Server suddenly can't access files - Windows 7

Have been using Plex to stream files from my Win7 PC to my TV for about a year. Suddenly it can no longer access the files. On the TV the app runs and displays the lists of videos/music/etc. but if I try and play anything it says the file is not available.

I can also no longer access the server from the local (server) web app, as it says access to 127.0.0.1:32400 is refused. The server service is running, and I’ve tried temporarily disabling both the Windows Firewall and AVG (which runs on the server PC). I’ve also tried to access 192.168.1.8:32400 (IP address of server) and it gives the same.

I’m not aware of changing anything, other than installing some recent Windows updates. I’ve searched around various forums on various websites, but can’t find anything that makes any difference. Any ideas as to what to try next would be appreciated.

Call up the Plex media info of an affected item.
Take a look at the drive letter and folder, under which Plex is expecting the file to find.
Compare it to the real drive letter and foldername where the file is situated currently.
Are they indentical?

Don’t use Microsoft Edge to access Plex.

How do I access the media info for an item? I’m running the player on a Samsung Smart TV. When I try and select an item it says “Unable to connect to the content server”. For a video file it does display the encoding, e.g: Version MP4 H264 1080 2 Mbps Audio Unknown (AAC 2).

As I can’t access the library from the server PC I’m not sure how to get more info. The files have not changed location on the PC (Drive D:) since they were created.

The first step is to restore access for the web app.

Have you changed anything about your computer or your router lately?

Inspect the network adapter in Windows. It must show the network connections as ‘private’ and not as ‘public’.

Which web browser are you using on your computer?

I had this happen to me last week, I had installed the monthly Windows updates and had to reboot, after that my Windows 7 machine that runs the Plex Server lost connection to the Windows 10 share where my media resides, I had to re-enter the share credentials on the Windows 7 machine to access the Windows 10 machine.

I’m not aware that anything has changed (except for Windows updates), and I haven’t recently installed any new software. Router is the same one I’ve been using for ~5 years. Default browser is Chrome, but I’ve also tried it on IE and AVG Secure Browser, with the same problem.

Windows sharing centre says I’m connected to a “Home” network, and the Windows Firewall says I’m connected to a Private network, and there is no connection to any Public networks.

I’ve just installed the Plex Media player on my laptop, which is also physically connected to the same router as the server and the TV. When I launch the player I just get a blank black window.

Can you open a web browser on the server computer and open the plex.tv web site?
Or does this fail?

Think I may be making some progress! After a while the Plex player on my laptop started up and I can access files from the server (images and music).

However, I still can’t access them from the TV. I did re-select various options in the Windows Firewall on the server, so I’m going to power cycle the router to see if that resets permissions etc.

I haven’t tried accessing the plex.tv website (server is upstairs), but I can access websites as I would expect to be able to.

So, I now have it working, although I’m not entirely sure what the ‘problem’ was. Having got the player working on my laptop I installed it on the server and was able to play files, but still couldn’t access the server.

However, I found I could now access it using 192.168.1.8:32400/web/index.html Having done this it told me that the server was out of date. So I downloaded and installed the update (which I had to do manually for some reason). During this I also double-checked that my hosts file was as it should be with both 127.0.0.1 and ::1 both set to localhost.

Having installed the update I could then access the server via 127.0.0.1, and I can now playback files from the TV. So I don’t think this is going to help anyone else, but at least I now have it working.

Thanks for your help and suggestions.

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