Server Version: 1.43.4.10903
Player Version : 2026.17.0
Hey Guys!
I’ve been using my Plex server for over a year now and mostly have had a pleasant experinece. I have some family members located within my country but a few are located outside. Both have had a pleasant experince thus far. Unfortunately though, since around a month now, the users streaming from outside the country have been having buffering issues. I have been troubleshooting for 3 weeks now but all symptoms now point towards to the plex server itself. Here are my findings:
Symptoms:
- Bandwidth get’s throttled down to 2-3 Mbps regardless of quality selected or device used. (Relay is disabled)
- After a Plex server restart and sometimes after a network restart the issue temporarily goes away (1 minute it’s buffering and right after a reset and a delay of 30 secs, the bandwidth then jumps to 10-90 mbps and everything works fine)
- Users within my country do not face this issue and their bandwidth is not limited
What I’ve tried so far:
- Bypassing all my network APs and clients and directly plugging in my windows server to my ISP router via Cat 6
- Changing the Port number
- Changing the Physical ports of my router
- Changing the Transcoder Throttle buffer to 300. 600 and even 900 secs
- Having my firends use different devices (Tvs and their mobile phones) and change their location (Near and Far away from their routers)
- Got in touch with my ISP and they have confirmed that no configuration changes have been made from their side. I’ve test via speed test on multiple server based out of my friends home towns and they show my full bandwidth and ping is latency varies between 200-350 ms (Not great but it was working fine for the last 9 months or so)
Would really appreciate some help here if I’m missing something. Thank You!
You’ll need to provide server logs when this happens so someone can check why it picked the bandwidth that it did.
I’m attaching the log which starts at 11:35. The problematic stream shown in the screenshot attached starts at around 11:38. Let me know if you require anything else
Plex Media Server.1.log (5.3 MB)
That user has set a limit of 2Mbps in their app.
In this case, it maybe the case since it decided to transcode after an initial buffer. But the result is the same with other users with “Original Quality” set in their apps. For them it keeps buffering since it never automatically shifts to 480 2 mbps transcode.
It does sound like the relay is enabled but if the people within the uk are ok it can’t be that
do they have a high speed connection?
find out there connection speed
May also be worth rolling back to previous version of Plex if you have updated in the last few weeks as there was one put out in this timeframe
also may be worth getting them to try a vpn and connect a uk server and try and also as above get them to chance from 2mb in there app
If you set the quality to original, it won’t automatically change to a lower setting.
I’ll need specifics in a log to look at other issues. I see another user set their quality to 1500 kbps. There is another direct playing at above 5 Mbps.
Yes, I also believe this to he the case. Even though relay is disabled in the settings, it apears, for whatever reason, that after a certain period of time, Plex just switches certain users (with higher latency maybe?) to relay. But the dashboard always shows a direct play and this never seems to happen to the local users.
I have taken their speed test screenshots and all of them are above 100 Mbps. So they shouldn’t really have any issues with 1080p 3-5 Mbps content.
Yes, the user with the 5 Mbps feed is a local one (Remote but in the same country as me). So he doesn’t have any issues. I’ll try to have another user put their quality to original and I’ll share the log with you afterwards.
