So I have an interesting issue developing that I haven’t encountered before. My Mom is in a nursing home, and has been accessing my Plex server from a Roku for going on two years now without issue. Last night, she started experiencing issues. I’d be all about running down there to fix them, but COVID keeps me from doing so.
Here’s everything that’s happening:
All other users externally not experiencing access issues
My server shows as offline on Roku
It says it’s running in Offline Mode somewhere near the top of the home screen
All other Plex functions (Movies and TV on Plex) work perfectly on Roku
All other Roku apps functioning as expected
Plex.tv website can be accessed from a tablet
Plex.tv account sign in page will not load. All other pages will.
app.plex.tv cannot be accessed from tablet in browser
What I’ve tried:
Restarted Plex Server (auto restarts at 4:30am everyday anyway)
In Roku, under Media Server Status, attempted to “Retry” connecting to server, shows as inaccessible with red triangle warning icon
Can sign into her account in browser from my house (account is not the issue)
Can launch Plex Web under her ID and all libraries show and function as expected from my house
Changed network login/password on Roku (with a nurses help)
Changed Plex in Roku to always allow all insecure connections
Checked for Roku updates (up to date)
Called nursing home and left a message with the director, asking if there have been any network changes over the past two days. Waiting on a call back… but not holding my breath.
Any suggestions as to other things I can try would be greatly appreciated. There’s a marginally tech savvy girl down there who’s Dad runs a Plex server as well so she’s a little familiar with some of it, but not an expert.
Would a Double NAT issue cause access to only my server to tank, while all other Plex functions worked fine? Any other apps I can side load that might fail under similar Plex failure circumstances?
Appreciate anyone’s time reading this far. Mom’s a movie nut, and Plex is her go to for entertainment.
It says it’s running in Offline Mode somewhere near the top of the home screen
This means the Roku was unable to connect to plex.tv to authenticate. This would be required to get new server connection details, otherwise, it will be using cached connection info that may have change by now.
Plex.tv website can be accessed from a tablet
Plex.tv account sign in page will not load. All other pages will.
app.plex.tv cannot be accessed from tablet in browser
These are important for a remote server to be reachable. I’m going out on a limb here, but it sounds like the network is potentially blocking certain plex.tv domains, or possible they have some DNS issues?
Are there any other networks to connect to temporarily, maybe even a cellular connection?
You could also try enabling “Remote Logging” in the Plex settings on the Roku, close and open the Roku, then report back with the time/timezone and username. We can attempt to pull up the logs, but only if it could send them remotely (maybe that is blocked too).
My gut reaction is that its some sort of network issue at the nursing home… unless there’s a goofy, unknown Plex issue happening that is only affecting a small number of accounts. Occam’s Razor says its the former.
Trying a mobile hotspot next is an excellent idea, and my reason for this post. I’ll see if I can locate a nurse that has any level of a clue to try and test that, but my chances may be slim. I’d bet it works.
So here’s where things get odd… I was finally able to reach a person who knew what they were doing with a hotspot on their phone.
We verified that the connection was still broken before switching networks.
We verified that it could indeed connect through the hotspot, and everything was working there.
When we hooked back into the resident network, everything was back up and rolling like nothing had ever been wrong.
This might become more of a Plex employee question, but is there some level of authentication that needs to happen periodically that could be blocked, but then function after it gets the needed handshake?
Her connection has been rock solid for around three years in the nursing home. No clue what’s changed.
Yep, this all makes sense. When you connected to the other network, you were able to reach plex.tv. There are multiple things that happen here, but the important part is that this is time the client get’s a list of servers (connection info) to connect to. This will be cached for that user/client until the next time it can retrieve said list. By connecting to the hotspot, you got the updated list. Now when you connect to the network with issues, the client is unable to get the list of servers, but it will use the cache and happily connect. The same issue will happen again when your server changes connection info. (most likely an IP address changed, or maybe the cert changed).
The case in point is that when connected to the nursing home network, you are unable to reach plex.tv. It may have been accidental, but something in that network is blocking it.
