I am under the impression that I should be able to get a “read” on whether my connection is “nearby” or “remote” on the five TVs in my house that use PLEX. I can find this info on my two PCs with PLEX players, but cannot figure out how to find this information on my TVs or my iPad.
I am not on PLEX Pass, perhaps that is why.
My two PCs show the connection is “nearby.” Since they are connected to the two Wifi routers, and both show “nearby” I interpret that to mean the five TVs connected to the same two Wifi routers are also streaming “locally.”
As for my two Wifi routers, I set them up some years ago, and do not recall setting them up as “hotspots” . . . which my limited networking expertise interprets as “access points.” All this is beyond my pay grade, but I do appreciate all the counsel.
The only PLEX players where I can find the “nearby” report are the to PLEX Players installed on the two PCs (neither are the media server). I cannot find the “nearby” indicator on any of the TV players or the iPad player.
You install it on the media server, and then there’s a tautulli remote management app for iOS and Android I think…
Yes, it will say Local or Remote, just like is available on the Plex Server settings under Dashboard…
Yes, Access Points was the word I was looking for, it just didn’t pop in my head immediately while I was typing. You really should set them up that way though if you haven’t already, 99% of any network problems you may have (and not even know it), can be fixed with that simple solution, and it really IS simple
“Yes, Access Points was the word I was looking for, it just didn’t pop in my head immediately while I was typing. You really should set them up that way though if you haven’t already . . .”
I currently have four Wifi Networks—one each of 5.0 and 2.4 for both of the Wifi routers. I do need a Wifi Router or an access point in two locations (basement/terrace level and 2nd floor) because I have insulation between the floors that impedes the Wifi signal. I do not really need two Wifi networks from each of the two Wifi routers, but that is just what I get the way they are now set up.As for the cable modem, it is one that I purchased, and if it has Wifi capabilities I am not using them.
I am concerned that setting the two Wifi routers up as access points might mean I have only one Wifi network, or perhaps two. I am a “network nube” so my questions may reflects my ignorance on all matters related to Wifi, Lan and Wan.
I really only need to access a Wifi router OR an access point in two locations—basement and 2nd floor. My primary TV location is on the 2nd floor on the opposite side of the house. Wifi strength is good.
Well, first knowing if your Modem is a Modem or a Modem/Router combo would be good to know… If it’s a Modem, then you only need to set the second wifi router up as an access point…
If it’s a modem/router, then you need to set both wifi routers up as access points and setup the modem/router so that it handles your DHCP services.
I have a Modem/Router combo, and a Router… My Modem Router combo has one Wifi Network and the Router has the other, I COULD set them up to be the same name and same password, I just choose not to. You will still have 2 WIFI Networks and 2 areas where the Wifi is coming from, allowing you to facilitate what it is you’re trying to accomplish… What it will do to benefit you however is allow only 1 device to handle your IP Addressing and routing, instead of 2, it will also place anything on the second router behind a single firewall rather than 2 possibly 3…
My cable modem is an ARRIS SURFboard SB6190–modem only, no router.
So Wifi Router #1, which sits right next to the modem, and which has a direct connection with the media server PC should remain set as a router, and Wifi Router #2 upstairs should be set as an access point. Right?
By the way, I tested various PLEX Players on two TVs and my iPad, and all show up as “local.”
In the Dashboard in PMS, the streams all show up as “local” and it reports on the data flow. Two streams of uncompressed FLAC audio tracks showed up as 3mbs. A video (mp4) shows up as 16mbs. When I start the video, it pauses a moment, then shows a message on screen in a yellow box reading: “Your connection to the server is not fast enough to stream this video. Check your network or try a lower quality.”
The message soon goes away, and everything seems to play fine with no lagging. Since this is local, my limited Comcast IPS of 10 up cannot be the problem. Might the problem be the USB 2.0 port, or the slower older external HDD, or the fact that I have only 4 gb RAM?
That’s good, I would still do the Access Point thing though, it will stop other headaches in the future…
I would point at either the USB 2.0 or the Slower HDD for sure, just not able to grab and push out the data fast enough initially for you to get a good solid stream… If it only happens at the very beginning and then plays fine after that, I probably wouldn’t worry about it too much personally, but you could always take the HDD out of the enclosure and direct attach it to your motherboard via one of your open/spare SATA ports I am sure… That would yield the best result (I recently did this with my 4 External drives and am glad I did)
Sure but thats not big 4k files going in and out, it gets force transcoded (iirc) and its clearly visible on the screen, no need to guess about it and since OP did not say so I can assume its not the case.
WAN side or not does not matter at all since its your outbound router which decides if the packets go out or stay in and that router knows about your WAN side ip and knows that it does not need to route it outside since the wan side ip is its own ip. No matter from which private subnet they come.
Where do you think the packets would go? To your GW and the GW sends them back? To your isps core router and it sends it back? to your countries ix?
That’s not guessing.
Unless he has several internet connections out of his network, that i am indeed guessing that he has not.
The media data comes straight from your plex server to your plex client. Comcast is not involved. Comcast does not host your content. Unless you are watching some web shows/podcasts/tidal in your plex.
Look, I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong here… I’ve personally had it happen…
I have a single internet connection w/ an ISP provided Modem/Router, and my own Wifi Router… I had my router setup as an Access Point, and then one day we updated the firmware… it wiped the access point settings out and I didn’t realize it before I closed the window… before long, I noticed some strange things happening, most notably with plex, my TV and anything connected to the ISP provided modem router, was going out to the internet, and then coming back in to watch my plex server, which was on my own router… It was not local traffic… Because it was a Double NAT situation at that point, the devices on one modem/router and the devices on the router were no longer on the same network, they had to go out of the modem/router combo, hit the head end, and then back into the modem/router combo to communicate with each other… It registered as internet traffic and not LAN traffic in the logs too… Luckily I realized what was going on, and re-enabled the Access Point settings on the Router and everything went back to normal…
You did not have enough info to make that call, I can assure you… you want to say you weren’t guessing, fine… Just know that you didn’t have enough information to make that call, and still don’t… And your reply to SwiftPanda tells me heaps about you… No where, not once did the OP mention 4K files, and the Plex relay service is 1Mbit for non-plex pass and 2Mbit for Plex pass… If his content is all 480p and 1Mbit x265, it doesn’t transcode… it will direct play… and 1Mbit x265 for a 480p file looks fine… Again, you’re making assumptions and guessing… But I digress… You apparently know better…
Double NAT or not makes no difference on how the router connected to the internet routes your traffic. What do you mean by “registered as internet traffic in the logs”. Just because it uses your WAN side IP as a destination and not your private subnet does not make it go outside your network. Also which logs?
Yes double NAT will make things weird, i am sure you had issues with your plex, but it does not break routing protocols. Your outbound router will NOT route it’s own ip address out, why would it, it
has no knowledge of your nat situation behind it nor does it matter.
What most likely happened in your situation was everything that was connected to your ISP Modem was connecting to your WAN IP not your internal IP since it could not see plex locally (since behind the second NAT) and used the IP provided by plex.tv which is your external WAN side ip (not your second routers IP). So your clients connect to it using your external IP but your outbound router knew it was your own ip (since it was its own ip on the wan interface) and routed it properly.
What you would see in “logs” is something like “privateIp:port -> publicIp:port” and vice versa but that does not mean it leaves your house.
So if his content is all 480p it will hardly bust is 1TB datacap, (4k maybe would, that’s why i said it) but that is not the issue at all, is it? Since we are not in a relay situation here, right? So …
The logs on the modem/router provided by my ISP, and their interface to see how much data has been used… The DOCSIS platform in most cable modems logs traffic, so does most of the routing software in the modems/routers, and if the traffic routes via the WAN address, it’s counted as wan data usage in the log entries (at least for my ISP)… Each ISP has it’s own way of calculating said data usage, or where they gather that information from… thankfully, I have no caps on my internet and the logging is just there as an extra, but their provided usage charts and logs showed the usage from my end as internet usage, because it was the modem that was keeping track of it for them, and since it was requested by the WAN IP, which is the public IP, that’s how it logged…
Also, it’s not JUST about whether or not he will hit his 1TB cap or not (though he could also be using netflix, hulu, vudu and other streaming services that would certainly get him close to that, and then start using plex when he’s nearly out of data for the month to mitigate anymore streaming usage, and 1Mbit vs 0Mbit could make all the difference in the world at that point), there are plenty of reasons you don’t want to go through Relay, or that matter if you’re local or remote… hitting 1TB cap is just one thing on a laundry list of reasons as to why you’d much rather connect locally vs remotely, analyzing traffic graphs for one… I understand where you’re coming from, but for some people, it matters if the data is registering as WAN side data usage or not… And without knowing if he’s plex relaying or not, or how his ISP calculates data usage, nor what’s where, you couldn’t make that determination… which is why I said you’re wrong… From a performance standpoint, you’re right, it doesn’t matter if it registers LAN or WAN, but it does matter for other reasons beyond just performance…
I believe you that your ISP is logging data wrong but that’s not the issue here.
You said I can not make the statement if the traffic is local or not. I said, yes I can say that and explained why it never leaves your house. Glad we finally agree and could have avoided the whole pointless discussion.
If your ISP counts data wrong, well that suckz and is certainly not the norm. Still local traffic though, never hits “a head end”, or whatever you called it, at your ISP’s side. (you can see that for yourself by spinning up a vm behind a nat, ping your external ip and unplug your router’s uplink)
Also, yeah, as i said, i was guessing at the relay situation but since its clearly very visibly shown if it happens i took a wild guess and assumed it’s not the case, as i said.
So to come back to something actually maybe useful to the OP
You can easily verify that by streaming a (big) movie in your house and check if your internet data usage has increased by the filesize of the movie, that should put the whole discussion to rest once and for all.
Also as others have said, get rid of the double NAT situation, nothing good will come from that, ever.
They’re logging it the way they choose to log it, not much anyone can do about it, I don’t disagree with you, it’s a dumb way to log data, but I don’t think they do it for any practical purposes… It’s just there as a user extra, so not much thought went into it; most likely “Hey, lets just give them a tool to read their DOCSIS diagnostics screen and make some pretty graphs with it”…
It was not and still is not entirely noticeable when you’re on relay by the way… It really does depend on what file you’re playing, and whether or not you even see the quick message that says “Unable to make a direct connection” or whatever to the Plex Server… If you’re sitting 10 feet back and toss on an anime file for 30 seconds just to test things, you definitely don’t notice it… 480, 720, or 1080 for that matter. Also, If he’s never had it any other way, he may not have ever seen what not being on Relay is like… all things you need to consider before making blanket statements and guessing at something… Your guess turned out right, but it may not the next time… that’s all I was saying
