Yet another remote access not working issue. Everything was fine until a few weeks ago, at which point remote access started crashing.
My modem (a Virgin VINCENT modem) is at 192.168.2.164
My NAS (Synology 918+) is at 192.168.3.222
It seems to turn on for about 60 seconds if I disable and enable Remote Access, or if I click “Apply” next to the Manually specify public port option, but then switches right off again a few seconds later. I’m told this is because it gives false positives until it checks the network then shows the “true negative” but I’m not sure if that’s accurate. Regardless, it turns into this every time, very quickly:
I cannot see the port when I use the IP address and port in the Remote Access tab at canyouseeme.org. The error it gives is “Connection timed out.”
I am absolutely not qualified to diagnose this, but the two outlier things are the modem being on a “2.XXX” while the rest of the network ends with “3,XXX”, and the pi-hole. But maybe it’s something else entirely. Any help appreciated!
Lets start with a copy of your server logs. The reason it goes green then red, is that Plex defaults to green to start, and then checks the status. So unless it stays green, it ever was working.
You need to look into putting your Virgin modem/router into bridge mode. You’re currently DoubleNAT so the forwarding on your Asus won’t work since it’s behind the Virgin router. Putting it in bridge will make it behave like a simple modem and will allow your Asus to handle routing.
They’re linked at the top of the question, unless I’ve linked to the wrong thing…
Unfortunately, I can’t. This was something I explored early on, long enough ago that I don’t really recall the ins and outs of how I got it to work with the router, but it was a long and agonizing process that ended with “well it seems to work now and I’m not going to touch it.”
All of this happened in December of 2024, and remote access has been working for about 14 months. This disconnection problem started a week ago. So I do agree that having the modem in bridge mode would be optimal, but that hasn’t been the issue for well over a year.
Multi-NAT will cause issues, but Im about to head out, but a quick look at your logs (and the first time I tried to load the third party logs they didnt load which is why we ask to upload here) shows your netmask as 239.255.255.250 that first octet is non-standard. Mar 28, 2026 15:36:24.934 [140170522929976] DEBUG - NetworkService: Browsing on interface 192.168.3.222 on broadcast address 239.255.255.250 (index: 0)
Going to bet you have a number of overlapping network issues what will need addressed, adn Multi-NAT is just the start.
Just confiming via a chat with Virgin, which makes the modem: “…the Virgin Plus VINCENT fibre modem does not support Bridge Mode (also called Modem Mode), so it can’t be switched into a pure pass‑through state for another router.”
Did you set a double port forward with your virgin router forwarding port 32400 internal/external to your Asus router IP and then another port forward on your Asus to the Plex server? That is one way to bypass the double nat situation. Maybe that rule needs to be updated/recreated.
Or maybe you put the Asus into the DMZ of the Virgin router?
Have you tried making the pihole the DHCP server? Turn off that function all all your routers, and put everything but your modem into bridge mode, that should leave your modem doing its thing, and allow the pihole to flatten your network IP assignments.
General reply as there are a few great suggestions here:
DMZ is off on the modem
DDNS is disbled on the modem
DHCP was on but I just turned it off. Not sure why it was on. I did try Pi-Hole DHCP in the past, but reverted to the ASUS (not the modem) router because of some issues I was having with it. I can always flip back to the Pi-Hole DHCP if need be.
There’s no port forwarding in the modem at the moment. I do have port forwarding on in the Asus router (see screenshots above). Here’s what the modem wants for port forwarding:
The router is selectable as a device, so I guess I’d just set 32400 as internal/external and set it to the Asus router as the device? (Edit: I went ahead and did that; 32400 as the internal and external port, the Asus router as the device, but canyouseeme.org is still saying connection times out when it tries to see 32400 at my IP address.
Other modem settings: UPnP and DNLA are on; IPv6 is off, SIP ALG is off. MAC filtering is off. All wifi is off (it’s handled by the router).
So I tried flipping the DHCP to the pi-hole (turning it off at the router), and internet connectivity failed entirely; eventually, I switched back to DHCP on the Asus, turning off the pi-hole, and after I re-entered my credentials for the Virgin account in Network Setup on the router, I restored internet connectivity.
While the Virgin modem was previously at 192.168.2.164, the router now identifies it at 10.131.63.61. I can’t access the modem’s interface at 192.168.2.1 any more (it just doesn’t load; “Problem loading page.”
Simplify by putting the ASUS in AP mode and have the Virgin modem provide DHCP and port forwarding.
The way it was probably working is you had Virgin forwarding a Port to the Asus that forwarded it to the server.
Given the age of the ASUS I would be budgeting for a replacement, it is end of life and no longer getting firmware updates. If Merlin is still supporting it that may be the way to go.
Yeah, I messed with DHCP today and it turns out if you turn the DHCP on the modem off entirely it completely freaks out; it logged itself out of the Virgin account and wouldn’t let me log back on until I factory reset and started over. Then when I tried turning DHCP off on the modem again it worked.. until I tried to assign an IP address with the router, and it went off again. So there’s no way to turn the modem DHCP off.
I’ve factory reset the modem and router and started from scratch with the pihole disconnected for now. If I can get Plex working without the pihole I’ll add it after, but I’ll troubleshoot without the pihole for now.
But can I have the modem assign DHCP addresses if the router is the one managing the wifi and ethernet connections for the network? The router defaults to .1.1, while the modem is at 2.1. (and on the router shows as .2.10… the wifi on the modem is turned off, and we connect through the router.
I might just go pick up a new router today, while I’m tearing things apart and putting them back together.
If you are buying the router strictly for better wifi then there are Access Points that are cheaper. You really want to move away from the dual router situation.
So – apologies because this is kind of a reset on the thread, but given that the ASUS was really past its due date, I decided to put a newer router in the mix (a TP-Link BE6500 Dual-Band Wi-Fi 7 Router), and remove Pi-Hole from the equation for now to simplify things.
Still have the Virgin VINCENT modem.
DMZ is off, DDNS is off, but DHCP is on. WiFi is off, and nothing is connected to the modem, so while DHCP is technically on, it’s only dealing with the router.
The modem is at 192.168.2.1 and connecting to the router as 192.168.2.11.
The router is at 192.168.0.1 and is running DHCP, managing all the house wifi. Devices are connecting to the router, and through the router to the Internet, successfully.
The Plex server is on a NAS at 192.168.0.200.
I have forwarded a port (32400) in the modem to the router:
One final reply – after some bashing around with folks on Reddit, the problem isn’t with Plex, or even with me – my ISP switched my service to CGNAT without telling anyone, and anything involving port forwarding is now DOA. I’m not mentally equipped to work around this, so I’m’a find a new ISP.
Hey! Was helping you over on Reddit…for anyone that may come across this later, here’s the thread from the Virgin Plus forum that discusses it. They are putting folks behind a 10.x.x.x ip vs the usual 100.64.0.0 - 100.127.255.255 with CGNAT.
