Before I start my rant, and I hope to God that I’m doing something wrong and there’s a way around this, let me acknowledge the fact that I live in Iran, which means that plex.tv is blocked here to begin with – now I don’t know if Plex’s team have decided that to put a geo-IP filter, or my own gov’t is blocking the Plex’s site. In either case, I have been and still am a big fan of Plex and an early Plex user and Pass member. Since I have moved back home from the States, my experience with using Plex has gradually gone downhill. Since about year ago, first went the no-fuss metadata downloads (The Movie Database got blocked by my gov’t, and Freebase blocked access to their server for Iranian based IPs). So, I was stuck with ugly thumbnails, empty synopsis, etc., as opposed to the beautiful and insightful metadata that Plex displays. But, no matter! A simple VPN connection would fix that, though the ease of using automatic Plex library update was now gone. However, what has become far more frustrating – and my main issue – is the fact that Plex requires authentication for accessing any form of Plex service. If I want to access PMS (on localhost), it tells me that I don’t have access to the internet! Plex app on my Apple TV’s 4th gen and Xbox One both are out of commission, as the former keeps asking for a authentication code, and the latter thinks I don’t even have internet connection. If I try to setup a VPN connection on my router (be it on my PfSense firewall or a DD-WRT wireless router), it works for a little while and then it’s all back to step 1. Mobile sync doesn’t work since there needs to be an available SSL connection for me to be able to download a TV episode from my PMS to my Plex client on my iPad all within MY OWN LAN. Why? I have no use for accessing Plex remotely outside of my LAN, as internet bandwidth here is crap to begin with, and I have to pay for data transfer volume anyway. 100 bucks for the Plex pass, a few bucks for the iPhone app, a few more for the iPad app, and now nothing works, because none of the applications gets authenticated. There was a time I would gladly pay twice as much for any of the Plex services and clients, but now I am stuck with a lemon setup, that was once the jewel of my home entertainment.
On top of all this, for some odd reason, transcoding has become a nuisance for me. Playing high-quality HD files (17GB files) and MKV files of any size crashes PMS. If any of you know how I can fix the issue or bypass this enforced authentication procedure, and would help me out, I would be eternally grateful. Plex is my only source of multimedia and entertainment. Without it, I might as well toss my TV out the window or do worse switch to Kodi or something!
Following this with the hope someone smart comes along and solves this for you.
Thanks budd! You and I both!
Haven’t tried that, but does it work this way?:
Disable authentication in local network on the server.
Enter server in iOS as “manuel connection”.
Could work for local computer clients and iOS. But tvOS doesn’t have this feature.
@AgentMax said:
Haven’t tried that, but does it work this way?:
Disable authentication in local network on the server.
Enter server in iOS as “manuel connection”.
Could work for local computer clients and iOS. But tvOS doesn’t have this feature.
Hi AgentMax, have already tried that! It doesn’t work. The thing is accessing http://localhost:32400/web/index.html or 127.0.0.1/… loopback net block sometimes brings the PMS page up, and most of the time the page simply states that something has gone wrong, and that I need to check my internet connection! Really? Accessing PMS from the same machine that it’s installed on?! I get it, metadata, channels, and other internet related material need access - no internet, no perks. But requiring access to plex.tv for reaching the server itself locally, seems is a bit peculiar to me. For now, after upgrading to the latest and greatest 1.0.0.2261 version , I can get access to PMS, but devices and users tab are not accessible without first a established VPN connection. Automatic update is categorically not working since it cannot reach plex.tv servers. I have to use VPN to manually download and install the latest version of Plex PMS.
In the past, when the Plex app on tvOS was authenticated via PIN it was working fine. Then after an update, it wanted a PIN again, and now it keeps telling me uh-oh something went wrong, refresh the code!
For the rest of you guys, all of my issues are an after-thought But, I am sure there are others like me, though perhaps we’re too few to get any real attention from Plex team. I wish there was a one-time PMS authentication by plex.tv for PMS, and every other device would be authenticated in-house within the LAN and not over WAN. Now I realize that this is required for library sharing and remote access, but if one opts out of those features, one should still have the pleasure of watching his or her movies and TV episodes without any hassles even when their ISP is down!
I realize complaints would not get me anywhere. If someone wishes to ventures further into my issue, I can furnish them with logs and snapshots, and more detailed explanation of my setup. In any case, thanks.
Quick questions, which DNS are you using? ISP provided on 3rd party like google, l3 og opendns? Some of the so called “content blocking” are based on DNS and noe DPI which means you can bypass with with a simple DNS Change.
Try adding your subnett ip in List of networks that are allowed without auth under Advanced network settings, keep in mind CIDR notation. eg 192.168.1.0/24 is corresponding to 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.255
@Night said:
Quick questions, which DNS are you using? ISP provided on 3rd party like google, l3 og opendns? Some of the so called “content blocking” are based on DNS and noe DPI which means you can bypass with with a simple DNS Change.Try adding your subnett ip in List of networks that are allowed without auth under Advanced network settings, keep in mind CIDR notation. eg 192.168.1.0/24 is corresponding to 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.255
@Night said:
Quick questions, which DNS are you using? ISP provided on 3rd party like google, l3 og opendns? Some of the so called “content blocking” are based on DNS and noe DPI which means you can bypass with with a simple DNS Change.Try adding your subnett ip in List of networks that are allowed without auth under Advanced network settings, keep in mind CIDR notation. eg 192.168.1.0/24 is corresponding to 192.168.1.0-192.168.1.255
Hi Night,
I use three ISPs that are setup as MultiWAN. Each ISP’s DNS is overriding what I have manually setup as general DNS fallback. But essentially, as the third and fourth static DNS I use Google’s public DNS addresses. I did try “List of network that are allowed with authorization” in the past, however it didn’t help then. I am familiar with CIDR. Will give it another try now. Thanks.
Update: Nope. Didn’t help. I do remember why I disabled (erased the IP/Subnet) it. It was because of this article that I read in the past. But it is from long time ago , so things might have changed: https://forums.plex.tv/discussion/49545/list-of-networks-that-are-allowed-without-auth
Update # 2: BTW, When Plex home is enabled it ignores the values in “List of networks that are allowed without auth,” from what I remember. I did disable Plex Home, but that got me into more trouble.
Well there you have one issue, MultiWAN, LACP and other services that link multiple connections from different gws is a pain in the ass when you are on the same ISP, since you are on three different ISPs, you need to have one way for Plex to respond to only one IP, eg if you put plex in a jail with a VPN to an external vpn privder that can give you an dedicated external IPv4. I would say IPv6 but sadly Plex does not yet have proper IPv6.
Not everyone knows how to correctly apple /24 /16 or /8s so it is faster to explain once than having to go back and do it.
pfSense doesn’t have LACP capability. It use round-robin protocol. So essentially, unless Plex is filling up one pipeline to spillover to the next (which is not the case here) it should always use the assigned primary / default gateway (one ISP, same ISP, always), which means it talks over the internet through one interface. I don’t think that would be the cause of this. I might be wrong though. I can use Wireshark to see what PMS does, but that’s a bit above my pay-grade.
So correct me if i am wrong
WAN 1-
WAN 2 ---- pfsense(natting)- Switch – your plex server IP 192.168.1.x )
WAN 3 -/
Have you added all ports to pfsense firewall?
Is WAN1 in bridge mode (good isp) or nat(not so good isp)? how about WAN2 and 3?
Attached you can find a snapshot of my LAN firewall rules within pfSense. Also, an older network diagram.
None of the eth interaces (WANs) are in bridge mode. All are standalone of PPPoE connection ranging from 6Mb/s to 9MB/s. The default gateway is the best connection I have. Thank you for all your efforts helping me out.
You have given me some to contemplate on. Lets play a game of elimination, can you direct connect one of the WANs to plexserver without pfsense? What is the ip address you obtain from those wans are they public or private ips?
Did you ever get this solved?
Hi! Sorry, I hadn’t been around. Nope. Actually since the latest update, it has gotten worse. Plex apps on my iOS devices now don’t stream videos regardless of format or size. The wheel keeps spinning and then in case of TV series, the app decides to go to the next episode, doing the same thing. I realize that this has nothing to do with the other issue, but my Plex misfortunes are piling up. Actually, I don’t like to blame Plex blindly. Recently I changed my wireless router. I have invested in a new Linksys WRT 1900ACS, so that I could install dd-wrt on it. I have changed the routing configuration of the wireless router from Gateway mode to Router mode, and have also configured it to forward DHCP. I also have manually set the wireless channel width to VHT 80. These new settings could have caused issues for my portable devices to talk through the wireless AP. Although with the rest of the apps installed my iPad and iPhone work just fine, it’s just the iOS Plex app that’s having issues. I haven’t reverted back to the old stock wireless router (an EA 6900) as to see if things get working again…Will report back.
