Been using Plex happily for over 12 years and recently purchased a Plex pass. Disappointed to find that there is no dedicated technical support, but nevertheless here I am. Never had to raise an issue before.
Roku Streaming Stick+ 3810EU 11.5.0 build 4235-50
Plex for Roku 7.0.17.8028-d94b3a6bf-Plex
Plex server runs dockerised on Ubuntu Server 22.04.
Local LAN subnet 192.168.0.0/24
Plex on 192.168.0.3 (ethernet)
Roku on DHCP (wireless)
Our internet went down today for approximately 6 hours and was disappointed to learn that Plex would not function at all without an internet connection in ‘offline mode’. The Plex app would open but the local server was unreachable and no content accessible.
I ensured that the local subnet was whitelisted for auth bypass, and the local IP of the server set in the Plex app, but still would not allow me to access content.
I should not require an internet connection to access my own content, on my own server, on my own private LAN, with a paid version of Plex, otherwise I may as well just pay Netflix for a subscription. Why is an internet connection required anyway when all the content and metadata is cached?
How can I resolve or mitigate this in future please or do I need to take this up with Roku?
The primary (only?) reason Plex requires internet access is authentication. This is used to prevent just any Joe on the internet from punching in your house’s IP address and being able to view your Plex server contents. You see this if you use Jellyfin, you must set up your own authentication scheme for external network access. So, if you have authentication REQUIRED on the server and client side (this is the default), then when the internet goes down you will be unable to authenticate the client, and thus whether you are authorized to access the server.
There are some guides on how to set this up. One good one knocking around is this one, which explains how to set up Plex for internet-less connections. Reviewing it, I am a bit disappointed in some of the client devices that won’t work even with certain settings enabled (like my FireTV), but there are still some good clients that work anyway. In particular, they walk through enabling a Roku to view the Plex server’s content.
Note, one thing Plex authentication does is it also returns to clients the LOCATION of the server: The local network IP address. Without authenticating, you must enter it in yourself. This is covered in the article I linked.
I can summarize the steps you need to take, but I’m going more on memory/assumptions about the setup, so I’d rather just ask you to refer to the link I posted up above. If you have more questions about particular steps, feel free to reply with those here (or there), and I’ll see if I can help.
Some of the things lost when using Plex offline:
Fast User switching. If you use multiple profiles on the account to keep track of separate watch states for multiple users, this will be unavailable. Technically, when you bypass authentication, you log in as the default Admin account itself, not any of the managed users. If you do not use managed accounts, then this isn’t a loss.
Online media. If you have no internet, then obviously the free “Movies and Shows on Plex” won’t work.
DVR guides. With no internet, the Plex server cannot populate the DVR guide data, so after some time (week?) it will run out and scheduling breaks. You ought to still be able to view the channels (I hope/assume), but I haven’t tested it.
Plex pass features? I would think that after some time, your server might not be able to verify if you have an active Plex Pass subscription. If I designed the app, I’d have the Pass features eventually disable (intro skip, DVR, etc) if the server has not authenticated recently. But I am not so sure about this section.
