Remote Access not working for some Android TV OS?

Plex Media Server Remote Access
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Server Version#: 1.21.0.3616-d87012962
OS: Windows 10 Pro version 2004
Remote Access works.
Plex Pass subscriber.

Hello

I am having a strange problem with some players remotely. Two friends of mine are reporting that when they use the Plex app in their TV, most video files just time out. Some seem to play but it takes them maybe 1-2 minutes to beging playing.

One is a Philips TV with Android TV system and the other one is a Mi Box with Android TV OS. But the TV and the MiBox are up-to-date in software updates. I myself am using a MiBox for Plex and it works fine. I thought this had something to do with their network but strangely ipads and other devices that are on their same home network work fine with the Plex app.

I investigated this on the server side while they were trying to play something and I noticed this in the logs.

Screenshot
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This is strange since everything has been working fine for them. I suspect that some update broke this but I can’t be sure. I have other members of my family using remote access to my Plex server and none of them are reporting any problems.

Any pointers in the right direction would be much appreciated.

I have tried getting their external ip addresses and listing them in the “List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth” but that didn’t change anything. I also tried changing the secure connections settings on the Plex server to “Disabled” but that didn’t help. It’s now set to “Preferred”

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. I would maybe have them reboot their router or whichever plex app they are using if they have not.

Don’t do that. someone can then access your server as admin. not that your friends are likely to but no reason to keep it open like that.

The android app by default I think is set that it will never connect to an insecure server. They can change the “allow insecure connection” to "always` on their end. After changing setting they may need to force close app and reopen.

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Thanks for the reply BigWheel. They have both tried that. I went over to one of them and went over the settings in the Plex TV App and played around with those settings with no luck at all. It is now set to allow fall back to insecure connection. I think I left it at that.

At first I thought it was an ISP issue since I know both of them have their internet through the same ISP provider. However, other devices seem to work fine connecting to the same remote Plex server on their network so I am not really getting what is the problem. It must be something to do with the Plex app they are using on the TV and the Mi Box.

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I have seen in some other threads discussions about the Plex certificate. Could that be at fault in this case? This isn’t happening for all of my Plex users, only two of them and it does seem to affect their TV apps in both cases. Other devices work fine on their network connecting to my Plex server.

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This issue is driving me insane. I’ve pinned it down to users using Android TV version of the Plex App and are on a network connection from a specific ISP which they all have in common. However, opening Plex.tv in a browser on a laptop works fine and they can connect to my server that way without problems from that same ISP.

“The CERT Incomplete TLS handshake. The Semaphore timeout period has expired” always gets logged on my server when they try to use the Android TV Plex app. When I make them create a hotspot wifi on their phones and connect the TV to that, the Plex App on the TV works fine connecting to my server.

Is there anyone working at Plex that can assist me troubleshooting this issue? This is really strange.

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I contacted my ISP and they changed my external ip address for testing purposes. Now when I look through the logs I get this in the console:

[CERT] TLS connection came in with unrecognized plex.direct SNI name ‘185-112-206-2.8e5c46258ce1498396fc62b4fa4494a7.plex.direct’; using installed plex.direct cert

I think this is a part of the problem. The user trying to connect is using LG WebOS on LG 55UM7100PLB. Videos just get stuck at buffering and then report an unexpected error occured.

I am also seein this in the logs but I am not sure if this is relevant to the problem:
[Transcode] Got a transcode session ping without a session GUID (or with an invalid one).

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