I have been stumped trouble shooting an issue with a Plex install. I have a static IP from the ISP. Plex is running on the standard port (32400). If I do a port scan of my IP from the Internet, it shows that port is open to the world. I can get at the Plex “401 - unauthorized” web page from the Internet when I go to: http://myip:32400
However, when I go to the Remote Access settings page on my Plex server, it tells me Plex is not available outside my network. This is true. From inside the network, I can get at it no problem. From the Internet, it shows as “Direct Connection Unavailable” but I can get to it using a relay (indirect) from the Plex app. I am also not able to connect to friends Plex servers from mine (but I can from my iPhone outside my network).
The firewall is OFF on the Windows machine that Plex is running on. I have put my Plex server in the DMZ of my router, I have forwarded the correct ports, I’ve tried everything and it appears to be all set up properly except for the direct connection is not available. I checked with the ISP and there is no firewall or routing rules on their end. It’s a small ISP so testing different configs is possible. We tried assigning a different static public IP. Same result.
What am I missing? I’ve read the “trouble shooting remote access” page and tried what I can there to no avail. Because I get get at the webpage from the outside world, it looks like everything is forwarded correctly but Plex won’t communicate properly.
It’s awesome that you have a static public IP, you can’t get that very often. Is it a static ipv4 address? PMS doesn’t yet support ipv6 for remote access.
Did you also set a static local IP address? Can you describe what port forwarding you set? Finally can you describe the physical connection between your server and your ISP?
This is an IPv4 address (ISP does not yet support IPv6).
Set a local static IP for the server in the 192.168.1.x subnet at home. Tried a number of options in the router including putting the Plex IP in the DMZ and forwarding TCP and UDP 32400 to the Plex server internal IP.
The physical connection from my server to the Internet:
Windows server hardwired to home router.
Router WAN port hardwired to managed switch in the condo building (no routing at the switch level)
Switch hardwired to a radio on the roof and microwave to the ISP NOC
ISP connects to Internet via redundant connections through a Peplink Balance router
ISP serves me a static private IP address that is assigned to my WAN port. The ISP then does a 1:1 NAT of my dedicated public IP to my static private. The world sees me as my public and all inbound and outbound connections from my house are via my public IP. That works. Plex does complain about a double NAT which is true but that is not causing the problem here.
To verify double NAT was not the issue, I connected the ISP Ethernet line directly to my Plex server (by-passing my in house router) and set my Plex up as the static private IP that is normally on my router WAN (172.16.50.x). That private has the 1:1 public NAT on it. No double NAT in this scenario. Plex still does not work in exactly the same way.
I hate to say it but I really dont think your ISP is giving you a 1:1 mapping of a public IP to your private. Have you setup any other port forwarding services with your ISP that you can test? When you see that plex unauthorized page are you sure it’s ocming from your server have you tried to access that page when the server is unplugged and verify that you dont get a response? If you did in fact have a working 1:1 you would be able to see your PMS using http://WANIP:32400/web/index.html#! regardless if pms is setup to connect with remote.
Yes. SSH works, port 80 works, everything works that I test. The ISP has tested as well and can get access to any service that is open on my end. There is a 99.999% certainty the 1:1 NAT is correct and working.
As drinehart asked, are you blocking any geoip stuff? It would seem that it would then in fact be being blocked by your server trying to sign in. THere is always that chance that your NAT’ing situation is causing PMS some issues. If you dont mind, could you get me a fresh log file from the server one without anyone playing anything or whatever, just turn on PMS with a clean log and try to register it to remote access and once it fails then shut down PMS and either upload your log or PM me with it.
OK, got a chance to get some log files. This is starting from a full windows restart. Also, with these logs I put the computer in the DMZ and turned off the firewall before attempting to enable the remote connection.
I see you’re using UPNP in the logs, maybe something wonky with that. Looks like port forwarding is in fact working correctly. Have you tried using manual port forwarding? myplex is unable to create mapping because of this. Which we know you know you’re running. If you are still not able to connect can you get me a log with just plugging directly into the wall of condo so you’re skipping double nat?
Aug 29, 2016 08:01:42.292 [5344] ERROR - MyPlex: mapping failed due to potential double NAT configuration
UPNP should not matter though if I put the Plex machine in the DMZ of the router, right?
The only issue I see in the logs - and I also see this on the remote access screen, is the comment about double NAT. It is true, there is double NAT on this server but there is also 1:1 NAT set up for the public IP so while by definition it is double NAT, it’s not against routing rules and is set up properly.
There are at least 3 other members of this ISP that have Plex servers and have the 1:1 NAT set up for their static public IPs and none of those members have this same issue, so it’s hard to blame the ISP router when the same exact setup is working for 3 other Plex installs…
@MovieFan.Plex said: @cwachs - Were you able to resolve your issue? I don’t see anything after your last update.
No. I am working with @hobbez on this very same issue. Still no resolution. We can confirm port 32400 is open to the Internet but Plex still reports no remote access. Waiting on a new log file from @hobbez to further diagnose.
I am having the same issue as listed above. port shows open, however PMS will not connect to the internet. To test i set up a temp PMS on another computer changed the ip address of the port forward rule and it was able to connect. My main PMS is hosted on a synology using the 1.2.2 update and the temp server was running on windows 10 with the latest version that downloaded.
Ok so after going through a few steps without getting anywhere I decided to just nuke my pfsense router and build it out again. After I did that and configured the ports the same way as before it is now working. No idea what happened but I am glad it is fixed.
