I can’t report on my Plex server version right now, since my Internet is apparently offline for the next six hours and even sitting in front of my Plex server, I’m not able to access it when the Internet is offline. Is there some workaround for this where I can still watch movies locally on my AppleTV or server directly when the Internet is down?
If the answer is no, this is a hugely dumb and crippling requirement, and a huge deal breaker for me. Looks like my Christmas present is a new media server.
It would be great if the server came that way. I’m not sure what the “right way” is, but finding out you need a right way when you’re stuck without access is just poor design on Plex’s part…I’m thinking it might be time for a straight up DNLA server and just avoid all this hassle.
You don’t even need to do that from what I can see. Plex works without Internet access, it comes down to the client you use.
I just unplugged my cable modem a few minutes ago and tried accessing my servers. I have two servers. One has the local IP range entered for unauth’d access, the other does not. None of my clients have the server IPs manually programmed. I was able to use both servers on an Amazon Fire Stick and Plex Media Player.
They both will show perpetual spinners or caution triangles on the pinned libraries, but you can still go down and choose a library and the contents load fine. Files play back. It even played the theme music for a show when I was on the pre-play screen, so I guess the server has that cached somewhere.
One trick with the Fire Stick is since the Internet is down the Home Screen does not work and the device will complain and want you to fix this. You need to go to Settings > Applications > Manage Installed Applications > Plex in order to manually launch it. But once it’s up it seems to work fine.
Take the IP addresses from all your internal players and type them into the correct space under Network in settings separated with a “,” (no space) and make them LAN. Then no internet is required.
