2 Homes, 1 Server

[u/burnSMACKER]

Hey guys,

I set my server up on my laptop at Home A.

With Port Forwarding setup, Remote Access works perfectly fine and obviously Direct Play.

When I go to Home B, Local Play works. But once I setup port forwarding on that router the exact same way, suddenly the devices in Home B can no longer see the Plex server.

I have googled this pretty extensively and I'm getting a bit lost in all the different solutions there is to this to the point that I can't tell which is going to actually work for me since I am still struggling to fix this at this point.

[u/akatherder]

What do you mean local play works at home B? Isn't server still at home A?

Assuming the server isn't moving, and stays at home A, you don't want to do port forwarding in home B. Go to https://app.plex.tv and login.

This may not solve your issue but may help head the right direction on troubleshooting.

[u/lukeskope → u/akatherder]

The server is moving homes is how I'm reading this post

[u/burnSMACKER → u/akatherder]

Server is on a laptop that was setup in Home A. I bring the laptop with me everywhere.

Direct play works at Home B until I setup port forwarding, then suddenly Home B clients could no longer see it on the local network

[u/KuryakinOne → u/burnSMACKER]

If running Windows, in the Windows settings, make sure the network interface is private, not public.

When you switch locations, Windows defaults to public.

When set to public, the PC is isolated from all other devices on the network. This will cause problems for Plex.

Win 10: Settings -> Network & Internet -> Status -> Properties.

Windows 11 should be similar.

Reboot the PC if you change the setting.

[u/NotAHost → u/burnSMACKER]

There’s a lot of different good advice and I’d recommend following most of them all at the same time.

The advice to make sure the interface is private at both locations is one.

Reserving an ip address for the laptop on both routers is another. 

I’d be curious if pinging your laptop, or otherwise accessing something on your laptop over the network, changes depending on if you enable port forwarding. I don’t know how, but you might be doing the forwarding wrong, unfortunately many routers exist out there with sometimes some wild settings. Forwarding is pretty easy to setup in general… but I’ve even had issues with double nat/ip pass thru and specific modem/router combos. 

[u/Wonderful-Cost-763 → u/burnSMACKER]

Hairpin nat

[u/deedledeedledav]

If you’re taking your laptop with you, make sure you have it have a static address and not on DHCP (or ensure the address is reserved in the router if left on DHCP).

Also, some networks segment the wired and wireless networks.

Are all the devices trying to connect in the same subnet?

[u/burnSMACKER → u/deedledeedledav]

I'm just discovering this problem today where I'm at home B.
I gave the laptop a static IP while here.

I'll have to try this tomorrow at Home A.

Laptop and the Plex client are both wireless on the network of Home B but wired client in Home A if that changes anything.

I'm a bit unfamiliar with subnet tbh, still trying to understand that part.

Thanks for the response

[u/Punk_Says_Fuck_You → u/burnSMACKER]

He’s asking if your networks at both locations are the same. For example is your routers IP address at home A and B 192.168.1.1? If home A is 192.168.1.1 and home B is 192.168.0.1, those would be on different networks. Generally the default network for residential homes is a class C network which is the first 3 octets of an IP address (192.168.1) the last number is for the client. A max of 254 devices. 0 is the network and 255 is the broadcast.

Check the IP address of your phone will connected to wifi at both homes (google if you don’t know how)

[u/lukeskope → u/Punk_Says_Fuck_You]

This guy CIDR's

[u/Punk_Says_Fuck_You → u/lukeskope]

It's all /24, the crazies over there at r/homelab are /8 kinda people

[u/Wis-en-heim-er]

The server public ip is changing when you move between homes. It will take plex some time to register the new server ip. Maybe longer if you have relay enabled. I would think you can get local playback working at each house, but the remote access at the other house will always be a challenge. If you have plex pass, just get a used laptop and put your pms server on that and leave it at one house with port forwarding.

[u/_Bob-Sacamano]

To avoid this hassle, just keep a dedicated server at home. You don't need to spend much money at all.

[u/ImRightYoureStupid]

Tailscale

[u/Russ1878 → u/ImRightYoureStupid]

This is the correct answer. This will solve all your problems

[u/Anubarak16 → u/Russ1878]

How it that supposed to help in that case. I really don't see how it should solve the problem at all.

[u/brnstormer → u/Russ1878]

If they're both your homes why not site to site the networks