I live in Portugal. I have been running Plex server for several years without issue (serving over 20k movies and show episodes, it’s a hobby, Lifetime Plex Pass). Recently (this last month or so), intermittently I have been getting the dreaded “Not Authorized” error. I would reboot and sometimes it would work, and sometimes not. On Thursday (19th), it went full wobbly and I could not access my media. I have spent the last 4 days trying to figure this out (installing new servers on different machines, trying all of the suggested fixes from the Plex support pages, deleting registry entries etc.). Nothing worked. The last 4 days I have spent messing with this because my family can’t access their shows etc. (probably a mistake to be so reliant on Plex).
This morning I was again trying to reimage a new machine and when going to the plex.tv website to download the newest package, I got an error: “Something went wrong. The Plex Media Server list of apps, is not available at this time. Please try reloading the page, or try again later. If the problem persists, please contact support.” So now I can’t even download the package??? Then, a lightbulb Came on: what is this is because I’m in Portugal (for some strange reason), so I connected my trusty VPN to the USA and low and behold I could download the package without issue. So naturally the next progression was to install the VPN on my Plex server and guess what, you got it, problem solved! (except for remote access why now wants to use the USA IP address for inbound. VPN doesn’t like that).
So, could someone please explain why this is happening? Is it fixable to be back as it was? Is Plex a USA thing all of a sudden? Last 4 days completely wasted and an unhappy family
You should give your ISP a stern talking to.
There seem to be a lot of Portuguese users affected lately by this, which makes it very likely that the ISP is doing something on their side.
Seems strange that the main Plex.tv website is somehow not liking my Portuguese IP address? Seems to me like there is something on the Plex website that is causing an issue?
You cannot know that the website is “not liking your IP address.” There could be a dozen reasons.
I know only this: there is nothing on the plex.tv side which intentionally blocks portuguese IP adresses.
Try the custom DNS server. If it suddenly works, then you know that the issue is definitely at your ISP.
Interesting. Could it be the ISP issued IP address is being blocked because of some spam filter? I run a couple of websites myself and I’ve had WordPress plugins do this (unknowingly to me) before.
Ok, thanks. I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to do that as I can’t change the DNS in my router as I have my whole home automation system on this network (mesh) so I don’t want that going whacko.
Yep, and that does appear to be working now, thank you! I wish I could have found this info before. I did a lot of searching on here but missed this somehow.
Trying to speak to big companies (this is MEO) here in Portugal has it’s challenges, but if I can get through to someone I will for sure. Thanks again.
