Plex Scrab Service totally out in Mainland China

Plex Media Server
112

Let’s set aside the scraping issue for now and focus on the login problem.

Although some regions may experience difficulties connecting to Plex’s metadata providers due to network issues, resulting in scraping failures, users with Apple devices or PCs can still access their servers normally. They can manage and browse their server content without any issues.

However, under the same network conditions, Android devices may encounter problems such as being unable to log into the Plex app, connect to the Plex server, or browse the server content. In some cases, it takes an excessively long time to enter the Plex app.

So, why can Apple devices access Plex normally under the same network conditions, while Android devices cannot? This issue has been widely reported, with many users experiencing it. Is there a difference in the login authentication mechanisms between the Plex apps on Apple and Android devices?

Can the login authentication issue on Android devices be resolved? Through testing, we’ve found that by first disconnecting from the network and then opening the Plex app on Android, users can enter the app quickly, seemingly bypassing the plex.tv account authentication process. After reconnecting to the network, the Plex app and server access function normally. Does this indicate that Plex could optimize this aspect to allow normal use of the app even when there are network issues? This could at least work locally, as many users are currently unable to access the Plex app on Android devices within their local networks.

There has been a long-standing forum post ([Feature-Request] Built in local authentication server (prevent plex.tv outage)) discussing the possibility of logging in and accessing one’s server via local authentication or other methods when unable to connect to plex.tv.

If it were possible to log into Plex-related apps or services without going through plex.tv, could that resolve the network-related issues? Compared to the scraping issue, the login authentication problem seems to be more serious.

3 Likes
113

no as I stated above.

114

The iOS device you mentioned probably has DNS record cached on device. I used to think the devs have sorted it out until I updated my app.

115

I’ve been tossing this around for many days and can’t really find a solution. It’s just that the internet doesn’t work, I can’t log in properly, and Windows is very hard to log in. As long as the Apple phone works.

116

We are also paying users, aren’t Chinese paying users your service targets? Is it not possible to add a temporary verification server in China? Currently, it is almost impossible to use without a proxy. There are many Plex members in China, right? Is it really not possible to solve this problem, or is it discrimination against Chinese users?

1 Like
117

My only idea now is to connect directly to my own server

118

我还在一直等待着开发人员解决这个问题。

119

Hello, can you add a proxy service entrance on the client and app? This allows us to use plex anytime, anywhere without restricting the network environment

1 Like
123

Currently, I have restored normal access to the web page by adding the http_proxy environment variable in docker. But I have no idea how to deal with the problem in the app in Android TV. I am looking forward to the official solution.

124

There will be no solution. China banned plex. it’s been firewalled.

You need to learn to bypass the great firewall. it’s not that difficult.

1 Like
125

Would like a place to add a socks5 proxy (http or https)

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127

我还是想问一下什么时候修好，我现在安卓登录需要2分钟，我无法 忍受这种痛苦了
I still want to ask when it’s going to be fixed, I’m at the point where it takes 2 minutes for my android to log in and I can’t stand the pain anymore

128

curl -vv https://metadata.provider.plex.tv

  • Host metadata.provider.plex.tv:443 was resolved.

  • IPv6: 2606:4700:4400::6812:2433, 2606:4700:4400::ac40:97cd

  • IPv4: 104.18.36.51, 172.64.151.205

  • Trying 104.18.36.51:443…

  • Trying [2606:4700:4400::6812:2433]:443…

  • connect to 104.18.36.51 port 443 from 192.168.99.122 port 56113 failed: Operation timed out

  • Trying 172.64.151.205:443…

  • connect to 2606:4700:4400::6812:2433 port 443 from 240e:3b4:4b2:e100:94:3b44:ac89:803b port 56114 failed: Operation timed out

  • Trying [2606:4700:4400::ac40:97cd]:443…

  • connect to 172.64.151.205 port 443 from 192.168.99.122 port 56361 failed: Operation timed out

  • connect to 2606:4700:4400::ac40:97cd port 443 from 240e:3b4:4b2:e100:94:3b44:ac89:803b port 56364 failed: Operation timed out

  • Failed to connect to metadata.provider.plex.tv port 443 after 150222 ms: Couldn’t connect to server

  • Closing connection

curl: (28) Failed to connect to metadata.provider.plex.tv port 443 after 150222 ms: Couldn’t connect to server

129

Server Version#:
Player Version#:
我还是想问一下什么时候修好，我现在安卓登录需要2分钟，我无法 忍受这种痛苦了
I still want to ask when it’s going to be fixed, I’m at the point where it takes 2 minutes for my android to log in and I can’t stand the pain anymore

I initially thought this is caused by my network connection, but the scrab service still not work after I tried several times by resetting/modified my network configuration. I installed my plex server on Synology NAS so it’s not possible to directly change plex proxy setting. So I posted a topic on BAIDU tieba plextv forum, i.e. the biggest topic based forum in China. many people replied my post and 95% of them experiencing the same issue as mine, some of them said if the plex runs in a full socketed proxy network, there will be nothing impacted.

Yesterday the access to plex.tv is slowly recovered, Until now, the scrab service still out.

Please help to locate the issue, if it’s caused by network, please consider provide http proxy setting for scrab service in plex control pannel.

The URL of BAIDU plextv forum related topic is : https://tieba.baidu.com/p/9101532630?pn=1

130

什么时候修好，我现在安卓登录需要2分钟，我无法 忍受这种痛苦了

132

I am currently in a lot of pain. My PMS is running on an N100 Ubuntu machine. I tried installing proxy software on Ubuntu, and I found that while the browser can use the proxy normally, the traffic from PMS itself is not going through the proxy. Therefore, I had to use another router to provide proxy services, allowing the N100 host to be globally proxied. However, this leads to double NAT, which causes everything to work fine on the local network but makes remote access impossible.

My temporary solution is as follows:

Usually use the default network environment without a proxy to ensure remote access is available.
Whenever I add content to the media library, I change the gateway of the PMS device to point only to the proxy device, achieving global proxy access.
After successfully retrieving metadata, I switch the gateway back to the default state.
I have to perform this operation each time I add media content.

I hope the developers can provide a solution, such as adding an optional proxy switch in the PMS network settings, allowing us to specify the IP and port of the proxy device. This way, it won’t affect existing functionalities and can resolve the blockage issue throughout China.

Thank you.

134

@BigWheel @drzoidberg33
Hello! First of all, thank you very much for your reply and contribution to this question. Please read it patiently. I have been using plex since 2018 and even developed plug-ins for plex, so I can only be considered familiar with plex. If necessary, I can assist you in testing.

Let me explain to you more comprehensively the problems that plex is currently facing in China. Our network is blocked by the firewall, including but not limited to (plex.tv, tmdb, tvdb…) So I will tell you about the problems we are currently facing as follows:

Devices involved: PC, mobile phone, TV

Systems involved: Windows, Linux, Android, iOS
Products involved: PMS, PMP, Amp

It can be seen that we are completely shut out, so the current problems in China are very serious.

The main problems currently existing (regardless of system and device, because all have the following problems)

Including some temporary solutions, but temporary does not mean solved

  1. PMS and PMP will verify the account when logging in, so all of our Chinese users will stay on the Logo screen in PMP because it has been trying to connect to the server to verify our account and obtain the token for parsing, but the problem is that we are blocked. If we leave it alone, we can’t log in at all.
    2.*Currently there are two temporary solutions for this situation:
  • Disconnect from the network when logging in and skip verification (already logged in normally once)
  • Use a proxy to connect to the network
  1. When matching with PMS, is it manual matching or automatic matching. Unable to connect to the proxy, including the newly installed plex proxy or manual tmdb tvdb imd, etc., all cannot return data
    3.*Temporary solution:
  • Make a proxy VPN on another gateway to let plex go through this gateway, but PMS cannot connect directly and will be disconnected. After the game is over, you need to close the proxy of the plex server to restore the direct connection
  1. The reason why pictures and posters cannot be loaded is also blocked by the firewall
    4.*Temporary solution is the same as above
    Speaking of this, I believe everyone should have a deeper understanding of the predicament we are in in China now. At the same time, this is not a problem that can be solved by simply modifying the plex network, nor can it be solved by contacting the plex domain name dealer.

The following paragraph is some solutions. Of course, this solution takes time. I hope it can be included in the scope of consideration and rescue plan as soon as possible. This is related to all Chinese users.

PMP and other client programs:
In China, we generally use ddns for domain name binding. So the most direct way to solve the problem of the first login interface freeze is to have an option to manually select proxy http, https, socket when logging in? Of course, we also have to consider that users without a proxy can also try to forward plex requests according to their own domain name for login verification.

Regarding PMP’s directional connection to PMS:
We all know that PMP gives PMS a direct IP and port. Please let the app allow us to directly point to our custom domain:port instead of directly pointing to IP:port. This is very useful for us. Even if some of us do not use a proxy, we can still successfully connect to the server by accessing the domain name:port.

Regarding PMS, we hope to provide a proxy mode as some people have proposed, and please clearly inform the domain name and function of the proxy range, so that we can be more targeted when doing proxy. For example, in order to run the program, we will not proxy all connections at once, which can save traffic expenses.

As mentioned in the article and forum interaction, users in China have been trying to adjust and solve the problem by themselves. Whether it is a directed proxy domain name or other methods, we are very independent to face and solve the problem, but this is no longer something we can do. It requires program architecture or some other changes to solve it.

If plex officials have any insights or better solutions to this, please participate in the interaction. Please don’t let users in a region give up plex, and plex should not give up users in a region.

3 Likes
135

please don’t forgot this issue

136

写的这么诚恳认真，都没得到丝毫回应，只顾着删帖了，只能说是这个软件不值得这么好的用户。一有机会必然更换，不为别的，只为这份拿国内用户当小丑的行为。都懒得上英语了，直接母语吧，反正除了牛马都能看懂。

137

……本来是看plex hevc hw转码进展的，结果才发现居然这么多国内用户遇到plex.tv阻断的问题。
给一个你们我几年前至今我一直用的plex方案吧。至少目前我没有感知到plex官网被阻断对我的影响。

关闭plex服务器的远程访问，用nginx一类的软件反代plex，在plex服务器的设置界面
自定义服务器访问URL
填入你的plex的自定义域名。
在plex服务器所在的网络里面，将“plex.tv”加入翻墙名单，服务器向plex.tv声明您的服务器地址时，只会用您自己填写的域名。

这样设置后，客户端在成功连接上plex.tv的服务器后，不会接收到 *.plex.direct 的信息，仅有你plex服务器的自定义域名，播放视频的时候也会仅用这个域名。

因为客户端都有缓存，所以以后即便没有连上plex.tv，只要你的自定义域名没有变，那么播放都是正常的。（唯一碍眼的可能就是plex客户端会显示离线模式，但是没有别的影响）

其实plex.tv的官方刮削服务前两年在国内就不是很顺畅了，所以“plex.tv”加入翻墙名单是我当初的主要目的，而且也不会收到网络影响。

贴一个nginx的配置信息，（nginx非必需，pms自带的那个估计也没问题，我这么做只是因为我家里服务器上提供的服务有几个，端口共用罢了），仅供大家参考。

server {
        listen 443 ssl;
        http2 on;
        server_name plex.xxx.com;
        ssl_certificate /home/iviso/certs/public.crt;
        ssl_certificate_key /home/iviso/certs/private.key;
        ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
        add_header Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000" always;
        ssl_stapling on;
        ssl_stapling_verify on;
        send_timeout 24h;

location / {
        proxy_pass http://192.168.2.6:32400;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_connect_timeout 24h;
        proxy_read_timeout 24h;
        proxy_send_timeout 24h;
        client_max_body_size 0;
        proxy_redirect off;
        proxy_buffering off;
    }
}
1 Like