Your home screen is empty (happening after years of working fine) - SOLVED

I’ve found the solution to my problem - it probably won’t be the same solution for others.

  • Over the last few days, I haven’t been able to log into the forums - my browser was giving me a certificate error for plex.tv
  • My desktop machine usually runs a VPN client, which I had disconnected a few days ago to perform specific task and not started it back up again.
  • After starting my VPN client, I immediately tried to log back into the forums - it worked straight away.

I concluded that somewhere between my ISP and plex.tv, the certificate is not able to be resolved.

  • I configured and started the vpn on the router
  • stopped and started Plex Media Server on my Synology
  • went through the steps for ‘Reclaiming a lost server’ - this time when I clicked ‘Claim Server’ it worked straight away.

I tested Plex on various devices - it’s all back to normal.
I disconnected the VPN on my router and stopped/started Plex Media Server on my Synology - Plex still works on all devices I tested.

My guess is that Plex Media Server periodically fetches some sort of token/flag from plex.tv. Due to the certificate error, it was unable to complete that action and it all stopped working.

As I now have a workaround for the issue - I consider this issue resolved.


Just to give some additional info - these 3 lines in the Plex Media Server.log also supports my hypothesis for the issue: