Using Plex Server with Google WiFi - Double NAT

Plex Media Server Desktops & Laptops
21

I have Comcast, and like @tcmalive I tried the port forwarding and changed DNS to my ISPs and now I’m good!

22

Thank you for that suggestion. This was the only thing I hadn’t tried yet. Making the same change stabilized my external reachability.

The bad thing is that the Google WiFi system will use the ISP DNS only if Google DNS is too slow, so by not changing anything in the router or Plex, we would/should experience intermittent success with external reachability as the router network adjusts it’s DNS source.

I’m a seasoned network manager, and a setting like DNS impacting success of port forwarding is not in the top of the list a network manager would look for. There are many misleading suggestions by other people here that don’t actually understand what port forwarding is, how it works, and what it’s limits are. I hope that most don’t become frustrated by reading the misleading posts. Unfortunately there’s no way to definitively identify the quality of responses for individual viewers/readers in a forum like this, as there are so many variables and differences in each unique network setup. My best advice is to trust the info provided by Plex, and when that doesn’t work, only try the advice that is not yet covered by Plex, like this DNS suggestion. Most of the other people are identifying the same things to troubleshoot that Plex does, and it’s helpful to see the exact steps sometime for specific ISP setups, but the extra comments about how NAT works and that double-NAT is a “problem” should not be taken as the gospel. Double-NAT and even triple or more layers of “inception” are not a technical problem in the hands of an experienced user, but it’s of course easy to point a finger at things that are not understood.

Okay, that’s enough of a rant for now. I found this single post most helpful of all the posts in this thread, so thank you @tcmalive!

23

I may have spoken too soon. This appears to have stabilized my system only for a couple of hours. Back to the drawing board.

24

I have AT&T fiber and none of your modems are looking like mine. I see no options for what you are writing.

For me I went to: http://192.168.1.254/cgi-bin/apphosting.ha

So what I have done was enabled ports 32400 inside of my att modem for my google wifi IP. I then also enabled the same thing inside google wifi.

It is now working fine now for all my users. That’s literally all I had to do. Plex even says its good to go.

25

It was a pain in the ass for a while, but after I installed the Google Wifi, it reset my network settings on my PC running the Plex server i.e. it turned off Network Discovery. As soon as I turned this back on, everything worked properly again!

26

This is the post that finally got me up and running. I have AT&T DSL with Arris BGW-210 Gateway, and here are the steps I used…

  1. Login to AT&T router and put into Bridge Mode (also turned off Wi-Fi)… https://forums.att.com/t5/AT-T-Internet-Equipment/Connect-Google-Wifi-to-ARRIS-BGW210-700-router/td-p/5704670

  2. Update Port Forwarding in AT&T router since it now needs to point to the IP for the Google Puck the Plex Server is connected to (use Google Puck IP).

  3. Add Port Forwding to Google Wifi for Plex Server (use Plex Server IP).

I’ll note that I also messed around with some of the other Google Wifi settings as indicated by this thread, but once I figured out the key step I was missing (step #2), I was able to reset those settings back to there defaults. Namely… DNS was moved back to “Automatic”, Port Forwarding is “TCP”, and UPnP is “Enabled”.

I hope this helps!

27

Wow, after a day trying to bridge modem with google wifi and all different variations of settings, it was this and media sharing windows setting that fixed the issue!

28

This worked for me! Disabled Privacy Badger and once the page refreshed she worked!!

29

I noticed today that I haven’t been able to see my Plex outside of my network since setting up Google Wifi.

I tried the steps above with changing to my ISP’s DNS, however the solution was to fix a mismatch between Plex and Google Wifi. I had IPV6 enabled in Plex however not on Google Wifi.

After enabling IPV6 I was able to go to Port Forwarding, and open 32400.
Once I opened 32400 via IPV6 instead of the local IP, I was able to reach my plex externally.

30

This worked for me!

  1. Open Google WiFi App
  2. Select Network & Settings
  3. Select Advanced Networking
  4. Enable IPv6
  5. Select Port Management
  6. Select PLEX Connected Server
  7. Select TCP & UDP
  8. Input 32400 to both blanks
  9. Restart PLEX

Hope this helps someone else!

3 Likes
31

I bought Google Wifi recently and i’m trying to get remote access sorted on Plex. I did the above but it didn’t work - i don’t think my ISP supports IPv6 (says on my Google Wifi that it’s on but cannot be used. I then did an IPv6 test on a browser and i don’t appear to have it). Any ideas?

32

All fixed. I did the above but with IPv4 and then changed the IPv4 properties on my computer, changing them from “obtain IP address automatically” to “use the following IP address” and entered the relevant info

33

I spoke too soon, it dropped out again and i can’t reconnect.

A bit of background: I have a WiFi PCI card but i don’t use it and instead directly connect with an ethernet cable which. This used to run directly to my router via a TP Link powerline. Now i have setup Google Wifi, it runs to the router in my study.

I set up the above using the ethernet IP address in the cmd prompt, which matches the one on Plex. When it dropped out, I disabled the WiFi connection on my computer as i think it was probably connecting via WiFi. Now my computer is only connected with the ethernet cable, I checked the IP address doing another ipconfig and checked the port forwarding details were correct and they all are.

No joy though, any ideas?

35

Thank you for this!! I’ve been trying to enable remote access for weeks with my Google WiFi and nothing has worked. I felt like I tried everything and read every post and nothing worked. Setting the DNS to use my ISPs instead of Google’s worked perfectly.

36

Dang it - spoke too soon. Got home from work and remote access isn’t working again, didn’t make any changes.

I know this is a very old post but has anyone else has this issue / found a solution? Very frustrating to say the least…

37

After running into this problem and looking through this thread I was able to get things working on my end by setting things up like this:

  • I have my Cable Modem and Primary Google AP plugged into my router.
  • I have an extra switch which I then plugged into the Primary Google AP
  • All my other devices were then connected into the switch, including the Plex Server.
  • In the google WiFi app
    • I changed my Router LAN Address to 192.168.6.1
    • I reserved my Plex Server’s IP address 192.168.6.55
    • I then port forwarded port 32400 to my Plex Server
  • On my router:
    • Not sure if this is necessary, but on my router I modified my subnet mask as shown here and limited the max number of users so that it would account for the IP’s on the Google network. In the networking section of Google WiFi app this will report that there is an overlap in IP address space with the WAN (router).
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    • I then port forwarded port 32400 to the Primary Google AP’s IP Address.
      image
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  • The end result was that my Plex Server is now accessible externally:
38

Try disabling any adblock extensions. tried everything on this forum with no luck and finally gave that a shot and it worked

39

I found that after switching from my Asus router to Google Wi-Fi, Windows computers changed from private to public network-settings. This meant that windows was blocking incomming connections. I bet Firewall is the culprit.
The first thing you should check is if your network connetion on your plex server is public or private.

And just for good measure, add a new inbound rule in your Windows firewall

40

Hi Everyone,

I’m having this issue, and I’ve tried many of the solutions presented in the Plex guide and in this thread and can’t figure it out.

I’m using a Nvidia Shield as my Plex Server. In a lot of these threads, it talks about not using Google WIFI settings, but bridging directly to the ISP router.

I have SILVER IP in a condo, and the main Google WIFI device is my router. It’s plugged into the jack in my wall, and that’s the source.

Any thoughts or suggestions? I’m paying for PLEX Pass, but I can’t use it.

Thanks,

41

This worked for me. Thanks!