Why won't PLex work under a VPN?

Plex Players Desktop Players
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My HDD is connected to my new Mac, it runs under a VPN but why wont plex work at my house directly connected??

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I’m assuming you mean a commercial VPN, such as Nord, Proton, ExpressVPN, etc. that you are using to mask your public IP address .

VPNs create an encryted network tunnel between your device and a remote server managed by your commercial VPN company. Almost all commercial VPNs clients (such as you have installed on your Mac) will force all of your computer’s network traffic through that tunnel, so that all of your Mac’s network traffic enters/exits though a VPN server remote from your local network. This means there is no network path for your Plex clients on your local network to connect directly to your Mac on your local network - the VPN client blocks that and there is no way for that traffic to get to your Mac except to traverse the internet via remote access or the Plex indirect connection to your VPN company’s server.

Typically VPN clients will allow you to specify network traffic that you want to allow from your local network. At a minimum you need to allow port 32400/tcp in the VPN client on your Mac from your local network to get a direct connection.

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Thanks! Makes sense now.

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