I am overseas at the moment and use a travel router as an access point to connect to the wifi of the nice lady downstairs (I pay her every month for the privilege). Since the infrastructure around here isn’t very good, the internet cutting out isn’t unheard of. Today for example, it went out and I wasn’t able to watch anything on the Plex app on my iPhone even though both the phone and the computer were connected to the travel router. Here’s a really crude drawing of the setup http://i.imgur.com/OJnH4no.jpg
Is Plex dependent on the internet to work even though I was trying to stream on the LAN?
@mrsky said:
I am overseas at the moment and use a travel router as an access point to connect to the wifi of the nice lady downstairs (I pay her every month for the privilege). Since the infrastructure around here isn’t very good, the internet cutting out isn’t unheard of. Today for example, it went out and I wasn’t able to watch anything on the Plex app on my iPhone even though both the phone and the computer were connected to the travel router. Here’s a really crude drawing of the setup http://i.imgur.com/OJnH4no.jpg
Is Plex dependent on the internet to work even though I was trying to stream on the LAN?
For Secure Connections DNS lookup is needed to translate plex.direct url’s to IP address - some info does get cached and some client apps are able to do more than others. But I suggest is disabling Secure Connections on the server. Other dependency on the internet is if you add authentication of managed users / Plex Home / pin to the account and user authentication is done through plex.tv but there is some caching - and also options for automatic sign in
For Secure Connections DNS lookup is needed to translate plex.direct url’s to IP address - some info does get cached and some client apps are able to do more than others. But I suggest is disabling Secure Connections on the server. Other dependency on the internet is if you add authentication of managed users / Plex Home / pin to the account and user authentication is done through plex.tv but there is some caching - and also options for automatic sign in
I went ahead and disabled Secure Connections. It was set on “Preferred” not “Required”. Would that still cause issues?
A new problem appeared. After disabling Secure Connections, video was stuttering bad. I checked the processes and “PlexNewTranscoder” was taxing the CPU pretty bad. I then set Secure Connections to Preferred and the stuttering went away. Is this common?
For Secure Connections DNS lookup is needed to translate plex.direct url’s to IP address - some info does get cached and some client apps are able to do more than others. But I suggest is disabling Secure Connections on the server. Other dependency on the internet is if you add authentication of managed users / Plex Home / pin to the account and user authentication is done through plex.tv but there is some caching - and also options for automatic sign in
I went ahead and disabled Secure Connections. It was set on “Preferred” not “Required”. Would that still cause issues?
Yes when set to preferred the client apps would try to use secure connections
A new problem appeared. After disabling Secure Connections, video was stuttering bad. I checked the processes and “PlexNewTranscoder” was taxing the CPU pretty bad. I then set Secure Connections to Preferred and the stuttering went away. Is this common?
Strange - May be you have DNS rebinding protection and it is using the public IP route to get through to the server when secure connections enabled and thus look like remote connection and applies the quality settings for that
You could tweak those settings and see if it makes a difference when secure connections disabled
Strange - May be you have DNS rebinding protection and it is using the public IP route to get through to the server when secure connections enabled and thus look like remote connection and applies the quality settings for that
You could tweak those settings and see if it makes a difference when secure connections disabled
Sorry but what specific settings are you referring to that I could tweak? I’m assuming you’re speaking of the Advanced Network Settings?
Strange - May be you have DNS rebinding protection and it is using the public IP route to get through to the server when secure connections enabled and thus look like remote connection and applies the quality settings for that
You could tweak those settings and see if it makes a difference when secure connections disabled
Sorry but what specific settings are you referring to that I could tweak? I’m assuming you’re speaking of the Advanced Network Settings?
This is all theory at this moment. No I was not referring to Network Settings. I was thinking of Player settings in the Plex client app - not sure which you are using - but if it was Plex Web App, it would be Settings / Web / Player and the Quality options.
The theory that I had and it is only a theory is that when Secure Connections were enabled, you had DNS Rebinding Protection in your router on the local plex.direct url and the Plex Web client app got through using the public IP instead and thus would be using the remote quality setting when playing and may be that has a bearing on the transcoding cpu usage. It is only a thought, So when secure connections disabled, try different values for the Settings / Web / Player / Local Quality setting to see if it affects the transcode cpu usage.
Second this. Highly annoying that the net cuts out and I can’t use plex from my own server on my own network. I have set the ‘private server address’ even and it won’t work. I do have several profiles because I have a partner and a kid that like to be able to keep track of their own shows and what they have and haven’t watched before. I don’t see why authentication can’t be handled locally for existing accounts. I would expect a new profile to get authentication from the remote server the first time to make sure it’s not being duped somehow but after that it should be handed off to the local/users server.
I have plex on a $3k NAS and have 3x ps4’s that all run it. I am a lifetime pass holder. I would appreciate not being cut off my own services when the net goes off.
I hate this behavior. I live in an area where my internet connectivity isnt the greatest at times, and I have been very frustrated with this design. The best workaround (and its not the greatest) is to make sure the dlna server is enabled in plex and find a dlna browser/player to use as a client… It is ugly browsing folders in a dlna client… but you can get to the video content that way.
@montys said:
I hate this behavior. I live in an area where my internet connectivity isnt the greatest at times, and I have been very frustrated with this design. The best workaround (and its not the greatest) is to make sure the dlna server is enabled in plex and find a dlna browser/player to use as a client… It is ugly browsing folders in a dlna client… but you can get to the video content that way.
I am in such an area at this moment where my internet for my farmhouse is through my 3G Mobile network hotspot and it is not always getting a good 3G connection despite the RFAerial and RF Repeater - and I have no problems with my local temporary Plex Media Server.
I had to disable Secure Connections on the server since DNS Lookup was not always avaialable and I do not have managed users or pins on account needing access to plex.tv. So it can be done and it is reliable.
Occasionally the LG TV may lose its local network connection (may be to doi with unexpected occasional power cuts in the area) and unfortunately the LG TV does not succeed in establishing a local network connection unless it gets through a check on DNS and Internet connection - so at this point the internet has to be a live for a short moment - after that local access to the server works without any issues. Other Plex Apps on the roku and Android are also working fine. And so is Plex Web on local laptop
Strange - May be you have DNS rebinding protection and it is using the public IP route to get through to the server when secure connections enabled and thus look like remote connection and applies the quality settings for that
You could tweak those settings and see if it makes a difference when secure connections disabled
Sorry but what specific settings are you referring to that I could tweak? I’m assuming you’re speaking of the Advanced Network Settings?
This is all theory at this moment. No I was not referring to Network Settings. I was thinking of Player settings in the Plex client app - not sure which you are using - but if it was Plex Web App, it would be Settings / Web / Player and the Quality options.
The theory that I had and it is only a theory is that when Secure Connections were enabled, you had DNS Rebinding Protection in your router on the local plex.direct url and the Plex Web client app got through using the public IP instead and thus would be using the remote quality setting when playing and may be that has a bearing on the transcoding cpu usage. It is only a thought, So when secure connections disabled, try different values for the Settings / Web / Player / Local Quality setting to see if it affects the transcode cpu usage.
I played around with quality settings to no avail. I’m running a 3rd gen core i3 which has never had any issues. Remembering now, I believe I switched over to the VLC app on my iPhone temporarily because it can access the Plex server and it was working more smoothly if I remember correctly. I’ll keep playing around with the settings just in case.
Is it possible to suggest this as a change? To basically automatically change whatever configuration is necessary when the internet goes out so it all still works on the LAN without having to manually change settings. I ask because it’s a bit of a pain to figure out how to make it work when you just want to watch something.
