I have been a Plex user for years. Ran the server on my PC, stored my media on the PC and sometimes on my WDMyCloud drive. All worked well. Lately, I decided to upgrade to Plex Pass. We go RVing a lot and thought it would be nice to access our media remotely. Even bought a lifetime membership. I also bought a new Nvidia Shield player for my main 4K TV. Then the nightmare began.
I have never, except for a fleeting second or two, been able to enable remote access on my desktop server. I have been and tried every troubleshooting procedure and YouTube video I could find. I would flash “Success” then change to “Failed” a second later. Out of desperation, I enabled Plex server on my new Shield. That created many problems like “can’t find this server or that server”. In the end, I had to uninstall my desktop server, enable the server on shield, map my media storage to shield, and build new libraries there. Oh, and remote access worked without a hitch, BOOM, WORKING. Only problem, only about half of my movies can play on Shield as the “codec failed to load or is missing”. Still haven’t resolved that, too frustrated to continue at the moment. Then I thought I would try Plex Cloud, linking it to my Onedrive account. Only problem, whatever is loaded in the Onedrive cloud, must also be loaded to your desktop Onedrive folder. You can’t have them only on the onedrive cloud as Plex Cloud seems to think. Onedrive is worthless in this application. I would be much more simple if the Plex desktop server remote access would work, all of these other complications would go away. The I could go back to using my Roku players that don’t have codec problems.
- Plex Pass is not required for remote access.
- There are many reasons remote access wouldn’t work, such as Double NAT (2 local routers needing ports forwarded), Carrier Grade NAT (from your ISP), Router doesn’t support uPnP properly, so ports need to be forwarded manually. These are things that require end user intervention whether it be properly configuring the router or trying to get your ISP to give you a static address (or at least one not NATed). Have you read the support document for Troubleshooting Remote Access?
- When you get the “codec failed to load or is missing” are you connected to the internet? Plex downloads the codecs as needed, so if it runs into a file that it doesn’t have the codec for it goes and downloads it. If you are connected to the internet, posting for assistance in the Shield subforum would be a good start.
- OneDrive - I believe in this case you are incorrect. You can set your local computer to ignore specific folders on OneDrive. In File Explorer find the “OneDrive” node and right click on it and select “Choose OneDrive folders to sync”. This will bring up a dialog and you can uncheck folders you do not want to download to save space. In this case you need to make sure you are uploading via the web interface however because the location will not be sync’d to your local hard drive.
I think I hit most of your points. Hopefully we can try to help you get things running the way you want, but we need more information about your setup to really troubleshoot.
Evidently, you did not read my post very carefully. I have tried all of the troubleshooting documents you have listed. I am connected to the internet, the codecs don’t load, even when I perform and analysis as plex documentation suggests. On Onedrive, I will try what you suggest, but the vast community forums for onedrive said those options went away with the advent of windows 10. But I’ll try.
I don’t claim to be a plex ninja, just a simple user with above average computer skills. I was not aware that I could reach my movies outside of my network without plex pass.
OneDrive, you are correct. You can go into windows explorer’s onedrive folder and tell it what folders not to sync. I did that and it worked. thank you.
Well, after several days of fighting plex server, it seems uninstalling it again, waiting a couple days, then reinstalling it, it corrected itself. Remote access loaded up right off the bat. Didn’t have to do anything. I can’t explain what just happened, but I’ll take it.
Glad you got back up and running.
Spoke too soon. One day later, the desktop server is dead to the world. Won’t connect. It won’t even download the posters and info on my library. I try switching to the Android Shield TV server and it can’t reach it. There is something amiss. Going to leave it alone for a couple days. Going camping.
i am from Canada and after i paid for a year i found it was not working as i could not access my account. So I phoned and was rudely told since my computer was hacked from someone in Mexico which is false and was told not to call anymore. I do hope that I get my money back as I only had a Plex account for 3 days. The people at Plex came across as a bunch of scammers
Plex does not have a support phone number so I have to wonder who it was that you called and why you called them and where the phone number came from.
i phoned [number removed]. It is it possible to get my account working
Where did you get that number? I cannot verify any info that it is at all related to Plex.
on the internet Good news, I got my account working
only thing is every time i go on it says my account was hacked from Mexico. I contacted Google and they said for me to change my password which i did. Can i change my password with my Plex account or create a new one
Sure you can change you password anytime you want.
However that phone number is NOT Plex so I would pretty much ignore anything that is said.
A typical internet scam is to impersonate tech support for some company and the somehow draw unsuspecting users into revealing information or paying for services.
Plex has NO phone support so whoever you are talking to is trying to scam you.
Also Google has nothing to do with Plex.
These forums are the only support Plex has and most of the folks that post here are simply users that try to help others. From time to time a Plex employee will answer questions and there are “Ninjas” that have extra knowledge and powers but, in general, the support here is all you get.
Thanks, I didchange my password no works awesome
