Remotely playing media from NUC (PLEX)

Klunt Bumskrint · 1 Oct 2024 at 18:14

Wasn't sure the best place to put this so I thought I'd try here.

I have a Plex server on a NUC (J5040 2GHz 4 core, 8GB RAM) I bought from MM. Everything works great.
Problem is I just can't get remote access to watch anything. When I'm on a mobile network or wifi outside of my home I just get the message "Unable to play media". I've got everything set to avoid transcoding so it uses directplay, I can see everything I have and can click through everything just nobody me or my kids can play anything unless we're on my home wifi. I have 100Mb upload speed so that's not the problem. Port 32400 is forwarded correctly etc I just cannot figure this out.

Any Plex masters in here?

NutritioN · 2 Oct 2024 at 00:29

I don't have an answer, but I get that message if I tick "Disable video stream transcoding" in the Transcoder settings page.
I have terrible upload (12Mb), even if I enable transcoding, my lowest bitrate media will direct play to my phone remotely via 5G, it's about 700kbps. It depends on other settings, have you configured your upload speed at the bottom of the Remote access page?

Quick internet search found people chatting about video profiles - if you don't have a match then the stream might still transcode even if it's to the same codec. But that's beyond my knowledge.

Klunt Bumskrint · 2 Oct 2024 at 17:24

NutritioN said:
I don't have an answer, but I get that message if I tick "Disable video stream transcoding" in the Transcoder settings page.
I have terrible upload (12Mb), even if I enable transcoding, my lowest bitrate media will direct play to my phone remotely via 5G, it's about 700kbps. It depends on other settings, have you configured your upload speed at the bottom of the Remote access page?

Quick internet search found people chatting about video profiles - if you don't have a match then the stream might still transcode even if it's to the same codec. But that's beyond my knowledge.

Upload speed is configured to 100Mb. I've just tried putting the IP of the MUC into the DMZ via the router. I'll see if it works later when I go out.

NutritioN · 2 Oct 2024 at 17:50

If it comes to it, it might be something weird about the client device capability reporting. Last resort is deciphering Plex' transcode logs: Google 'Is there any way (Logs?) to find out why plex is transcoding for a particular stream?'

Begbie · 2 Oct 2024 at 17:51

Klunt Bumskrint said:
Upload speed is configured to 100Mb. I've just tried putting the IP of the MUC into the DMZ via the router. I'll see if it works later when I go out.

Try it in the house but just switch to mobile internet.

I can't get it working because I use 5G as my home internet which causes issues. Though it does work using tailscale.

Klunt Bumskrint · 2 Oct 2024 at 18:08

Begbie said:
Try it in the house but just switch to mobile internet.

I can't get it working because I use 5G as my home internet which causes issues. Though it does work using tailscale.

My signal here is trash so I have to leave my whole street to get a good signal

rp2000 · 2 Oct 2024 at 18:17

Klunt Bumskrint said:
Wasn't sure the best place to put this so I thought I'd try here.

I have a Plex server on a NUC (J5040 2GHz 4 core, 8GB RAM) I bought from MM. Everything works great.
Problem is I just can't get remote access to watch anything. When I'm on a mobile network or wifi outside of my home I just get the message "Unable to play media". I've got everything set to avoid transcoding so it uses directplay, I can see everything I have and can click through everything just nobody me or my kids can play anything unless we're on my home wifi. I have 100Mb upload speed so that's not the problem. Port 32400 is forwarded correctly etc I just cannot figure this out.

Any Plex masters in here?

What happens if you remove the Upload speed. Mine is blank and it shows "no upload speed set".

Just to clarify, if you have the same laptop and browser (or mobile device), you only get the issue when you are outside of your home network/LAN?

I would also recommend installing "Tautalli" on the server, as that will give you better, definitely more readable logs. It also shows you much more information about what and who is playing back content either locally or remotely, without paying for plex pass. I used it for troubleshooting many clients connecting to my server, locally and remotely and now I can stream every single file outside my home network without transcoding (I have 1000Mb internet speed).

rp2000

Klunt Bumskrint · 4 Oct 2024 at 14:03

rp2000 said:
What happens if you remove the Upload speed. Mine is blank and it shows "no upload speed set".

Just to clarify, if you have the same laptop and browser (or mobile device), you only get the issue when you are outside of your home network/LAN?

I would also recommend installing "Tautalli" on the server, as that will give you better, definitely more readable logs. It also shows you much more information about what and who is playing back content either locally or remotely, without paying for plex pass. I used it for troubleshooting many clients connecting to my server, locally and remotely and now I can stream every single file outside my home network without transcoding (I have 1000Mb internet speed).

rp2000

No different. Checked here to see if I've forwarded everything ok and it's fine. Just cannot work this out and it's driving me mad.
Could it be that the NUC is just too week? Tautalli seems a bit complex and I'm not a python afficionado

Klunt Bumskrint · 4 Oct 2024 at 14:15

Now, the https://canyouseeme.org/ is saying my port is blocked even though I've not changed anything and it was configured correctly and green yesterday.

"Please note that if the router is using a private WAN IP address (such as connected behind another router/switch/modem with built-in router/Wi-Fi feature), could potentially place the router under a multi-layer NAT network. Port Forwarding will not function properly under such environment."

Edit: I wonder if this might be my issue
My ASUS AX11000 is connected to my Virgin home hub that is in modem mode.

rp2000 · 4 Oct 2024 at 15:00

Klunt Bumskrint said:
No different. Checked here to see if I've forwarded everything ok and it's fine. Just cannot work this out and it's driving me mad.
Could it be that the NUC is just too week? Tautalli seems a bit complex and I'm not a python afficionado

I know nothing about python either

Release Tautulli v2.14.5 · Tautulli/Tautulli

Changelog v2.14.5 (2024-09-20) Activity: Fix: Display of 2k resolution on activity card. Notifications: Fix: ntfy notifications with special characters failing to send. Other: Fix: Memory l...

github.com

Download the exe file from here, install like a normal windows app, sign in with your plex account, and then it just opens in a web browser, kinda like plex itself! Then try playing back from a laptop over 5G etc, whilst also remote controlled to the server to see the activity/error in tautalli. You could do the same by watching the plex server, but without plex pass you don't really get much useful info.

Beyond that, there are not too many settings in plex itself.

If a laptop can play it from within your network, and you get an error outside your network with the exact same file, it's either a network issue or a device playback (player) issue.

If you haven't rebooted your router, you should, as well.
If it's a laptop and web browser, the settings are at: https://app.plex.tv/desktop/#!/settings/web/quality

If you have any option here, apart from "Maximum", then the client will ask the server to transcode and then you would get a playback error as the server is set to refuse transcoding. There are some exceptions, but in simple terms.

If you trust someone, you could also add them to your server and see if they can playback whatever content you have, remotely.

rp2000

NutritioN · 4 Oct 2024 at 15:42

Klunt Bumskrint said:
Now, the https://canyouseeme.org/ is saying my port is blocked even though I've not changed anything and it was configured correctly and green yesterday.

"Please note that if the router is using a private WAN IP address (such as connected behind another router/switch/modem with built-in router/Wi-Fi feature), could potentially place the router under a multi-layer NAT network. Port Forwarding will not function properly under such environment."

Edit: I wonder if this might be my issue
My ASUS AX11000 is connected to my Virgin home hub that is in modem mode.

I have the same kind of setup and I had to forward the Plex port from my modem. So if you havn't done that I recommend it. I don't think that would solve your initial error message though. Have you looked in the Plex logs?

I've heard and experienced that the status of Plex Settings > Remote Access isn't great, as even if it says 'not accessible' and you try and access it, it works and then the settings page goes green.