@ChuckPa - Just an update, seems this was a temporary network issue to get my Plex Media Server’s external IP. I have enabled remote access again and am able to connect internally and externally to my Plex Media Server. Thanks again for fixing my cert download issue earlier!
J
Hi @ChuckPa - It appears the issue has come back again…not sure how/why but I am unable to resolve/connect to plex.tv and my library is not available remotely. Can you check if I need to reconfigure my Plex media server again (downloading cert-v2.p12 in the process etc.)? The problem appears to be caused when my Plex Media Server “loses” its ability to be accessible to the outside world after a couple of days (or less) even though no changes were made in my router/firewall etc.
For now I have removed/disabled Remote access on the PMS and PMS starts as usual and I can access (locally) my music library.
I found this error as well during startup in the Plex Media Server log but plex.tv resolves without issue from the command line on my Plex Media server linux machine:
Jul 30, 2025 09:05:10.660 [281472886624480] WARN - [HttpClient/HCl#2] HTTP error requesting GET https://plex.tv/api/v2/server/access_tokens?auth_token=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (6, Couldn’t resolve host name) (Could not resolve host: plex.tv)
Thank you!
John
That’s a DNS lookup problem between the computer, local modem/router, and the ISP.
Without it being able to lookup the IP address, nothing will work.
Eventually, even local will fail because it cannot authenticate.
Thanks - so, just a temporary issue with resolving plex.tv? I tried curl -v https://v4.plex.tv/pms/:/ip and my external IP was returned with no DNS lookup issue from the PMS server.
I am trying to isolate the cause of this lookup issue and it seems there is something being blocked as part of the remote connection worker lookup process in Plex…would verbose logging help? I see there are a cluster of IPs that are part of this remote access service that need access (I have allowed those to be accessible to the PMS). I will open a new thread on this issue, thanks!
John
At the terminal window, you can diagnose the DNS a bit
The second argument in the nslookup command is where to query for the IP
[chuck@lizum Databases.2069]$ nslookup plex.tv
Server: 127.0.0.53
Address: 127.0.0.53#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: plex.tv
Address: 54.73.99.55
Name: plex.tv
Address: 54.72.14.50
[chuck@lizum Databases.2070]$ nslookup plex.tv 1.1.1.1
Server: 1.1.1.1
Address: 1.1.1.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: plex.tv
Address: 54.72.14.50
Name: plex.tv
Address: 54.73.99.55
[chuck@lizum Databases.2071]$
This lets you know if there’s a local outage or deliberate block.
Thank you for that - I checked again from the Plex Media server:
sudo nslookup plex.tv 1.1.1.1
Server: 1.1.1.1
Address: 1.1.1.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: plex.tv
Address: 54.72.14.50
Name: plex.tv
Address: 54.73.99.55
I also tested this from my local PMS DNS server (192.168.5.1):
sudo nslookup plex.tv
Server: 192.168.5.1
Address: 192.168.5.1#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: plex.tv
Address: 54.72.14.50
Name: plex.tv
Address: 54.73.99.55
Looking at the logs, it appears there is a “reachability” check that occurs every time I click on the ‘Remote Access’ menu in the PMS Settings web menu. If it has been too “soon”, it won’t try to establish reachability but if I click on the ‘Apply’ button, it will attempt to establish reachability and then goes into a fail loop trying to reach plex.tv.
I also noticed that the update check is failing to resolve (intermittently):
GET https://plex.tv/updater/products/5/check.xml?build=linux-aarch64&channel.
I added additional external IPs to my firewall allow list but this reachability test keeps failing.
Did you block the plex.tv IPs which perform the Remote Access test ?
The required IPs for RA testing are here;
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/plex-sidekiq-servers-list/sidekiqIPs.txt
No - I did not block these and it appears the vod.plex.tv was having issues resolving as well and so I added explicit Allow rules for the following IPs:
54.170.120.91
46.51.207.89
plex.tv
vod.provider.plex.tv
104.18.36.51
172.64.151.205
For now, no issues with Remote Access…however once that Reachability timer expires and or I click on ‘Apply’ for the manual external port I have configured…probably will break again.
John
I’ve looked at Plex.tv.
Your server is currently PUBLISHED status.
Remote Access port is 50000.
Is this correct?
Yes, that is correct and is currently working (remote access).
Leave it be.
Clicking “Apply” or “Retry” breaks the connection abruptly and then tries to force a reconnect (doesn’t work on all systems due to socket timeout limits)
The safest to do is a proper restart of PMS through systemd.
Ok, I will keep that in mind and next time if the Remote Access breaks, try a systemd restart of PMS. Strange thing is that I notice when I click on General in the setting sidebar, PMS always checks for a new software update and sometimes that shows a new update is available even though I am already running the latest ‘Public’ release of PMS. When I then click away and back on General, says my server is “up-to-date”. Without changing any firewall rules and looking at the console logs, the console log message when it said I had an update to install was that PMS could not connect to the update.plex.tv server.
In your SERVER settings
Server update Channel: Public
If you’ve installed a version which does not match (regardless higher or lower), it will tell you there’s an update.
It’s not doing a numeric comparison. It’s doing a simpleton string comparison
Linux machines don’t have privilege to update themselves. (needs root. PMS runs unprivileged)
Right, my server is running a Ubuntu repo standard release for arm7 - v. 1.41.9.9961. The behavior when the Remote Access stops working is that this software update “fails” initially then after 2 refreshes of the General page, shows my server is “Up-To-Date”.
The PMS hardware is a raspberry pi (4) which does throw X-Header errors when communicating with Plex (Plex doesn’t like my concatenated ‘raspberry-pi jb-pi-media’ for some reason (spaces in value sent?).
Summary
This text will be hidden
X-Header errors are because of embedded spaces in names and strings where not allowed / expected,
I have ARM hosts here. Names, without spaces, no issues.
Linux prefers simple names . Chuck_is_a_... will work where Chuck is a ... won’t.
HTTP is the same way (those X-Headers)
Keep names Simple. Use CamelHumpNames if you need to.
Hi - so X-plex-device always returns [Req#71a4f] [HttpHeader] invalid ‘X-Plex-Device’ header value (Raspberry Pi 4 Model B Rev 1.4)’ - sorry for confusion on my hostname and the error thrown. The x-plex-device string is coming from the Pi hardware itself (raspi-config can’t change this either). My Linux hostname ‘jb-pi-media’ is not causing any error message. The error thrown occurs every time when I click on the General page or click on Check for Update.
OK, thanks for explaining.
There are things about PI boxes which are fairly non-standard.
It sounds like this is one of them.
If it’s a real problem, I’ll write it up and see what they can do with it.
Thanks for the offer to do that…for now, this error doesn’t appear to affect anything…just noticed it during this process of troubleshooting how/why the Remote Access feature was breaking. I will try the systemd restart if the Remote Access stops working . I can get the Remote Access in PMS to work just trying to minimize steps taken to get it going e.g. restart, firewall changes, etc.
Hi - it seems my plex server is unreachable again remotely. I restarted and reset my Preferences.xml to try and get it added again to my account but I am unable to add it to my Plex account - just shows “Add your media to Plex” when clicking on Settings. Does my account PMS token need to be reset?
NOTE: I was seeing the same errors noted earlier, before I tried removing/re-adding the server to my Plex account (unable to resolve plex.tv, state: Mapped, but not reachable, etc.). Media was accessible and no errors loading from LAN but as soon as I tried force a custom port mapping (same port that was mapped before this broke) in the admin, PMS would just endlessly try to connect.
I went ahead and restored my original Preferences.xml and restarted - but still unable to enable Remote Access. Error says PMS is unable to GET https://v4.plex.tv/pms/:/ip
but when I run this from Plex Media Server command line: curl https://v4.plex.tv/pms/:/ip - it returns my external IP address (no error).
Thank you!
J
You posted the above 14 minutes ago. 10 minutes ago your server contacted Plex.tv.
Your server did report with a California USA IPv4 address
Will need to see logs (DEBUG, after restarting PMS) to see what’s happening)
