I am currently sharing my library with one user outside of my network and the user has been unable to direct stream video or audio. The error the user is getting is that transcoding is required because the upload speed has been limited to 1 Mbps. Looking for clarification on why this is happening please. Details …
My config:
Remote access enabled through a manually-specified port
Bandwidth can accommodate 20 Mbps
No plex pass so I cannot adjust bandwidth settings
User’s config:
a) Video quality “automatically adjust quality” set to off
b) Quality is set to “play original quality”
c) Internet streaming set to “maximum”
d) Play smaller videos at original quality is checked
e) All 1080p (H.264)/AAC 5.1 movies are being transcoded to SD (H264)/MP3
Sounds like you might have something slightly off with your remote access setup. This can cause Plex to fallback to a relayed/indirect connection where traffic is indeed limited to 1 Mbps (2 Mbps for Plex Pass members).
As for how to troubleshoot this:
Let’s have a look at the specifics of your remote access setup (=router + Plex remote access configuration)…
Common issues:
Have you configured Plex to use the port defined in port forward on your router?
Is the public IP showing in the Plex remote access settings the same your router is showing?
Thank you Tom for catching that I’m having issues with port forwarding. I’m using Pfsense 2.4.4-RELEASE-p1 as my router running PIA in front of my network. I’ve added the NAT rule but when I click the “retry” button for manual selected port it flashes green momentarily before returning red. I need to spend some time troubleshooting why this is happening. I’ve read some threads on here about VPNs and VM machines and port forwarding not working but it’s honestly way over my head. I’ve basically just watched a lot of videos to get where I am today.
I’ve determined that the remote access only works if my VPN is turned off (I’m using PIA). From what I’ve read, it sounds complicated to get PIA and Plex to play nicely and involves creating batch files and scheduled tasks that run regularly to update configs to keep things working in addition to having selected a specific (non-North American server) to tunnel traffic that allows port forwarding.
As mentioned, I’m running PIA on Pfsense and I have a computer running my Plex server behind that. I was running programs off of that PC before where it was actually important that my traffic was being tunneled, however, it only functions as a Plex server now. I can add a rule to allow that PC to bypass the VPN. If I continue to have a couple users that stream movies from my library from outside my network, I’m assuming my ISP will know that and if so are there any gross concerns with it (e.g. throttling bandwidth)?
Thanks in advance for all input and suggestions.
P.S. I would add a remote access tag to this thread and move it somewhere more appropriate but I don’t know how.
@SUPERBIF. I could never get PIA and Plex to work nicely together however as it was mentioned there are posts out there to help with that. It’s just a bit over my head and not really necessary in my specific situation. You should be able to bypass Plex by using an app exception rule in PIA but since I’m running PIA from Pfsense, the config is a different. Good luck.
What do you mean by opted to bypass?
I have pfsense and no matter what u try I’m experiencing the same problem with first green and then red in remote access.
All other apps works with it.
I bypassed the VPN by adding a LAN rule in Pfsense under Firewall >> Rules >> LAN. In there I added the specific static IP address assigned to the PC running Plex to bypass PIA completely. So no traffic on that machine is being tunneled at all which does not sound like the same setup you have (i.e. I am not selecting specific apps to tunnel).
Do you have the port forward rule setup in Pfsense and are you sure the PIA server you’re using allows port forwarding?
