Plex Ubuntu using Relay for all clients on LAN

Plex Media Server
, ,
1

Server Version#: 1.20.3.3483
Player Version#:
Ubuntu 20,.04 LTS

I recently had to reinstall Plex and remap my drives (using the deb package and the super guide for mapping EXT4 drives provided here) and now can’t work out why Plex won’t direct stream to my roku boxes or ios devices on my LAN. Relay only at 2Mpbs…

Router DNS is 9.9.9.9, DNS rebind protection is off. Plex server is running on my PC which obviously can direct play the media through a web browser and localhost connection. I did accidentally install ‘firewall-config’ and have since removed it but…well I’m stumped. I feel like the problem is somewhere in my ‘server’ (desktop really) configuration.

2

Indirect or relayed streaming are usually due to a bad remote access configuration.

  • You could e.g. check if your router is still pointing to your Plex Media Server (e.g. if you re-installed the machine and that broke an existing IP reservation – or if you didn’t have one but instead manually assigned an IP address to your server…).
  • Do you run your PMS natively on that Linux or through a VM / container? – VMs / containers could come with their very own network stack / configuration that might deviate from your previous setup.
  • If you’re using UPnP for automatic port opening/forwarding… have you considered shifting to a manual port forward on that router of yours (incl. updating the related PMS remote access settings)?
3

I can’t get remote access working - which shouldn’t matter as I’m talking about accessing this server from my own lan (same subnet, can ping all devices from the server…). But maybe thats an indicator?

  • I removed and reinstalled plex but plexmediaserver is running on my personal computer which is assigned an IP address through DHCP. I never manually assigned an IP to this box.
  • I run PMS natively - I installed the current .deb version not the snap (previous working setup was actually the snap but I think that’s not recommended now - took some fiddling to get that working too)
  • Always had UPnP turned off before but switched it on just to see if that might help today (no luck).
  • Router is an ASUS AC68U running the current version of Merlin.
4

If you’re getting Indirect, on your own LAN, you have a firewall issue on the host itself.

Is UFW enabled?

If you wish to run UFW, please open these ports

5

Hi. Yes its enabled.

6

the basic command structure is:

sudo ufw allow   port/protocol

This will translate to

sudo ufw allow 32400/tcp    -- for Plex's main port
sudo ufw allow 1900/udp     -- for one of the UDP ports

Be certain to allow all the ports for the LAN
-or-
only allow 32400/tcp if you only wish remote access (all that is needed).

7

Thank you. Still no joy unfortunately. Rebooted and noticed that UFW wasn’t autostarted so I started it. Current status below.

$ sudo ufw status
Status: active

To                         Action      From
--                         ------      ----
32400                      ALLOW       Anywhere                  
32400/tcp                  ALLOW       Anywhere                  
1900/udp                   ALLOW       Anywhere                  
3005/tcp                   ALLOW       Anywhere                  
5353/udp                   ALLOW       Anywhere                  
8324/tcp                   ALLOW       Anywhere                  
32410/udp                  ALLOW       Anywhere                  
32412/udp                  ALLOW       Anywhere                  
32413/udp                  ALLOW       Anywhere                  
32414/udp                  ALLOW       Anywhere                  
32469/tcp                  ALLOW       Anywhere                  
32400/tcp (v6)             ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
32400 (v6)                 ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
1900/udp (v6)              ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
3005/tcp (v6)              ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
5353/udp (v6)              ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
8324/tcp (v6)              ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
32410/udp (v6)             ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
32412/udp (v6)             ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
32413/udp (v6)             ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
32414/udp (v6)             ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)             
32469/tcp (v6)             ALLOW       Anywhere (v6)
8

If you have it wide open (effectively OFF),

What’s the LAN IP range?
Are multiple subnets or VLANs involved?
Is it RFC-1918 compliant? (192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, 172.16.x.x-172.31.x.x)

9

IP Pool Range is 192.168.1.2 --> 192.168.1.254
No multiple subnets no VLANS configured.

10

do me a favor please?

  1. Restart PMS
  2. Wait 2 minutes (let it stabilize)
  3. Open a client and talk to it / attempt to play something trivial
  4. Let it play a few seconds then stop
  5. Wait 20 (logs flushing)
  6. Download the ZIP file (logs)
  7. Attach it.

I want to see why it’s calling out Indirect.

11

Sure thing! Thanks. Plex Media Server Logs_2020-10-27_18-57-28.zip (1.6 MB)

12

Check your /etc/hosts

Do you have 127.0.0.1 localhost
or do you have something else like the host name after the address?

Is there a 127.0.0.1 at all or just the IPv6 definition?

13 
127.0.0.1	localhost
127.0.1.1	GZ2

# The following lines are desirable for IPv6 capable hosts
::1     ip6-localhost ip6-loopback
fe00::0 ip6-localnet
ff00::0 ip6-mcastprefix
ff02::1 ip6-allnodes
ff02::2 ip6-allrouters
14

Ok… how about we take the extreme step?

  1. Setup a bridged-adapter VM (give it an address on your LAN as a peer machine)
  2. Give the host a “Testing” style hostname so you can easily identify it later.
  3. Don’t add any packages other than the stock distribution + its updates.
  4. Install PMS
  5. mount one media library (bare minimum to recreate)
  6. setup PMS for that one.
  7. See what happens.
15

Alright…did it. And wouldn’t you just know it…the VM is direct streaming on my Lan just fine! So what does that tell us? :slight_smile:

16

The VM is a nice, clean, fresh, juicy, steak and the host is last week’s stale tuna salad?
:thinking:

If the OS is the same version – you have a conflicting package or just fat-fingered it somewhere
If different version – obvious.

This wreaks of a busted up routing table but I have no idea which of the multiple files it could be in

17

Good analogy! Same OS but I think that this problem given it’s localized to the host and I have a solid backup of data I will simply reinstall the OS on host. Appreciate the help - it’s been educational.

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