the app and why it’s running these checks for activation.
Where do I send them? They don’t seem to have a way to contact support.
Well you can just attach a zip archive to a post here, or once you get the attention of someone who is actually with Plex you can send the zip to them directly as a private message.
Damn it. So the plex app has updated from 2025.14 to 2025.15 and the logs from before the update haven’t been kept 
Was it working in 2025.14? If it’s not working in the current version that’s the only really relevant logs here. Plex can look at the code and see what changed between those two if you know it only broke with the newest version.
No, it didn’t work in 2025.14. But out of frustration an activation pass was purchased on that phone so now I can’t tell either way without trying it on another device (which I don’t have). Will have to get a friend to test it at some point.
The one-time activation fee is platform-wide and tied to your app store account. So if you install the app on another phone or tablet signed into the same Google Play account it will be activated, too.
yeah got it, that’s why I need a new person and device to test it now.
I’m not sure what the issue here is.
By the sound of it, you were on the old app, and your wife’s account (not a Managed User or Invited Home User) was unable to view your server contents for more than a minute. This was (strangely) an intentional restriction that Plex placed on ALL mobile device clients. If you wanted to watch using the iOS or Android apps, you had to either have a Plex Pass on your account or fork over $5 to the store for your device (Apple for iOS devices, or Google for Android) to unlock being able to view anything for more than 1 minute.
As of a month ago or so, Plex changed it so that there is no longer a fee to use the mobile apps, instead there is now a restriction on remote streaming. Meaning that you cannot view content from a server unless you are within the same house as the server. If you went outside the house, you could not watch your own media content without forking over money to Plex, with a few exceptions. The most relevant exception to this rule is if the server ITSELF has a Plex Pass, then anyone can remote stream from it. This is not important however, since you admit that remote streaming is not involved here anyway.
So after all that, what is the issue? Before the new app, you had to pay $5 to unlock any mobile device for ANY kind of streaming, local or not. With the new app, you can view locally with no restriction. You mentioned paying to unlock the app "But out of frustration an activation pass was purchased on that phone so now I can’t tell either way without trying it on another device (which I don’t have). ", which seems like a waste of money as the new app no longer has a purchase (might be able to request a refund).
So right now, your wife can view your server content locally, right? No issue, right?
Edit: I am not trying to sound confrontational. I really do want to know what the issue was, and if there is one now.
2025.14 to be precice.
We tried both managed user and Invited home user and both resulted in constant prompts to activate plex when playing media from my home server that is enabled with plex pass.
As I understand it, this occurred prior to version 2025.14 which is the version that was installed on her phone when the issue occurred.
The server does have a plex pass, but remote access is not yet activated or relevant to the issue at hand.
The issue is we were using the new app 2025.14, which should have worked on the local network but didn’t. This resulted in an unnecessary purchase after I recently forked out for plex pass which should have negated the need to activate plex on the android device.
Right now, yes but plex has updated to 2025.15 and was also activated on this device so there is no way to test this on the current device since the activation is linked to the google play account on the device.
So there are 2 issues.
From what I understand of the situation:
So if you make a new third Plex account for testing, and then sign out of the app on your phone, that would reproduce the situation. The Plex Pass would not be impacting, since you wont be on your own account, or the Google Play Account that now carries an app activation IAP.
In order to share more of the benefits of your Plex Pass with your partner, invite them into your Plex Home.
That includes the right to run the legacy mobile app without buying the 1-minute unlock.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/features/plex-home/
When using the new mobile app, there is no 1-minute restriction anymore.
The ability to use remote playback should be automatically unlocked, due to your own Plex Pass.
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