Hello
Plex apps on my network are giving me error messages similar to “You are not connected directly to SERVER so streaming quality may be limited. You may be able to connect directly to this server by changing your home network settings.” Video playback is badly degraded to the point of being unusable. I have confirmed that the Plex server app is on the latest version, checked all of the relevant settings and read all of the help articles. I have even completely uninstalled and reinstalled Plex server from scratch with no success. When I try to log in to https://app.plex.tv I get an error that says “The server “SERVER” is unavailable Plex will automatically try to reconnect to this server”. Plex is running on a fresh install of Ubuntu 16.04, everything else on the server seems to be running fine. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?
Thanks!
The server machine is on the same subnet as the rest of the devices in your home network?
Double check your firewall ports. A small oversight (remotely accessible is OK but local discovery is still blocked) can easily cause what you are seeing.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201543147-What-network-ports-do-I-need-to-allow-through-my-firewall-
@kegobeer-plex said:
The server machine is on the same subnet as the rest of the devices in your home network?
Yes, server is on same subnet as rest of the devices and they can communicate with each other.
@ChuckPa said:
Double check your firewall ports. A small oversight (remotely accessible is OK but local discovery is still blocked) can easily cause what you are seeing.
https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/201543147-What-network-ports-do-I-need-to-allow-through-my-firewall-
Firewall doesn’t seem to be the issue. UFW is set to allow 32400/TCP but even when I disable UFW altogether, the issue remains.
To go through the basics again (check the boxes with me)
- Server signed in (settings - server - general)
- Server connected for remote access (settings - server - remote access)
- Clients logged into your same account as #1 above (debugging purposes only)
UFW will have to allow more than just 32400 for local operation. This is why I linked the page. You must also allow the GDM port for other Plex clients to find the server. The other ports are so PMS can be found by those respective devices.
If all the boxes are good,
Please disconnect the server, wait 30 seconds, reconnect it.
Make a connection attempt from one of the clients and let it ‘time out’.
Now navigate to Settings - Server - Help and Download Logs.
I would like to see what’s happening and whether the connection request is even making it into the server (I suspect not)
@ChuckPa said:
To go through the basics again (check the boxes with me)
- Server signed in (settings - server - general)
- Server connected for remote access (settings - server - remote access)
- Clients logged into your same account as #1 above (debugging purposes only)
UFW will have to allow more than just 32400 for local operation. This is why I linked the page. You must also allow the GDM port for other Plex clients to find the server. The other ports are so PMS can be found by those respective devices.
If all the boxes are good,
Please disconnect the server, wait 30 seconds, reconnect it.
Make a connection attempt from one of the clients and let it ‘time out’.
Now navigate to Settings - Server - Help and Download Logs.
I would like to see what’s happening and whether the connection request is even making it into the server (I suspect not)
OK, I think it’s up and running. Here’s the steps that I took:
- signed out of account on the server logged in directly(by IP address, not going to app.plex.tv)
- shut the service down
- deleted the server from Devices in app.plex.tv
- opened up all ports specified in the doc you sent
- the Windows app threw an error about DNS rebinding so I added custom configuration to unbound on my pfSense per this document: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/206225077-How-to-Use-Secure-Server-Connections
- turned service back up and logged into account on server
- logged out of app on each device and logged back in
It worked! Thank you for your help with this, glad to have it functional.
WIndows? Is this server on Windows? You posted in Linux.
@ChuckPa said:
WIndows? Is this server on Windows? You posted in Linux.
Based on the first post, I think the server is on Linux. I’m guessing he just mentioned the DNS rebinding issue with a Windows client while he was troubleshooting.
DNS rebinding has been a big problem. ISPs have put in some bizarre and often faulty firmware updates in attempt to prevent DNS spoofing. It’s caused us a great deal of grief.
@kegobeer-plex said:
@ChuckPa said:
WIndows? Is this server on Windows? You posted in Linux.
Based on the first post, I think the server is on Linux. I’m guessing he just mentioned the DNS rebinding issue with a Windows client while he was troubleshooting.
That is correct, the Plex Media Server is running on Ubuntu 16.04 and one of the clients that I tried to connect with was the Windows 10 app.
@ChuckPa said:
DNS rebinding has been a big problem. ISPs have put in some bizarre and often faulty firmware updates in attempt to prevent DNS spoofing. It’s caused us a great deal of grief.
I’m just guessing, but I think that there may have actually been two issues; I think that the issues with getting the server working with https://app.plex.tv stemmed from DNS rebinding and the problem with local network connections came from the firewall ports. Thanks again for your help with this!
- the Windows app threw an error about DNS rebinding so I added custom configuration to unbound on my pfSense per this document: https://support.plex.tv/hc/en-us/articles/206225077-How-to-Use-Secure-Server-Connections
That is what worked for me! I added my url for my plex just below the “Disable DNS Rebinding Checks” under alternate hostnames in my pfsense and now I can finally use the Windows App on my devices without issues.
PS, I never had issues with Android devices using the Plex app. My Plex server runs on Windows Server 2016 and I am using a NGINX reverse proxy server to server Let’s Encrypt SSL certs.
I tested the opening of the ports on my Windows Server prior to the pfsense config change. Opening the ports did nothing to alleviate the issue.
