I would be so grateful if someone was able to offer some suggestions as to how I enable Remote Access. I have a complicated setup, so that probably doesn’t help.
I have a Virgin Media Hub 3.0 router in router mode.
Connected to this is a QNAP TVS-671 (firmware version 4.5.1.1465) and that is where my Plex Media server is running (Server Version: 1.20.3.3483).
(Having turned off wifi in my Virgin Hub, I’m also using a Netgear Orbi for my wifi in the house, but as that’s setup as an Access Point, I don’t think it figures into the problem.)
When I enable remote access Plex media server is telling me: Not available outside your network. I have set both local and external ports to 32400. However, it is hardly surprising that it is not available because I seem unable to open port 32400. If I use websites to probe the port of my external IP address they all report that it is closed.
Within the Virgin Hub I have uPnP enabled and I’ve created Port Forwarding entries for both TCP and UDP of port 32400 (internal and external) for the local IP address of my QNAP (192.168.0.6). Alas! the port remains blocked.
It’s possible that there is some setting in my QNAP that I’ve failed to activate. I’ve tried a number of things, but to be honest I’m not very technical and I don’t understand a lot of the settings.
can you connect if you type http://123.123.123.123:32400/web (replace with your real IPv4 address) in a browser remotely? (note: you need to allow insecure connections in the Network tab of the PMS settings).
Thanks for the replies, @certuna and @BrianBG. I don’t have VPN and when I try http://xxx.xxx.xx.xxx:32400/web I just get a time out. It does make me think that it’s my Virgin Hub 3.0 that is blocking the port. You can see from below that I’ve manually added 32400 and interestingly, it looks like my QNAP must have requested access to that port based on the two entries below (I’ve not seen that before).
If you can do 192.168.0.6:32400 locally and you get Plex, then the problem is not with the QNAP. I am assuming you have a static IP so that it is always that address … otherwise your port forwarding won’t work.
I have heard that sometimes you might need to call your ISP to have them unblock the port. Your router might allow it, but your service provider might be blocking it. I discovered this with the VPN, everything was open, but my VPN blocked that port … turns out that some ISP do it as well. Try calling your company and asking them if it is open.
Yes, 192.168.0.6:32400 is how I access it locally; I’ve reserved the IP address for my QNAP box so that it doesn’t change when the router restarts.
As for my external IP address, it’s not absolutely static, but it hasn’t changed in a very long time. You might be on to something about the port being blocked by my ISP. I’ll give them a call tomorrow to ask if they can do anything about it and report back.
To access your Plex server remotely you’d need to use http (or https)//xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:32400 as has been previously mentioned. Replace the xxx’s with your real external IP address. ALSO, you’ll need to open up port 32400 on your router to the real world. What I see that you have now looks like just a NAT port forward (to route internal traffic using port 32400 to IP 192.168.0.6). That’s why you can reach your Plex server locally but not from an external source. You need to open port 32400 and allow that to pass your firewall then use xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:32400.
@tivodad: Yes, I was replacing the xxx’s with my public IP address, I just didn’t want to post it here.
Any idea how I do that? Within the Hub 3.0 settings under security I can change [Firewall],
[MAC filtering], [IP and port filtering], [Port forwarding], [Port triggering], and [DMZ].
I thought I’d opened port 32400 by setting those values under the [Port forwarding] settings; I’ve even entered the same ports under [Port triggering].
I had an terrible call experience with Virgin Media today. After waiting 45 minutes in a queue I spoke to someone who had to pass me on. After 5 minutes I was cut-off and had to call back. Fifty minutes later I spoke with someone else who eventually passed me on. The next person decided to take me through the entire security process again and asked every question he could before telling me that my port is open and the fault lies with any third party devices connected. I When I told him that every website that tests my public IP address at that port says the port is blocked he assured me they were all wrong. He’s checked and he knows. However, he did explain that Virgin Media offer a premium service that allows them to troubleshoot and fix these common issues. It was going to cost me. I asked to speak to a supervisor and… you know what happened next. Oh, but I did get an email linking to Virgin’s super helpful page on Port Forwarding, which outlines everything I’ve already tried.
@BigWheel: I tried turning the firewall on/off, but sadly no joy!
Assuming you have IPv6, what happens when you connect to http://[server ipv6 address]:32400/web ? (Obviously, with port 32400 not blocked in the Virgin Hub’s firewall, and insecure connections allowed in PMS-Settings-Network)
Try this from both inside and outside of the LAN.
It’s getting more and more common that residential connections are only publicly accessible over IPv6.
The cynical side of me would believe that there are two levels of access to the Virgin Hub 3.0. The access that plebs like me has access to, which is limited with possibly has fake settings, and the real access that only Virgin engineers have access to.
@blim5001: At the moment my Orbi router is in access point mode as I’ve disabled the wireless in the VM Hub and it’s taking care of my wireless. It would mean having to rethink how I’ve got all my devices connected, but I think that putting the VM Hub in modem mode might be my best option because, as you’d figured out, the Orbi is a fully functioning router.
Currently I have two PCs and my printer connected to my VM router (which has 4 ports). The fourth LAN socket is connected to my Orbi on the other side of the room via a long high quality network cable, and I have two QNAP boxes plugged into the Orbi (which has 3 ports). I can’t relocate the QNAP devices, but it would mean moving the Orbi next to the router so that I can feed the internet connection directly into it. The problem then is that the Orbi only has three ports. One would connect to the long cable, which could then connect to a network switch so both QNAP boxes can be connected. I’d need another network switch at the Orbi so that I could plug both PCs and the printer to it because there’d only be two spare ports on it. Oh, the joys of trying to be connected!
I forgot I also have a couple of 8 port switches. 1 Upstairs and 1 Downstairs (near the Airport Base station and VM box) connected to each other via a long cable. As I think I ran out of ports as well.
Frustrations abound! After spending the past hour rewiring everything it seems my QNAP boxes are not accessible. I’ve restarted router, modem, QNAP boxes in every possible order, but no joy. To keep things “simple” I allocated 192.168.1.6 as a fixed IP address for my primary QNAP server. Orbi shows it as a connected device. QNAP’s Qfinder can see it and acknowledges the IP address is correct. But when I try to access it I just get timed out. That includes through the web interface (192.168.1.6:8080) or using QFinder to configure the device.
This shouldn’t be rocket science. Why is everything so complicated?
Ok so don’t know if this will be of any help, but here’s info about my setup
So in Modem mode the VM Box has the ip of 192.168.100.1 for admin, but there are pretty much no editable settings in there, so maybe I was wrong about needing to change your local network.
But anyway onto my settings on my Primary Airport, the wan port on this is connected to my VM Hub
(and one of the other ethernet ports on the airport is connected to my network switch, but that is probably irrelevant)
In my Airport Settings I have a tabs for
Internet and that is set to connect via DHCP and shows my ip address as assigned by Virgin Media
Wireless and that is set to Create a Wireless Network
Network which has Router Mode set to DHCP and NAT.
I have DHCP Reservations for devices on my network.
I have specified an IPv4 DHCP range from 10.0.0.2 to 10.0.0.100
And I have an option checked to enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol, (apples version of UPNP I think)
So on my local network devices the address of the router appears to be 10.0.0.1
Now where this comes from I am not quite sure but guess it must be automatically set by the Airport via DHCP depending on the DHCP Range that I have set there, as there are no settings in the VM Hub
And with these settings Remote access works for various Local Plex servers, including PMS on an iMac, native on a Synology Nas and running in Docker on my Nas as well.
I’m really grateful for all your help and insights. Hopefully the time you’ve taken to share your setup will inspire someone else with a similar problem in future. Alas! for me. I played around with it for quite some time, but I seem forever doomed to fail. I’ll just have to resign to having everything working except remote access. and accept that Virgin Media suck big time: great broadband speeds, but they must rank among the worst for customer support.
And many thanks to everyone else for your help.
If I can find the strength to experiment more, I’ll be sure to report back.
