Whenever someone connects to my Plex Server, under “Activity” they only show as “Indirect” connections. I have full remote access granted with a set port number. Port forwarding in enabled and working as it should. What else am I missing? I have never seen this behavior before when I was on Spectrum and now I’m on AT&T Fiber. Any suggestions?
Server Version#:1.41.1.9057
Start here: The Basics of Remote Access Troubleshooting
It is perfectly possible that your swapping ISPs has put you behind a Carrier-Grade NAT. This is pretty much the default nowadays.
Nothing suggests that I’m on a CGNAT- public IP on router matches what I see from whatsmyip.com.
What does https://canyouseeme.org/ show?
The very same IP Plex sees.
Try browsing to this page:
https://plex.tv/api/resources?includeIPv6=1&includeHttps=1&X-Plex-Token=
Include your Plex token after the equals sign.
On the page which loads, find your server’s entry and verify that the connection URL looks correct. By correct, I mean that the host part of the FQDN should be your WAN IP address (delimited by dashes instead of periods) as seen on the WAN interface of your router.
Also verify that this address isn’t in the RFC-1918 space or RFC-6598 (100.64.0.0/10).
Finally, verify that https://v4.plex.tv/pms/:/ip shows the same IP address and that it too matches what your router has for its WAN IP address.
If all your remote playback sessions show “Indirect” that means Plex Relay is being employed. This implies that, for whatever reason, Plex’s servers’ connectivity checks to your server are failing. Double-NAT and CG-NAT (a form of double-NAT) are common reasons for this. As are incorrect port forward configurations and firewall issues (you might want to disable Windows Firewall for testing).
New ISP usually also means “new router”.
If that’s the case with you as well, then Windows has likely switched the network connection to “Public” classification.
Switch it back to “Private”, to open the firewall.
You need to modify the URL and insert an X-Plex-Token as instructed above.
I have tried each step you mentioned. The IP address found in the XML from a random file on my server matched my public facing address from the ISP. The verification from https://v4.plex.tv/pms/:/ip shows the exact same public facing address. I have already confirmed I’m not behind a CG-NAT. My ISP assigned address begins in 108, hopefully that’s not an issue…
I do not see a clear way to do this in Windows 11. I also want to add I tried completely turning off Windows Firewall and still outside connections are transcoding and playing as Indirect.
Another thing I just checked is this:
But did you put in the port you configured for plex to see if it was working?
Go to the place which shows your network connections, then open the properties of the LAN connection. Quickest is right-clicking on the network icon in your task tray.
Disallowing Relay will only deprive you of the last resort way clients can reach your server.
Set network to “private” now, still seeing indirect connections.
The port I selected (random albeit) is still within the acceptable range for Plex, and yes it works fine. PMS is fully allowing remote access based on the dashboard.
The solution for me in this case, was switching to another firewall- oddly enough, AT&T’s fiber router was causing the issue. After setting it in passthrough mode, and adding my Unifi Cloud Gateway with the appropriate port forwarding, it works fine now- all streams are now secure.
I’m not surprised. ISP-provided routers are often pre-configured for the typical “home user”, with settings which often get in the way if someone has something out of the ordinary in their local network – like a private media server.
Most likely it is the DNS resolver in their routers which is preventing your server to get a FQDN in the .plex.direct domain.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/206225077-how-to-use-secure-server-connections#toc-4
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