Server Version#: latest as of 12/30/2021
Player Version#: latest as of 12/30/2021
I’ve done my best to find pre-existing threads with this issue but haven’t found much helpful. For the past month or so the remote access feature of Plex has not been working consistently. It works 100% of the time in-house, but as soon as a connection is attempted outside of the network (from my mother’s Fire Stick for example), results vary. Sometimes it connects fine, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Here is what I’ve tried:
I’ve checked and as far as I can tell I don’t have a double NAT situation.
In the Plex settings, I have “Secured Connections” set as “Preferred”.
Under remote access I have it manually forwarding 32400 and this matches the port forwarding settings in the router. (Incidentally, Plex will sometimes tell me in that screen that my server is reachable remotely, and sometimes not, but even when it says it’s not reachable remote access works occasionally).
Those are the only possible fixes I’ve encountered in my research and they haven’t helped. I just got a new router (mostly because the wifi was dropping randomly on my old router), but the issue is persisting with the new router I’m using (TP Link AX5300). It connects sometimes, which tells me my port forwarding etc should be adequate (right?) I did switch ISPs recently, but the issues didn’t start until a month or so after the change, so I’m not entirely convinced the new ISP is the culprit, but it’s not out of the question.
Any advice or suggestions deeply appreciated, banging my head against a wall on this one.
Rather than start a new thread I have a similar yet different situation. I have not changed ISPs or routers since I installed PLEX a year ago. However, my son recently texted me and said that he could not connect to my Movie library. So I went to check the server. When I initially log into the settings the remote access does NOT have a green check mark next to it. When I click on the Remote Access tab, however, it changes to the green check mark for like 2 sec and then says that it is NOT AVAILABLE OUTSIDE YOUR NETWORK. When I hit RETRY the connection goes green and looks like it is working until I select any other setting. I did accidently remove the app from the NAS drive recently while attempting to update the software but then I added it back, everything seemed to be as it was before (meaning I did not have to rescan my library). But I did not check to see if my son could see the library and I did not go into the settings. Everything works fine in my house behind the firewall.
I have also been finding Plex Remote access pretty useless recently. It drops almost as soon as its reset.
I have the same service provider (vodafone) with a solid connection. My NAS set up has not changed. I have the latest firmware on my NAS (Qnap TS251+) and the most recent plex updates on all devices.
I have been a plex user for years with almost perfect working system. only in the last year or two I upgraded to Plex lifetime Pass and its been an issue on and off since, having been terrible in the last few months.
Another issue I find is remote streams are very very pixelated. Regardless of what speed broadband i am on, 5G / wired / 100gb connections. Regardless of what device - firestick/phone/pc the remote stream is awful.
Its not a buffering issue because the downloaded stream is way way ahead of the playback position.
I find its worst after a NAS reset. If ive had new firmware or a powercut and i reset it all, reset my remote access the remote streams (and sometimes local) are really bad. I need to stop the plex app and restart it several times to solve it.
PLEX is just not what it was. Remote access is so unreliable now ive had to revert to taking a SSD with my media everywhere - where as i used to just stream.
Please plex can you fix this @BigWheel? I think ive sent some player logs to you before. Ill get some again when home. My remote access died again tonight.
On another thread ive seen that it could be Hardware acceleration thats causing it? Is that possible?
If there are any conversation threads already covering this please let me know so i can post there too.
Thanks
Seems ive solved this. Ive also solved my remote access cutting out immediately. I turned off relay and I also turned off hardware accelerated streaming.
The pixelated images have stopped and all is clear and HD and the remote access is stable.
Glad you found a solution- could you clarify where the relay and accelerated streaming settings are? I think I’ve seen the latter setting around someplace but not the former.
Weird that you had to turn off relay and HW transcoding. Given that you’re running a Celeron processor that supports Quick Sync, it seems odd that it performs better without HW transcoding enabled. Surely performing SW transcoding is limiting the potential. I’m wondering if there is a bug in the implementation somewhere?
I’m running an I5-7500, and when I turn on HW transcoding I also have pixelization issues that go away when I switch back to SW transcoding. I’m not sure if it’s a Plex issue or a Quicksync issue. I only have a potential 5 simultaneous users, and everything is generally direct played, so leaving it at SW has never been a real issue for me.
I agree. It does not make sense but ive seen a few comment on it now so i figured its worth a look. There must be an issue with it. Since turning off its been solid. That would also tie in with me getting plex pass when it all went wrong - this is when i turned on these settings.
Since turning off my remote access hasnt dropped once, whereas with it on it would drop within a minute or 2 of turning it on.
If the source material is low bitrate (less than 10 Mbps for 1080p), SW will produce better quality (more transforms are applied to the encoding to smooth out harsh edges)
If the target bit rate is low (less than 10 Mbps for 1080p), you need all the smoothing you can get at the encoding phase
QSV “quality” is highly dependent on the generation.
SkyLake (-6xxx) is the first to provide HEVC 8-bit (SDR) (also J3355)
KabyLake (-7xxx) is the first to provide HEVC 10-bit (HDR) (also J3455)
The mobile processors (J-series) are Celeron with QSV bolted on and subject to a lot of limitations in internal bandwidth due to their mobile base and power restrictions.
KabyLake refresh (-8xxx) is what it implies… a refined KabyLake
As this discussion is about Remote Access , Relay, and transcoding.
Relay is only of use when you do not have a viable direct Remote Access port forwarding in place. Otherwise, Turn it off.
If Remote Access ‘drops’ because of external streaming -
– The network (modem/router/switch/host interface) can’t handle the load
or
– The external bandwidth is consumed and PMS isn’t able to verify remote connectivity (the “reachability” test it performs) when it’s time to update its status before the request times out.
To share my experiences
I previously had 2.5 Mbps upload - Clearly nothing remote happening with that
Upgraded to 1440/42 cable (Comcast).
I stream to, at most, 3 people simultaneously. There are 5 total allowed.
I limit upload to 20 Mbps 1080p
– 20 Mbps @ 1080p is a far better image than 20 Mbps @ 2160p
One of the remote players has 15 Mbps download so it’s limited to 12 Mbps quality which is OK at 1080p GIVEN I have extremely high source input material (most of my files are 40+ Mbps and the newer rips have an average of 80 Mbps)
QSV quality vs SW quality is indistinguishable because my source files have such a high bitrate. (The lack of a the smoothing transform pass(pass 2) isn’t visible because the percentage of bits ‘lost’ by HW is down in the ‘noise’ below human threshold)
What do my experiences & thoughts boil down to?
( Spoiler alert: I will likely upset a few folks )
Crap hardware – Crap results
Garbage video in – Garbage video out
I’m heavily invested in this ‘hobby’.
Honking 120 TB NAS
NUC8-i7-HVK PMS box which only runs PMS.
10 GbE core switching (480 Gbps bandwidth == all 24 ports non-blocking at 10G)
Dedicated pfSense box (10 GbE to LAN - 2.5 GbE to ISP) - All Remote Access controls.
WiFi 6 (2.5 Gbps PoE feed) for the house.
Players: Roku Ultra, FireTV Max, Nvidia Shield Pro 2019, ATV 4K
I’ll share any additional details anyone wants to know.
Appreciate the detailed feedback. In my case, I don’t think I have a hardware or bandwidth issue. I have a fiber connection (on both ends). When remote access is inaccessible it’s entirely inaccessible. I’m not having any issues with lag or pixilation when remote access is working. When it’s not working, the server isn’t showing up at all. I have port forwarding set up on my router, though the problem (inconsistent remote access) is persisting through two different routers now. I turned off the relay and that didn’t seem to do anything one way or another. So, I suspect there is a networking problem that is preventing remote access from finding my server reliably, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it might be.
The router I purchased a few weeks ago is the TP-Link AX5400. The modem is provided by the ISP, sits on the outside of our house in a locked plastic case, so I’m not sure of the make and model, there.
That is probably the issue right there. Looking back at when I see the problem, it is always on older TV shows. Babylon 5 and Dark Angel are the ones that spring to mind… there are no HD sources available (to my knowledge), so the source files I have for Bab5 are 480p H264 and Dark Angel just identifies as “SD (MPEG4)”.
What you say about garbage in garbage out makes perfect sense.
@ChuckPa shouldn’t Plex be able to differentiate lower quality video and automatically handle it without the need for manual switching to play it properly?
