It sounds like more and more people are getting stuck with PLEX not being remotely accessible due to Carrier Grade NAT, with more and more ISP’s turning to it. Depending on the system you use there might be a workaround here or there, but some setups seem pretty impossible to get working. On top of that I’m sure there are many who, while they may have systems where a workaround is possible, they simply don’t have the know-how to make it work.
I feel like the guys and gals at PLEX are a pretty resourceful bunch and I’m sure devoting a little time to this problem would yield successful results, and like I say it’s something that’s only going to be greater in demand as time goes on.
I myself run PLEX off a QNAP NAS, and the only way I might be able to get accessible externally is by somehow installing and using ngrok, but doing so in the QNAP OS environment is no easy feat (at least not for me thus far).
If there’s something out there already which sounds like it will work when set up correctly, surely this means that something should be possible to be built in to PLEX?
Yes we’re slowly (or in some places, rapidly) moving towards a world where consumer connections are behind CG-NAT for IPv4.
Roughly there are three main cases here:
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single stack IPv4 behind CG-NAT: this is mainly mobile networks, but increasingly households are using 4G routers to replace fixed lines. Plex could do two things to work through CG-NAT here: tunnelling, which they do with Plex Relay (max 2 Mbit though) or UDP hole punching, which is difficult as Plex currently is TCP-based.
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dual stack IPv4+v6, with IPv4 behind CG-NAT (this is called DS-Lite). This is where DSL/Cable/Fibre is going, and millions of people are already in this situation. Plex Relay still works in this case, but the future here for Plex is fully supporting IPv6 without the current manual workarounds (getting your own domain name, setting up an AAAA record, set custom server addresses in PMS). There’s a feature request here, so please vote: https://forums.plex.tv/t/ipv6-support-for-myplex/
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single stack IPv6 with CG-NAT64/DNS64. This is how most mobile operators are rolling out IPv6 now, so this is what households behind a 4G/5G connection will work with. Since NAT64 is carrier grade, this means no portmapping and incoming IPv4 connections. So again, proper IPv6 support is the way forward.
Can you not just put your modem in bridge mode and use your own router to bypass this? I did at least. Or am I off topic from what you are referring to.
Indeed, bridge mode doesn’t help if your ISP does NAT further upstream.
A very well-written out explanation to the whole scenario, thank you.
My situation is that hardline broadband is pants in my area so I’m using a 4G SIM in a SIM-enabled router. It works great in terms of far faster DL and UL speeds than I’d get with a hardline, but didn’t even know about CG-NAT until I started to try figuring out why my remote access was no longer working LOL. And after just checking, I’m not given an IPv6 address, so I can’t look into the second option (though will vote because - like you say - it’s the way things are/have to go).
So now I’m trying to get my head around ngrok, which would be easy if not for the fact my PLEX server is a QNAP NAS which doesn’t make terminal/SSH-based utilities easy to use.
Plex Relay would likely be fine for my needs, but I just don’t seem to be able to get that to work either - as far as I can tell I just need the secure connection setting set to “Required” or “Preferred”, (mine’s on the latter), but no dice.
Here’s hoping for a breakthrough 
I’m in the same situation as you, 4G internet is 10x faster than my DSL but being behind CG-NAT sucks. For what it’s worth, Plex Relay does work reliably for me (I’ve got Plex Pass though) with secure connections set to “Preferred”.
Bear in mind that even when Plex Relay is active & works, your PMS will in the web view still report a red circle behind Remote Access and claim to be “Not available outside your network” even though it is. All my clients outside the network (Phone, PC at work, etc) can access the library and stream just fine.
Setting up a tunnel like ngrok or VPN (OpenVPN, IKEv2, etc) into a server that is not behind CG-NAT is indeed also an option, not very easy to set up unfortunately.
IPV6 Fully Working now officially.
How exactly does this work?
I used to be on fiber network but after moving houses and having to cut costs we switched to a 5G router and ever since the Plex server hasn’t been great to use remotely. I have a lot of friends and family that I share my server with that slowly stopped using my server cause Plex was either not working and if it was it be unwatchable.
My solution since then was to switched to Cloudflare tunnel but then my account got blacklisted after 6 months so switched to Tail scale. So it kind of works but the speeds are still barely passable. With Tail scale VPN it works fine for me personally but that won’t work for my friends and family.
I heard the new changes to Ipv6 should fix that but I also know it existed before so what’s really different here?
Which 5G provider are you on? Even with ipv6, some block/restrict incoming traffic through the firewall. TMobile Home Internet, for example, won’t allow it.
Also, what’s different now is that plex will monitor the ipv6 address and update as needed vs previously you had to use your own method of monitoring the address for any changes and make use of the custom server access url field. In addition, the new experience mobile app supports ipv6, previously I believe it did not, I could be wrong on that. As others apps get updated to the new experience, they will also support it if they currently don’t, hopefully.
Im not in the US. So documentation for my 5G router is really niche since I live in the UAE. Our ISP either gives you some cheap router that has some bottleneck like only supporting Wifi 5 so we got our own router that atleast supports Wifi 6. Either way that’s not relevant to Plex. The router itself is by Huawei so yeah finding any information about it is rough and even if the router itself doesn’t have any restriction the ISP itself might be restricting.
Even after setting up a tailscale VPN Plex can barely play a 4k 20mbps file
It’s less about the model router vs what the isp allows. Though the router would have to have the option to set it up. Should check with them or provide the name of the isp so we can possibly search for an answer as well on if they allow incoming traffic over ipv6.
If it’s been slow over tailscale, it will likely also be slow that way, it if it’s allowed.
In the UAE, there is really only 2 ISPs. Either Etisalat or Du, but my ISP is Virgin Mobile which is essentially just under Du’s infrastructure.
I would try looking at https://test-ipv6.com/ and see what that tells you.
If you have an ipv6 address, might be easier to just try to set it up and see if it allows the incoming connection. Check your routers firewall settings for an ipv6 section and allow 32400 to your servers address.
Couldn’t find a clear answer in a quick search if DU’s 5G service blocks incoming. Might get a clear answer on one of the Dubai Reddit subs or another discussion site. Doubt their support would be able to tell you without several calls/run arounds.
I ran the test on the website and got a 10/10?
Stop supporting ISPs that do CGNAT. It’s a terrible idea and a terrible strategy. Move to IPV6.
