Plex Server and multiple VPNs

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
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Hi all. Hoping someone with Plex-fu can help.

My Plex server (v1.13.6.5339) runs on a Win7 PC behind a double NAT using manually configured port forwarding (tcp/42300 on ISP router to tcp/42300 on internal router to tcp/32400 on the PC); PMS is set to use 42300 as the public port. This config has worked for years, with several different ISP and internal routers. Well over a year ago, I added PIA VPN to the mix and Plex has allowed remote access without a problem as long as I start it up before the VPN: clients can connect fine using the public IP. (When my daughter was in China last year, I added a forward for tcp/443 on the ISP router to tcp/42300 on the internal one and she was able to use https://myPublicIP/web without problems.) When PIA drops and reconnects, PMS may lose connectivity for a minute or three, but never for more than a few minutes. (My main purpose for the VPN is to hide torrent traffic, which I do by setting the uTorrent net.bind_ip and net.outgoing_ip advanced prefs to the VPN’s interface address so that uTorrent is forced to use the VPN interface. If the VPN drops, uTorrent cannot talk until I manually update the address; a PITA but it works and PIA usually only drops 2-3 times a month.)

Earlier this Summer, we spun up a Palo Alto VPN (GlobalProtect) at work; on the client it is a split tunnel with a route for our /16 down the tunnel. It seemed to coexist nicely with PIA and for a while I was running both VPNs and Plex without any problems at all. I’d leave PIA connected almost all the time and enable GP when needed. Changing the GP VPN’s state did not seem to have any impact on Plex remote connectivity.

Then on Saturday, I updated PMS from v1.13.5.5291 to v1.13.6.5339 and poof! I cannot have both VPNs up. With GP down, Plex remote access works fine if I start Plex before PIA. With GP up and PIA down, Plex remote access works fine. But when I start the 2nd VPN (no matter which is the second one), Plex almost immediately decides to use the PIA public IP address and loses remote access.

Given that my system’s connectivity hasn’t changed (it is still reachable on tcp/42300 from outside), I tried adding static routes for all of the plex.tv IP addresses, thinking that this would bypass what Plex is seeing. However, no joy.

It is quite possible, likely even, that this is merely a bug in the latest Plex server, and I’ll probably go back a version to see if things go back to working as they used to, but I figured I’d try asking for help first. Anyone have any pointers for where to look?

I’ll be glad to answer questions, provide logs, etc.

Thanks.

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Think they updated the latest version to use different interfaces, it is hidden too.

Settings -> Networking then click on “show advanced button”
goto “Network interface to listen on” setting. Use your physical interface and not VPN virtual interface.

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Think they updated the latest version to use different interfaces, it is hidden too.

Settings → Networking then click on “show advanced button”
goto “Network interface to listen on” setting. Use your physical interface and not VPN virtual
interface.

Sigh… I’d intended to mention that I’ve already done this but did not. Sorry, no soup for you.

In fact, Plex does not see the VPN interfaces (the dropdown has “ALL” and “Wired Ethernet Connection”). I saw a post about Plex ignoring interfaces named with an initial “v” so while playing with this I removed all references to “v” and “vpn” from the interface names (they are “Work Connection” and “PIA Connection”); they still do not show up in Plex.

FWIW, when I changed Plex from ALL to Wired, the server stopped listening on 0.0.0.0:32400 (it continues to listen on 127.0.0.1:32400 and 192.168.42.2:32400). When I saw this I was momentarily hopeful, but it proved to not help at all.

Thanks for trying tho. :slight_smile:

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