I’m not really a computer person and I have gotten in over my head with the Christmas present my wife gave me. I have a Synology DS1520+ with our media collection on it. I also have a Plex Lifetime Pass because we wanted to access our media away from the house; for example, while driving. We have a Taotronics Mesh WiFi system and use ExpressVPN, which is also installed on the Synology device.
I have read several posts on here (as well as many hours of googling) about enabling Remote Access and one even specifically about someone having trouble with the Taotronics system, but I am completely lost. Manually forwarding ports? Static IPs? UPnP? It all makes little to no sense to me.
I can access everything fine at home (which was a multi-week struggle in itself), but have no idea what I’m doing wrong with regard to Remote Access. I would greatly appreciate any guidance, as well as patience with me while I try to answer people’s questions about my setup.
Some more information:
The modem from my ISP is in bridge mode. I confirmed this with them when they told me that their modems can only be in bridge mode.
My Synology has an IP address reserved through my router:
When I go to Network, I am lost again. I see it mentions IPv6 on that tab and I know that my ISP doesn’t support IPv6. I don’t understand how to manually configure a DNS server nor do I understand what a proxy server is.
On Plex, it will tell me that Remote Access is working and may even stay working for a few minutes, but then reverts to “Not available outside your network.”
Synology’s QuickConnect isn’t helping you with Plex remote access (it might even get in the way and make things more complicated).
Your ISP’s modem being in bridge-mode can well be the culprit preventing you from getting this to work. Imagine it like the doorman in an apartment building: You can unlock/open/remove your own apartment door all you want… if the doorman isn’t letting your visitors through, that’ll be no good.
Some ISPs still allow you some kind of control, e.g. supporting automatic forwarding of network traffic (like a “remote door opener”).
Please try the following:
Compare the public IP address showing in your Plex Media Server’s remote access settings to the public or WAN IP of your router in its own settings – are those the same?
Check if you can access/see your router’s public/WAN IP address from outside your home network. There’s services that can help with this, e.g. canyouseeme.org – make sure to use the TCP port you have specified in your router’s port forward.
Does it (a) show the same public IP as in question 1 and does it (b) succeed?
According to http://wanip.info/, my WAN IP is the same as the public IP on my remote access settings.
On https://canyouseeme.org/ I tried the same IP as the WAN IP with the same port listed on my remote access settings and it says " Success: I can see your service on -same as WAN IP- on port ( -listed on remote access- )
Your ISP is not blocking port "
However, that is with my VPN off on my laptop. When I turn it on, my WAN IP changes the last two digits and the CanYouSeeMe website tells me it can’t see my service on that IP on that port.
I have a VPN on my laptop as well as on the Synology. Is there something with VPNs for which there is a fix?
With a VPN you’re pretty much throwing it all over board. That’ll increase the complexity of your setup significantly (at least beyond what I can help you with)
Common question: why the VPN if the communication between Plex apps and server are automatically encrypted
I hadn’t realized that Plex was automatically encrypted. I use the VPN because of my work and general privacy.
Does the Plex Media Server have to run on my laptop or can it run off directly off the Synology? I wonder if that would solve the VPN issue. Also, my hope is to have remote access (for example, via the Plexamp app while driving) without having to leave my laptop on at home.
I found this thread, which might also be an option, though I haven’t tried it:
