Unable to Maintain Plex Server access outside my network

General Discussions Plex Features
1

I’m running the Plex Server, Windows 10 home, 64 bit system.

Initially when I installed and turned on the server, it seemed to be working. However, what I have figured out is that I keep losing the public access.

Sometimes I have to “disable remote access” within Plex and then enable and that fixes it.

Sometimes I have to turn of UPnP service in my router and then turn it back on and that fixes it.

Sometimes, nothing works short of rebooting my computer AND my router.

However, the fix never lasts more than an hour and more often less than 5 minutes.

I have read a multitude of articles on the forums and I’ve tried every suggestion I’ve found – most stated to ensure the firewall was only selected for Private and not Public. I did that for Plex entries. That did not fix the problem.

I thought it might be Firewall related, because when I disabled the Firewall the problem was fixed … but it failed about an hour and half later.

I’m lost what to try next …

2

Don’t rely on UPnP.
Create the necessary port forwarding in your router manually and tell Plex to use that.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/200931138-troubleshooting-remote-access/

3

Thank you, Otto, for replying. The first time I tried setting up the Plex Media Server, I used this method, and could not connect. But, to be certain, I did it again, following the steps outlined in the link you provided.

From my router, I disabled UPnP and then in the port forwarding section, I was offered a choices of services. Since none of them included TCP, I selected to add a custom service. In that screen, I selected

Service : TCP

External Port range : 32400

Internal Port range : 32400

Internal IP address : 192.168.1.40

From there, I returned to the browser for the Plex Server settings. I selected “Manually specify public port” and entered 32400 and “retry”.

The result is:

Not available outside your network

Your server is signed in to Plex, but is not reachable from outside your network. Learn moreYou currently have Remote Access enabled through a manually-specified port. If you wish to disable Remote Access, you will need to remove your manual port forwarding from your router.

In the next section it shows:

Private 192.168.1.40 : 32400 Public 24.21.198.179 : 32400

Would you happen to have some other suggestions?

I don’t recall if I mentioned it before. I’m using a Netgear Router R7000P.

4

Disregard the message in Plex.
Test the function of the port forwarding using canyouseeme.org instead.
If this is returning ‘successful’, just let Plex server sit and run for several hours.

5

@SewHelpMe - I’ve noticed the same symptoms of the Plex server message the past few weeks. Clicking “retry” clears the error for anywhere from 30 mins to a few hours. Tried PMS 1.40 Beta with no change. No double-NAT, changes to the network, etc.

@OttoKerner - do you know what PMS is actually doing under the hood to perform the test? I always test with canyouseeme to confirm working (I use standard TCP 32400 for public dst-nat to PMS private IP)

6

Sorry, I don’t know any details. Only that PMS is asking plex.tv to ping it back, at the address that it thinks is the public interface. The issue currently is, that this test is not perfomed in time.
So all you can do at the moment is to set up the port forwarding manually.
And use canyouseeme.org to perform the test whether this portforwarding is working or not.

7

According to CanYouSeeMe.org, my port forwarding is working. Am I to
understand that Plex is therefore working correctly and I should be able
to access my media from outside my home network?
Thank you.

8

Yes, it should work. Get someone outside of your home network to test it or disable WiFi on your phone and use its mobile data to test access to your server.

9

Thank you. It seems to be working just fine.

10

FYI - Known bug in 1.14 which is what I was experiencing. Back-rev’d to 1.13.8, with no problems now.

11

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