I’m new to Plex. I’m trying to get the Plex Media Server to connect to my XBox One via the app available on XBox Live Store. It can see the server but won’t allow me to connect securely, it then just kicks me out and gives me an error message.
What am I doing wrong? Also, the Plex web app says this about Remote access “Not available outside your network” with a little red warning symbol.
I’m using a Plusnet Router; it’s the same type as the BT Homehub 5.
The Plex for Xbox One app is not allowed to browse the local network to look for your server on your local network. To get around this, the Plex App connects to Plex.tv to pull a list of servers attached to your account (The account that the app is linked to).
The Plex web app saying that remote access not available outside your network is an indicator that the server is unable to communicate with the plex.tv servers. This will prevent the server from publishing itself. That function is what allows the apps (such as the xbox one app) and remote apps to find your server and connect to it. (It does not mean that the Xbox One will not use the local LAN once the server is found, all traffic should be local after the initial connection).
The first step is to look at if you have setup a manual port forwarding rule for your server on your router. This would first involve forwarding an outside port to an internal port of 32400 on the IP address of your server.
For example:
My server has a local IP address of 192.168.1.103 (preferably static or the port forwarding wont work beyond when the IP changes). I want to use the external port of 32501. In my router the rule would look something similar to this:
After doing that you would then need to go into the Plex Server settings. Click the Remote Access section. Check the box to manually specify a public port and enter 32501 into the box. After that hitting apply should have the server check your newly forwarded port.
Depending on what operating system your server is operating on, it may also be a firewall that is blocking traffic to the server. To solve this you would enter an exception for either the Plex executable or allow traffic by port and allow traffic on port 32400.
That would be correct, typically it should ask for a device to forward to. In this case it would be the static IP address of the server. After that you still need to check the box for manually specified port in the server settings, and this time just input port 32400 since that is the port you specified in the port range. Even though 32400 is the default if you don’t check that box Plex will attempt to use UPNP and not necessarily use the port you specified.
It’s possible that windows defender is blocking Plex.
If you’re on Windows 10 hit the windows key and start typing Windows Firewall
In the search the second option should be Allow an app through windows firewall.
From there verify that Plex Media Server is in the list and allowed on Private/Public depending on what your local network is classified as in Windows. (I normally tick it for both just to be safe.
If it’s not you need to first click the Change settings button in the top corner, then select Allow another app.... With the popup click Browse... and navigate to the Plex Media Server.exe location (Typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Plex\Plex Media Server). And select Add. And that should do it.
Something else I saw in your screenshots is in your router you have the port forwarding rule set to 192.168.1.68 (This should be the IP of your server) but in your Server screenshots it’s identifying the server as 192.168.1.64 I would just double check that those two are set correctly. IE the port forwarding you can set, the server settings should be the IP address the server is finding on the machine it is installed. So if you set all the static IP’s/port forwarding and haven’t yet given everything a restart it might be worth it to make sure all the new rules are set for the devices.
I’ve completed all of those steps and still cannot connect my XBox One? When I switch between enable and disabled remote access, the red writing briefly changes to a green colour saying that it’s fully accessible. Then it changes back to red and locks up the access again?
I did an experiment and plugged in my old Xbox 360, downloaded the Plex app and fired it up. I used the TV app link option, and it worked without any problems. So if it works for the 360, why isn’t it working for the XBox One? I removed the app from the Xbox One, cleared the cache, removed it from my devices on Plex web and re-installed it again. This time, I followed the same procedure as for the 360. Plex XB1 then asked me for the user and pin, found the server and began to connect. Then it went red again and said it couldn’t connect to the server???
Getting confused now? Maybe it’s a problem with the current version of Plex Server?
The only difference I can see is that the 360 is wireless and the XB1 is wired. I’ll try making it wireless also and see if that fixes the problem.
The only other thing I could think of off hand would be secure connections. As far as I know the 360 app does not fully support a secured connection. To test this I would check the server setting and the app setting just to see if it has something to do with the security settings.
Hi,
Yeah the 360 is not streaming via a direct connection. I’d like to be able to connect all of my devices that are running Plex to my laptop based server. The laptop is running Windows 10. How do I remove any network restrictions that are preventing Plex from talking to my network devices? The main one I’d like to work is the XBox One. I’m sure it’s supposed to be easier to set up than this?!
UPDATE Following an update to the Plex Media Server software I’m happy to report that everything is working as it should. Thanks for all of your help with this jmckee, we weren’t going mad after all!
I’m glad that was able to get it going for you as I was at my end trying to find others that know a bit more in that regards. Hopefully, it was just a fluke that the update solved for you.
