Plex XBO App can't find local LAN Plex server without active Internet connection

Plex Players Gaming Consoles
1

Since last night I haven’t had internet at home, mostly due to Comcast having a major problem going on.

I recently ditched my KODI box to simplify my HTPC setup. Low and behold however I have discovered that unless the Xbox has an active internet connection to sign into XBO, it cannot connect to a local Plex server sitting on the same VLAN.

This seems to be a huge let down. Why does XBO need to be on the internet, to see a server sitting on the SAME LAN. The PMP desktop app, web-browsers, and phone apps all let you manually plug in a server IP/Hostname and use local discovery, why doesn’t the XBO app allow that?

I’m now sitting at home tethered to my phone, and I can’t sit on my couch and watch a movie on my big TV, because for some reason the XBO needs to talk to Plex.tv, before it can talk to my local Plex server.

As an example. My Plex server sits @ 192.168.0.40, and my XBO has an IP of 192.168.0.17.

I can access it from a web-browser on any local network computer. Plex Media Player on my laptop found it. My phone on the WIFI found the server with local discovery. But the XBO can’t find it at all.

Why does the XBO app not allow local discovery and instead require an active connection to Xbox Live?

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Why does the XBO app not allow local discovery and instead require an active connection to Xbox Live?

Because third party Xbox One apps aren’t allowed to do local network discovery. The app needs to communicate with plex.tv in order to find the IP address of the servers it connects to. We’ll have some improvements around that area soon.

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Maybe if not local discovery allowing us to manually specify an IP/Hostname? Or is that against MS’s terms as well.

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@thirdgen89gta said:
Maybe if not local discovery allowing us to manually specify an IP/Hostname? Or is that against MS’s terms as well.

That’s certainly allowed, and it’s something we’re looking to add to the app.

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@Moussa said:
That’s certainly allowed, and it’s something we’re looking to add to the app.

@Moussa Wow, thank you for the info! Great to hear about a potential new feature. Any chance we could get info about other features? Understand that Plex doesn’t provide dates and such for features, but what would really be nice is if each platform could have an announcement page at the top of each forum that listed features Plex IS willing to talk about. Rather than it getting buried in a post, the features that have been discussed can be viewed in one place that is controlled by Plex.

Ideally, something that shows features being worked, under consideration, and unlikely would be nice. Something like this:
Working on It

  • Feature #1
  • Feature #2

Considering It

  • Feature #3
  • Feature #4

Unlikely

  • Feature #5

Any chance Plex could do that for us? Especially for loyal Xbox One owners who are anxiously awaiting the next update. :slight_smile:

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@mbarylski In general Plex doesn’t announce what features are upcoming/being worked on, for a variety of reasons. But don’t worry, we are always listening to what forum users have to say, and we’re working away on a future update that should please a lot of people!

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@Moussa said:
we’re working away on a future update that should please a lot of people!
Sounds like the Plex UWP App is finally coming to Xbox One :slight_smile:

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This is no lie: everytime I sit in front of my xbox, I go check for update, hoping a new version of Plex is available. :expressionless: I can see this small sentence as a good news :wink: