Something broke remote access (maybe Cloudflare?)

Plex Media Server Remote Access
1

Server Version#: 1.43.0.10231
Player Version#: irrelevant, same for any player or web browser

I had Plex remote access working with no issues for years, until today.

  • I can connect and play with local LAN IP
  • Remote Access is ENABLED, “Fully accessible outside your network” in green text
  • I can connect AND PLAY via the IP Remote access gives me (my WAN IP): (95.XX.XXX.136:17171)
  • I can connect via https://app.plex.tv/desktop BUT “No content available”

I run Plex in a Proxmox LXC for two years now. No issues with remote access until today.

Can this be in any way connected to recent Cloudflare outage? I do not use it myself but maybe the Plex servers do?

Logs are enclosed. Thanks!

EDIT: it’s Tailscale. Disabling it on client immediately reconnects app.plex.tv. Weird as I had been running TS and Plex alongside (I do not use TS with Plex at all) for years.

Plex Media Server Logs_2025-11-19_18-39-44.zip (788.4 KB)

1 Like
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I’m having the same issue.

Restarted every device that could potentially cause any networking issue. Everything seems to be good, and under plex remote access settings it’s all green.

But still no app can connect and app.plex.tv can’t connect either

1 Like
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Thank you! Looks like an issue on Plex’s end to me. OR, maybe, there was a Proxmox update today, from 9.0.x to 9.1.1, that might be related but who knows. Everything else works. How do you run your Plex instance?

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@Stooovie Not seeing anything in your logs. have you tried stopping plex, waiting about 5-10 minutes and rebooting the computer?

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what computer, the server or the client? I did reboot the Proxmox LXC Plex runs in.

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I run under unraid, no update happened. It’s definitely something else. By any chance are you on ATT internet ?

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I shut down everything for 10 minutes, no dice.

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No, I’m on O2 fiber in Europe. Ports are visible, everything is correct. I don’t think it’s on my side.

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Do you use Tailscale? When I completely disable it, I can connect via the relay just fine (I use it for other stuff). It has worked without any issues with Tailscale enabled for years.

I do NOT have Tailscale running inside the Plex LXC (=Plex server), nor the Proxmox host. Just to have it running on the client devices disrupts Plex relay.

EDIT: there’s something wrong going on with TS, I can’t even reach the authentication page after reinstalling the TS iOS app. So maybe that’s the issue.

10

It was actually NextDNS! From Reddit: If you use AI Driven Protection, mine just blocked all my remote access to plex servers. I allowed the domains plex.tv and plex.direct and it’s working again.

Note: I have and did have the AI protection disabled but it wouldn’t work anyway. Allowlisting those two domains fixed the issue.

2 Likes
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This! I should always suspect nextDNS from now on :sweat_smile:

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Yeah :slight_smile: but to be fair, this is just a second or third bigger issue I’ve had with it in almost a decade. It’s a great tool.

But it’s always DNS :slight_smile:

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Which is odd as I didnt see any DNS related errors in the logs.

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Nevertheless, the NextDNS logs did show a ton of blocked Plex.direct calls. As soon as I whitelisted that domain, problem went away.

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I was starting to lose my marbles. I am not sure how long it would have taken me to check NextDNS without reading this. Thanks!

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after thinking about this a bit, if NextDNS was only blocking incoming requests your Plex server wouldnt see the requests to log them, and you would see the records in the firewall logs

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I am on ATT fiber and this issue has been happening to me since the cloudflare incident. I don’t use cloudflare at all though.

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It wasn’t ATT it was nextDNS ai protection. All I had to do is add plex.tv and plex.direct to allow list