The way my network is setup is that services such as “What’s my IP” return the gateway IP, not the physical IP. ISP says nothing can be done about this.
If I enable remote access Plex creates all the UPnP rules in my router no problem, and remote access works, however I get the message “You’re not connected directly” and despite having a 10MB upload speed only music can be played remotely, and photo upload is horribly slow.
I created a manual port forwarding rule in the router, but remote access fails, because PLEX picks the gateway IP not the actual server IP.
I created a subdomain, and tried to connect to domain:32400 it doesn’t work.
It’s very disappointing, as I set all of this up (and bought plex pass) in order to access content remotely. I have a static IP… There has to be a config file somewhere where I can tell Plex THIS is my public IP. I’m also not sure why connecting through plex.tv/web - with a paid subscription - doesn’t support actually streaming video, isn’t that the whole point?
This means your ISP uses Carrier Grade NAT
Which puts you into a “double-NAT” situation.
There is unfortunately no use in creating the port forwarding in your router, because there would be another port forwarding required in the second router (which you called ‘gateway’).
But this second router is under the control of your ISP (if I understood you correctly) so without the cooperation of your ISP this won’t work.
Yes, this is very unfortunate but there is nothing that can be done about it.
btw. Plex Pass is not required for remote access.
There is (‘Custom server access URLs’), but this is useless if the packets from the outside sent to this public IP are not forwarded to your router.
This is what the portforwarding in the gateway should do. But without your ISP’s willingness to create the portforwarding for you, there is no chance for it to work.
Thanks. The static IP is accessible from the public Internet, and does route to the Plex server. I have a port forwarding rule for RDP access, for example.
I clicked the link for Custom Server Access URLs but I don’t see anything that looks like the screen in the help. Maybe I have to do something to turn that on?
At the moment it works, it just refuses to play video, the connection is very spotty, I get constant disconnects, server can’t be found, etc. I’m thinking a direct connection to the server is what’s required.
Did you have help from your ISP to create this portforwarding?
If not, I may have misunderstood your setup and there still is a way to do remote access.
You must click on ‘Show Advanced’ top, right
FIrst, you must know which external port number is used in your port forwarding. This port number must be a different one than what you are using for your RDP.
The port forwarding must deliver the packets to the plex server machine, on port number 32400. (This is called the ‘internal’ port number.)
If you know that your public IP is e.g. the number 100.200.100.123
and your external port number for Plex is e.g. 34612
then you put this into the input field for ‘Custom Server Access URL’: http://100.200.100.123:34612
Plex created forwarding rules, I tried creating a manual rule, and both times I couldn’t change the IP Plex thought was mine, I’ll try to find this screen again.
Settings - Server - Remote Access - ‘Show Advanced’
Put a checkmark into ‘Manually specify public port’ and then put the external port number behind it.
Then go into the settings of your router and create the port forwarding manually.
Seems I’ve completely killed it In the network settings I put in a custom server URL of my public ip:external port chosen by Plex on the Remote screen and clicked save.
Tried to connect over the public Internet at app.plex.tv, got the “Your not connected directly” message.
Went into networking on the server, cleared the field, clicked save.
Now remote access doesn’t work at all. Going to give it some time as I must have confused the plex servers. Will create a manual forwarding rule and specify that in the custom URL and see what happens.
On the Network tab I have CustomServer access URL’s set to my public IP and port 32401.
I have a portforwarding rule from the local IP port 32400 to the public IP port 32401
Open Port checker confirms that yes, that port is open.
I have the port manually specified.
I waited all night to make sure the changes had “taken” on the Plex server.
Despite this on the Remote access tab It shows the wrong public IP, and it says remote access is not working.
But… when on a remote device, it finds the server and connects. And the video playback is good.
No wonder so many people have trouble with this!
Thanks A LOT for your help, I really appreciate it.
In the network settings I put in a custom server URL of my public ip:external port chosen by Plex on the Remote screen and clicked save.