Same issue here, after yesterday, “Remote access” connection working only for 10 sec and dropping down. For sure problem is on Plex side. Hope they find and solve a problem soon.
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(scrolling to the bottom of a 400 page thread with a 1hr ago reply…PITA…don’t know if there is a way to fast to last posts, but there should be…)
As of 09/30/2021, my Plex Server (macOS Mojave) is experiencing this issue. I spent oodles of time verifying my pfSense firewall NAT port forwarding, Little Snitch, my AV, MacOS FW, and Plex trying to find some rhyme or reason to why since 2013, suddenly Remote access has no outside access.
I can only present the following facts:
1.) If Network->Secure Settings is set to Preferred or Required, Remote Access doesn’t work.
2…) If Network->Secure Settings is set to Disabled, Remote Access works and shows online.
I’ve been running pretty much since forever with Network->Secure Settings set to “Preferred”, and have not experienced this issue until yesterday (09/30/2021).
Work around (obviously) is to set Network->Secure Settings to disabled, but I do have a few Web users who will be confused when https doesn’t work, and will need to click to find “direct connection”. Frankly, I don’t know how that will affect other apps, except for iOS app which seems to work fine with the work-around when testing from an outside network.
AFAICS, this is a Plex issue, and I suspect it is a certificate problem somewhere…
Hopefully, they will get on it today…
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Hi, it’s 100% Related to Certificate from Letsencrypt, they shutted down over 300 Millions of Certificate’s with IdentTrust DST Root CA X3 due to invalid.
Obviously isn’t fixed yet… Status page says fixed - but it ain’t…
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Same, problems since yesterday.
Ugh, almost destroyed my network config, router, firewalls, etc. and plex installation! until found this thread.
Also, I have 3 different plex servers machines (2 of them are test machines in fact) under the same account and surprisingly, 2 of them are ok, but the main one is under the same issue.
Anyway, unchecked “enable relay” in Settings/Network (just in case…) and the server is accessible from outside, alive and well, but the red cross is still present in Settings/Remote Access
where must web users go if they get the error if its disabled as the work around?
I am having the same problem, remote access has been working fine for many years, with no problems, how ether even though it says I don’t have remote access a check using my mobile phone, with WIFI turned off shows that I did have remote access, even though PMS says that I don’t I tried the disable function, and it did disable remote access, and then re enabled remote access and even though the display was saying I did not have remote access I did, proving that the problem is that PMS is not displaying the correct information.
I have managed to “fix” it. Not sure if it will work for others.
Go to settings…server/settings/network
look for enable relay and turn it off and save then turn it back on and save.
(I might of restarted the server aswell)
After doing this my server became reachable remotely again!
Thanks. I looks from my side that Plex has fixed the issue. as of about 02:30PM EDT today (10/01/2021).
Glad you found a work-around that seems to fix for you! On my setup, I don’t use the relay option as it sinks the bandwidth to stream direct-play 1080p or 4K. So that was never enabled on my system… My goal is never have to transcode unless ABSOLUTELY necessary…and those occasions should be very, very rare. Otherwise, I’d rather do something else with my time, rather than watch 1080p (or 4K) transcoded videos to 720p or 480p (or less!) due to bandwidth constraints. But that is just me…
I should mention that I’ve taken great pains to curate my Library so that (basically) no transcoding should ever be necessary for any of my devices, unless it is due to bandwidth constraints. All of my titles are x.264 or x.265 1080p, AAC stereo, and AC3 or E-AC3 surround (when available) in mp4 format. All of my devices support those codecs natively, so no need to transcode, and all can always be Direct-Play. For 4K, I only play those on a 4K client capable of Direct Play also for 4K.
Relay squeezes the bandwidth remotely, usually making the client force transcoding for me. So I’ve disabled it. I guess in a pinch it would be OK, but I’ve not experienced such a situation so far…If I need to transcode down due to bandwidth constraints, then I can always just fix that setting on my client device while I’m remote. And (sorry, not to sound rude), but my remote friends and family need to get better internet service if they can’t direct-play remotely from my Server…OR, fix their playback settings in their Plex client to force lower resolution playback.
It was already turned on, I never turned it on lol. I have transcoding turned off aswell for the same reasons. That’s the only thing that made remote access stay on. My brother still can’t access on his TV but can on his firestick. I dunno what’s going on lol.
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Got it. It is the cert issue (invalidated certificates) that was causing the issue. (At least for the issue reports here over the last couple of days…). If you disable Secure Connections (Network->Secure Connections) in your Plex Server Network Settings, (and leave Relay disabled), it should fix it temporarily until Plex fixes. But it also looks like (at least for me), that Plex fixed the certificate issue sometime this late AM (10/1/2021) or early afternoon EDT…so you are probably good to go with your “normal” settings if you were/are having the same issue as well.
I’m also experiencing the same issues as many in this thread. Working well for months, then i noticed remote clients using plex relay after the last server update.
My setup is kinda odd, I’m pfsense, static internal subnet, VPN gateway for most traffic, and the port forward out the regular WAN.
I’m not really mad, since i understand this is pretty edge case from a network setup perspective, curious how many others in this thread have similar setups, or is it broken for more “conventional” configs?
Spent 3-4 days ripping apart my networking settings trying everything to get it to work again until i found this thread. Wish i could provide good diagnostic data, but i have zero confidence in my networking config now.
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You can solve this problem with a reverse proxy as described here
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Mine is fixed, I wonder how many people here have out of date servers? It seems in both server and player clients “Check for Updates” function is broken, so it won’t notify you that you’re on an old version even when clicking the button manually. I updated ubuntu plex server to " Version 1.24.4.5081" and it immediately showed the correct port forward ip and remote access functions via cell signal without relay enabled.
Setup is on Pfsense, VPN, and plex out of the regular WAN. Network settings are the same as detailed here.
https://www.linuxserver.io/blog/2017-05-01-how-to-run-pfsense-with-pia-vpn-but-still-use-plex-remote-access
The issue with certificates for the old versions of Plex Media Server affecting remote access - as in the case for the Western Digital Android OS NAS running on PMS 1.18.6.2350-143d2e66b, should be resolved now by getting a new certificate issued.
If you are running with secure connections disabled, then re-enabling it should get a new certificate
If you are running with Secure Connections enabled and you are still running with the incompatible certificate, then I could get that old certificate revoked and a new one issued
You could also get it replaced by disabling secure connections and then restarting the server and then enabling secure connections again and restarting the server. A new certificate should be issued
I tried doing that and I get the same issue, I’ve had no issues and nothing was changed.
I’ve been using Plex server for years
Okay so I opened up another port 40000 and forwarded it and changed the Plex server settings and that didn’t work.
It would do the same thing where it would last 5 seconds and go red.
So I changed it back to the original port and now it’s working.
I don’t understand but whatever
was port 40000 forwarded to 32400 ?
great !
Hello! that’s my fault today. I’ve tried everything before. attach my diary please help. remote access will turn green for 5-10 seconds and turn red. they reach a few remotely indirectly in sd quality. thank you again
