Remote Access instability after switching to Verizon Fios

Server Version#: 1.20.1.3252

When I originally setup my Plex server I had Optimum internet. The Plex setup went fine, and once it was installed and running everything was stable for very extended periods of time.

A few months ago I switched to Verizon Fios. Since doing that, the Plex server has been unstable. It works 100% of the time locally to the network it’s on, but once the server has been up for a few hours, checking the Remote Access page confirms that it is unavailable remotely (which is confirmed with a machine outside my network).

I’ve seen quite a few topics of people asking questions around this specific error, with no good resolution. Things I’ve tried to get past this instability include:

  1. Changing the DNS, on both, or either one, of the freenas server/router to point to a public DNS. (I’ve tried Google and Cloudflare). No combination of changes here has appeared to make any difference to the behavior.
  2. Manually setting up port forwarding rules. I’ve tried manually setting the port forwarding within the router (as well as manually specifying the port within the Plex settings), and tried multiple ports (not just the default Plex one). I have not been able to ever configure this in a way which keeps this stable.
  3. Turning off the security feature that checks for “DNS Rebind” attacks on the router. The router Verizon provided me with is a G3100. It apparently has a “DNS Rebind Protection” which is triggered by some Plex behavior and produces a veritable torrent of errors in the router logs about a rebind attack. Turning off this feature gets rid of the log messages, but doesn’t change the behavior.
  4. Changing routers. On the assumption that it was possibly just something specific to the router that Verizon gave to me, I grabbed an old router that was lying around that wasn’t provided by Verizon (A D-Link router). After reconfiguring my freenas/plex install and setting up the new router, the behavior seems unchanged. Every few hours Plexs’ Remote Access simply dies.

I’ve a decent amount of computer know-how, but at this point am out of my depth. I seriously doubt that Plex just doesn’t work with Verizon Fios, given how widespread their service is. Any advice on what to possibly try next would be awesome.

Thanks in advance, I appreciate it.

How did you disable DNS Rebinding Protection on the G3100? Last time I looked at one I couldn’t find that option, and I don’t see it anywhere in the manual.


Take a look at https://canyouseeme.org, when it’s working and then when it stops working. Does the port become unreachable?


Are you using any VPN software on your server?

Somebody else posted almost the exact same thing.

Thanks, that’s interesting. It seems very similar (although I wonder if the web version inside their network has the same indirect connection). Outside my network only some people have issues: those using ‘smart’ TVs.

This is at least a confirmation of the fact that the hardware is causing the issue.

I was able to turn off the rebind protection by going to:
Advanced → DNS Server

On that page is a checkbox to toggle on/off the “Stop DNS Rebind” feature. Toggling it off seems to get the rebind error messages to stop showing up in the logs.

After some more playing around, I was able to get a non-Verizon router plus solution 2 from my first post to get a stable connection. I set Plex to manually specify a public port, then manually set a port forwarding rule and verified I could see it using canyouseeme. That seemed stable for a day or so. Now to try to copy/paste all those settings to the Verizon router…

Oh good! I may have missed that setting? But I would have looked there! Maybe they added it to the router config.

Good luck!

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