No, no custom access URL, direct connection
I’ve had decent success in getting downloads to work if I’m not on my personal network. Based on this reddit post it seems that the issue may be partially rooted in how the plex app resolves DNS for whatever reason. I need to do more testing, but taking my phone off Wifi and just using cellular has been infinitely more usable than before.
It seems that if you go through the hoops of either changing a device’s /etc/hosts entry for *.plex.direct to your plex server or setting it at your network’s DNS resolver may make things work a bit better on your LAN.
Please reproduce the error and get me the app logs. Something isn’t working with one of these and the app.
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Also reproduce and get me the app logs.
So this is exactly the same issue I am having, works if I come off wifi and carry on when going back onto wifi but won’t start on wifi. with multiple Android devices (Samsung S20, Tab S4, and also Amazon fire 8HD). Apple device works without any issues.
Plex Media Server Logs_2022-03-10_19-33-11.zip (2.3 MB)
Uploading: Android Mobile Log.txt…
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Still got the problem, and since the sync feature isn’t available anymore (again), I have to write back in hope this problem is getting solved…
Here are my logs:
android-logging.txt (4.6 MB)
Plex Media Server Logs_2022-03-14_02-55-53.zip (9.1 MB)
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Came here to look for an answer. Doing internal redirect of *.plex.direct to my plex server IP fixed it for me, but seems like a work around that needs a permanent fix.
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I seem to have a similar problem to you posting here recently. Everything works fine except for the combination of Downloads, Android client and LAN. Take away one of the three and there is no problem. I tried to describe it in more detail here: Android player (only) not being able to download (only) on local network (only)
I’ll see if I can work around it with a local DNS redirect, but it seems it would be better solved by finding the problem with Android and Plex. Maybe Google is doing some unorthodox DNS handling on the Android phones (but why does it only affect Plex Downloads?), or maybe Plex is using some unorthodox setup for handling network traffic (but why is it only in the Android client and only affecting Downloads?)
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I’ve tried both with and without custom access URL, the problem stays the same.
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Hey every time I try to use the download feature whilst on cellular my phone gives the following error
“Error Response error Code: 400”
Works fine when on my local network via wifi and seems to work fine on my partners phone.
I am using an iPhone 12 iOS 15.3.1 PLEX 7.29
Please help!
Have just tried manual connection and download still fails
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I confirm that workaround.
Adding a DNS zone for plex.direct on my local network block that specific DNS requests and Plex is working great afin.
Update - some progress with the problem and pinpointing of issues!
None of the workaround ideas mentioned here worked for me. I have also recently had some problem with remote access status going off and on frequently. I finally (after trying many many things) fixed that by simply disabling DoS protection on my ASUS RT-AC86U router. Now Downloads work fine again.
Since I’ve tried so many things in between for the remote access issue I am not sure that this was the exact change that got Downloads working.
But - then I tried some larger files, and again the same problem, only on LAN… Shorter/smaller files still worked…
“Activity” also told me that the server was transcoding my downloads, despite everything seemingly being set to “Original” quality (Android app → Settings → Downloads → Video Quality: Original, Android app → Settings → Quality → Video Quality → Automatically adjust quality: off, Remote streaming quality: Maximum, Home streaming: Recommended “Videos will play at maximum quality”). However, after changing the setting “Android app → Settings → Quality → Video Quality → Home streaming” from “Recommended - Videos will play at maximum quality” by turning off “Use recommended settings - Videos will play at maximum quality” and verifying that the now displayed quality settings on that page were set to “Maximum” the LAN Downloads finally works also for some larger files, probably because it doesn’t try to encode them anymore.
But not everything is good, the setup still causes some video files to trigger transcoding when trying to Download them, and it fails… The server says it is trying to encode them but is making very slow progress and not utilizing CPU or GPU to any noticeable degree. The files that cause this haave only been 4K HDR so far, and I can otherwise play them streaming in the Android app with the internal player fine without any transcoding, on LAN as well as WAN.
So after turning off router DoS protection and finding and adjusting that very deceitfully described option in the Android app settings it seems there are still two remaining issue here:
- The Android player and/or the Plex server somehow deciding that content needs transcoding even though it shouldn’t be necessary and all options are set not to.
- The transcoding doesn’t work properly for these downloads, even though transcoding of the same content works fine when streaming (if I force transcoding by options).
I have hardware transcoding working fine with QSV on Windows, HDR->SDR tonemapping is turned off because of the very heavy CPU use otherwise.
Downloading works from Windows Desktop to Windows Surface via home wi-fi… So it seems to be a problem with Android and iOS.
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Downloads aren’t working on Android devices for me. Requesting a download has also often (but not always) caused the Plex server to crash and required to manually restart in the Synology UI.
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Thanks to this thread, i found a workaround:
Turn off wifi on your android device
Start syncing the movies or series you want.
Then after downloading started, turn on WiFi on your android device again!!!
…Adding a DNS zone for plex.direct on my local network…
Could you please describe how you did this?
Thanks in advance
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Unfortunately, that’s not an easy answer due to the vast number of ways you could be resolving local DNS. The easiest way is to have something like AdGuard or PiHole do that for you.
The basic idea is to setup a local DNS entry that points *.plex.direct (that is, any hostname that ends with plex.direct) to the local IP of your Plex server. How you do that depends on your home DNS solution, and quite frankly this is one of those “if you have to ask then you are not running a personal DNS server” kind of situations.
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How is this not fixed in Plex yet? We shouldn’t need to setup a local DNS server just so we can download files from a server that the Plex apps can already see! Unbelievable.
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So I gave up on Plex for Android. It is a horrible mess. The download feature is at best problematic and simply it’s subpar as an app for Android Auto. I found “Pulsar” audio app which fulfills all the things that Plex app broke:
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It downloads effortlessly my music library (it took me an hour and a half but Plex could never do it).
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It picks up where I left off when turning off my car.
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When I save my playlist to “randomly play”, it stays that way when playing in Android Auto.
It’s a shame though. I’ve been a Plex user for ages now, when Plex was simply just another streaming app, a blip on the map. Plex suffered the fate of all other small companies that tried to become big: they screwed up their product in pursuit of grandeur. Hopefully Pulsar will not make the same mistake.
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