I own a Plex server, I can always direct play my stuff remotely over any medium, while logged into my account. No problems there. Now when I log into my alternate account (an account that has no ownership over the server), everything changes. Suddenly my same 1080p/4K content that was playable before is no longer playable at anything above 720p. In the quality options of the video being played, there is nothing above 720p shown that I can switch to. In the quality settings on the main page, however, there is:
-Maximum
-20Mbps 1080p
-12Mbps 1080p
-10Mbps 1080p
-8Mbps 1080p…etc.
Changing the main settings to ANY of these resolutions does not affect any videos being played. It simply refuses to play at the correct resolution (again, this is only on the alt account.) Is this put into place to try and get more people to sign up for Plex Pass? None of the people I share my server with should ever have to buy a Plex Pass, and if it’s the case that they do, I am seriously regretting buying a lifetime pass.
there are two setting i think that affect remote play one is what you listed pick maximum.
the other is under remote select original no limit. the only limit will be your upload. try again and report back. be sure to exit and restart the plex server.
it is best to max sure your clients can direct play the files in question.
Are your videos by chance in the 1-2 Mbps range? Sounds like you are running into a remote access issue. If you don’t have remote access setup properly, then the connection will go through our Relay servers. You have a Plex Pass so you are allowed up to 2 Mbps. If your other account does not have a Plex Pass, then they will only get 1 Mbps. If your files have bitrates between these 2, you will get a direct played stream, while your other account will transcode.
Another possibility, it could be the quality settings in the clients you use. Settings are saved per user so your other account may have different settings.
If you can provide a log from one of these clients while using your alternate account, we can see what is going on.
Thank you both for your replies. I think I’ve figured out the problem . I’ve been doing my tests while at work, connected to the corporate wifi, which has firewalls that, IIRC, block certain packets. VNC is blocked as well, basically anything they think is a security risk. I didn’t consider there was any issue with that since I was actually able to access the Plex server from both accounts just fine. Hell, I’m able to access Facebook and other sites just fine as well, but certain things like VNC are blocked at the packet level, it just won’t work over the network. The packets being used to communicate with my plex server must be suspicious to the firewall. It would sometimes say I had an “indirect connection” to the plex server, and maybe that caused the issue. But either way, once I bypassed that wifi/firewall and used something else to connect to the internet (phone hotspot), the problems completely went away. My settings in both accounts were the same (just one account had plex pass and the other didn’t, and that’s the only discrepancy I thought of at the time - now I’m like “oh…of course, duh!!”). Everything works fine on both accounts. I’m still somewhat new to Plex and so I initially thought maybe non-Plex pass accounts had limited streaming options. I guess technically there is, according to what you’re saying, @anon18523487, about the 1Mbps/2Mbps thing. Thanks for the info. I believe I have remote access set up properly. Manually specified port 32400 with 40mbps upload cap set. (I used to have double NAT issues for a bit plaguing my remote access/connectivity, but got that sorted. Lol)
