Smart TV plex app and Fire TV plex app behave like Plex server on SynologyDS1621 NAS is remote not LAN but firefox on imac/android phone and android plex app on smartphone can watch HD content using direct play

Plex Players
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This is proving to be a real head scratcher. Been troubleshooting for 3 or 4 nights, Searching forums, Trying all sorts of possible fixes none of which really seem relevant (because if server was not configured correctly surely I would not be able to access and watch HD content with browser on mac or browser on phone or app on phone and also watch stuff remotely using data package rather than wifi through the plex app on my phone

Which leads me to the question of why the hell would the TV app and fire tv think the server was not on the LAN. I’ve checked IPs netmask and it all checks out. TV can access other content on Synology NAS so it is seeing the NAS OK on the LAN, the firetv also sees the NAS as I installed the synology video app to check (but it won;t play the videos, I did this to test as it doesn’t have a remote option like the plex app)

I have Fire TV plugged into TV connecting to Sky Router over wifi which then connects to gigabit switch which is plugged into the NAS. But like I say all browsers and apps except Smart TV and Fire TV can see and play content at original quality via direct play

What is happening on the TV plex app is it just won’t play any content, throws up some error that I can’t quiet remember but I went out and bought a fire tv on monday as my smart TV is old and I assumed samsung were not updating the plex app anymore to keep it compatible with the plex server updates.

So the Fire TV will play the content but it won’t do so with direct play (like it thinks the server isn’t on LAN) and so it fallback to transcoding but this is restricted to 1000kbps as i have no plex subscription nor need one ( I just want to direct play some family videos in 1920 HD to our TV in the living room!! lol - (It transcodes to 720p bad quality , artifacts everywhere unwatchable)

WHAT AM I MISSING!?!?!? LOL

I’ve included full log (its big) of on evening as I struggled with it

Plex Media Server copy.txt.zip (301.9 KB)

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You have set your server to write verbose logs
 that (a) why the file is quite big and (b) why it only covers approx. 2 hours.

The log is showing a variety of network errors.
Some are related to an apparent bad remote access setup. I suppose that’s why your remote connections are actually indirect/relayed which is limiting them to 1 Mbps. So fixing that should give you some (general) improvement.

I’m not quite sure if some of the network problems might be related to the network interfaces of your NAS – according to your log, there’s 5 interfaces: your primary local IP (192.168.0.*) and 4 on the 169.254.x.x network. From what I’ve found devices use that if they’re configured to use DHCP but (occasionally) fail to obtain an IP assignment – not sure if there’s some other underlying problem.

I cannot see any connections from a samsung TV – at least not during the available log timeframe.
In case you want to share another set of logs, please disable verbose logging and attempt to reproduce the issues before downloading the logs.

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Tom

really appreciate you jumping in here

So I have attached another log file this time without verbose and starting from just before 2pm today I went through all plex apps and tried to access content over LAN, in some cases using wifi and in a few others on ethernet

I here what you are say9ing about the NAS network interfaces and you’re right they are set to DHCP but also they are disconnected (no ethernet cables plugged into them so I assumed they were just out of the equation (maybe wrongly so) I could go in and manually assign IPs to them and put them on same subnet???

you should see in log connections from SAmsung TV, FireTV, Firefox browser on mac, plex app on android, To begin with all were transcoding at a really low level and unwatchable, then i restarted the server and was able to watch decent quality from firefox web client

My network looks like this

internet > Sky Router > TPlink Gigabit Switch >

Switch has ethernet cable running into Synology DS410
and another ethernet cable running into Synology DS1621
and another ethernet cable running directly into my desktop
and a final ethernet cable running spare that I sometimes use to plug in a linux laptop
Plex Media Server.log.zip (315.0 KB)

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The Samsung connections are indeed considered to be over your WAN and seem to use an indirect/relayed connection.
Are those TVs in a different subnet? Some routers create their own subnets for wired/wireless or guest/regular networks; I suppose the same could be true if your TV is connected to the Sky router while all other devices are on a separate subnet of the TPlink.

With the Fire TVs it’s kind of am mixed bag. If this is only 1 device, it’s been connecting to your server using 2 different IPs – one of them is considered local (192.168.0.66) while the other is also a WAN connection.

The addresses considered to be remote are from the 139.162.x.x band. That’s not a private network; those IPs are linked to a Cloud hosted (Linode) – just in case that rings a bell with you.

As for a way forward

I suggest you check the network settings of your Plex Media Server (Settings > [Server Name] > Network and the clients for any leftover/legacy configurations that might be pointing to those external IPs (or generally impact your network setup). It might be worth to review the integration between your Sky router and the TPlink to confirm there’s no bad routings that could get things messed up.

In addition you probably should have a look at your remote access setup. Even if the connection is supposed to be remote, you should not need to rely on a relay with its limitations.

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The TV has both wired and wireless option to connect to the LAN. In my case I am currently using wifi but sometimes it is using cat5 cable RJ45 through powerline adaptor.

ALL Devices to my knowledge are on the same subnet (although clearly my knowledge is not that good!! lol) is there a way for me to check if different subnets exist (perhaps using terminal?)

The TPlink switch to the best of my knowledge is just a dumb switch. I don;t think I have ever configured it, not even sure if it has an admin interface or what Ip it would be on!!

With my limited knowledge i am assuming network is configured fine otherwise I wouldn’t be able to connect to things from my desktop/laptops/phones etc and I can using both wired and wireless connection.

Re the firetv and 2 Ips that concerns me now. I bough the firetv from ebay and it did come sealed, however I DO NOT recognise that IP (Cloud hosted Linode) could it be the seller has used the firetv to try and gain access to my network?

“review integration between your Sky router and the TPlink to confirm there’s no bad routings” - DON’T KNOW how to do this ;(

Remote access appears to be working. I was able to access the plex sever using web browser on my phone over data package. It was terribly slow etc but it was working, I assume that means it is configured correctly, perhaps that is a misguided assumption?

The firetv was just joined to the wifi using password so it did all its own configuration
I did trying forgetting the connection and doing the advanced version manually adding IP and subnet etc and it was the same subnet as my LAN but this did not resolve the issue

List of IP addresses and networks that are allowed without auth is set 192.168.0.1/24
I have turned off the enable relay, as you said this proxy relay is bandwidth restricted anyway so of no use to me.

UPDATE: found this in synology DSM under info centre > services where plex media server is listed but shows as not LAN accessible???

Screenshot 2022-01-22 at 17.41.49
Screenshot 2022-01-22 at 17.41.49790×633 35.5 KB

I did check all the network interfaces including LAN 4 which is the port with cable plugged in but took the wrong screenshot

UPDATE 2 : can confirm the TPLink switch is plug and play with no configuration required and if I can access NAS’s from desktop then it must be on same subnet?!..right?

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It seems you’re only getting an indirect connection – which is limited to 1 Mbps (2 Mbps for Plex Pass members). That’ll be good enough to browse your media and maybe play some music
 not so much for streaming a video (except its quality is reduced significantly).

I’m not sure. From what I could find on Synology’s support page, it seems this is more an indicator about the external access features used by Synology – not how Plex is establishing your connectivity.

It should but it’s not a must. Some routers segment their network based on wired/wireless or guest/regular connections.

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Have worked through your suggestions and still no joy
I did turn off the relay and so now I have no access from the firetv at all. It reports (in the log) a failed TLS handshake?

I can however still access content from web browser and plex android app, both via wifi

I separated the 2.4 and 5Gz bands on the router in case that was causing issues
I changed the network interfaces on the NAS to all be on the same subnet and I range although they are disconnected

I’m convinced it is an issue with the plex app on firetv specifically something to do with TLS handshaking!! lol

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Ok just wanted to update this thread with latest findings

The access I had been getting from the firetv was through the plex relay which is now switched off. As a result firetv is not currently able to see the plex server

however from the firetv using another couple of apps I was able to see contents of the NAS which ‘proves’ the NAS is accessible from the firetv over wifi with current network setup. However one caveat is that I can’t see contents of folders or play files from VLC on the NAS (Might be a permissions issues which i will investigate later) - Note I can also ping fireTV from desktop mac through LAN

I was able to access the NAS server contents and play content at original quality over LAN using Firefox Browser, wired and wireless connection on Mac Desktop and also on Linux laptop. Again proving That the network hardware and configuration is ok allowing access over wifi > sky router > tplink switch > synology NAS.

I was also able to connect from my android phone over wifi and play original quality content from PLex server on NAS using firefox browser on android

I was also able to connect remotely over data package from android plex app and using firefox web client

The samsung TV does not allow me to play any content although it does see the plex server on synology NAS and the content (so there is probably an issue with old plex app software version on the TV which is no longer supported updated.

Thats Ok though as that is why I bought the fireTV, so now i need to get to the bottom of why the fireTV won’t connect to plex server over wireless LAN. Something to do with incomplete TLS handshake. I read things about this on forums, LetsEncrypt SSL issues or something. Is there a work around or something I can do to fix this or will a fix be pushed out in forthcoming update??

i feel like my network is not to blame anymore, although originally I thought that was the problem. Thanks to your help @tom80H I have been able to narrow the issue down to plex app on FireTV which needless to say I am running the latest version as of right now

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Your proof is missing an essential point.
The fact that a connection is possible doesn’t mean your devices are actually on the same subnet. This is something that’s important to Plex.

At least I don’t think you have some additional firewalls / communication blocking in place to single-out the FireTV :wink:

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I here ya, but they are on the same subnet
lol. I checked all the settings and all are on 255.255.255.0. So unless like you say some alternate subnets are being created that I am unaware of??

but if this were the case would not all the wireless traffic use them? So if some wireless traffic can see and play content, shouldn’t all wireless content be able to ?

Is there any other troubleshooting I can try or should I resign myself to the fact it is the plex app on firetv??

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You could check the server’s network settings; e.g. checking if you have listed individual IP addresses as LAN networks. Similarly you could check if the client has a hard-coded server connection (though iirc that’s not an option available in the Android/FireTV client).

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I didn’t go through the entire thread, but just a hunch


Check your router for something mentioning about “DNS Rebinding”. If it’s enabled, turn it off. It affects the usage of “plex.direct”. If turning it off fixes it, see if you can make an exception for DNS Rebinding for “plex.direct” and turn it back on.

image

Your description is nearly identical to issues I’ve had in the past. I run pfSense and had to make a DNS Rebinding exception for “plex.direct” (or completely turn off DNS Rebinding protection), in order for some LAN Plex clients to work properly. Amazon Fire TV was one of them. The issue arises because if PMS is set to “Require Secure Connections” (Leave on; highly suggested), you’ll get a cert mismatch without doing a DNS Rebind for “plex.direct” and the connection will fail/fallback. — However, if you can’t find anything about DNS Rebinding on your router, set PMS to allow insecure connections and see if that fixes it.

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Apologies. Just a quick update. On the PMS side under “Settings” → “Network”, there is a pulldown option titled “Secure connections”. It’ll look like this:

image

If it’s set to “Required”, you can quickly change it to “Preferred” and see if that fixes the problem. If it does, 99% chance it’s a “DNS Rebinding Protection” issue being enforced by your router.

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I have 3 options preferred, required and disabled
I have tried all except disabled (for obvious reasons) but I guess I should experiment with that too
I’ll do so when I’m back in the house and see if that fixes things

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Disabled didn’t help. I have set it back to preferred which is what it was on. I notice there is an update for FireTV so I’ll update that and report back! :wink:

UPDATE did not resolve the issue

CERT: incomplete TLS handshake from [::ffff:192.168.0.128]:46762: stream truncated

192.168.0.128 is IP of fireTV

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Ok well I have another update.
I stepped back from this for a day owing to increasing frustration :exploding_head:
Then last night I decided to have a quick check of the fireTV and to my utter astonishment it worked!
All my home movies and stuff was visible again and whats more it played via direct play through the LAN

How is that possible could something have been done in the background that fixed my issue (I’m thinking LetsEncrypt Cert renewal or something???

Anyway this afternoon I settled down to have a watch and boom the server isn’t reacheable aghhhh
I tried on my phone too and it wasn’t there
So I restarted a few things and now I can once again see and watch everything from desktop browser over wireless & wired LAN, laptop browser over wireless & Wired LAN, phone browser over wireless LAN, phone app over wireless LAN and Data Connection

BUT NOT via fireTV (which yesterday was working like a dream)

How is this even possible, I changed/did nothing!!! WTF
Help!! lol
Dave

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IN case it is helpful I have added the versions of both DSM on synology and the PLex media server version I have running

DSM Version#: 6.2.4-25556 Update 3
Plex Server Version#: 1.25.3.5409-6000

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