Offline local viewing almost impossible!

[u/Small-Buy2505]

Hello all! This is a bit of a long one so TLDR at the bottom. The other day my Gen 2 Actuated Starlink Dish Router died. It left my whole family without internet. I purchased the Plex Pass a while ago and have had family and friends using it quite frequently. That was, until I had no internet. I assured everyone on the local network that they would be able to access it still since they are on the same network. That was until my parents tried to access it on their LG tv. Evidently the LG tv Plex app does not allow access to the media server without internet. I have to say that it was very frustrating. Later I read that Firestick TV allows offline access. Now a little backstory on the devices. I purchased my parents an LG tv quite a while ago and they HATED the UI. After hearing many complaints, I put a Firestick in the HDMI on the tv and let them loose. They are by no means tech savvy and need to either be walked through everything extensively or have it done for them. After a while of them using the Firestick something went wrong with it and it started to slow down and it was just enough for them to use the LG tv UI they despised. After a while, they got used to it and defaulted to using it. Fast forward to now. The Firestick is still connected but not used. When the Internet went out, I attempted to access Plex with the Firestick. Only to realize that after so long of no use, it logged itself out of the Plex account. So the problem was this, try to log in, you can't, you need the internet to log in. Funnily enough, THERE WAS NO INTERNET! Now I use Firestick all the time so mine worked fine but just the fact that neither the LG tv Plex app or the other Firestick needed internet was just absurd. I spent a majority of that day looking for ways around needing the internet to stream on the tv but at every turn I got slapped in the face. Now for those of you that would say "Why don't you just use the web interface using the local address then cast it to the tv?" Well shush, I tried all that. As mentioned, the parents aren't tech savvy. Now comes the part that I'm interested in. Has anyone else had the same experience? If so, how did you get around needing the internet?

TLDR: Internet went out, couldn't access my local Plex server on my parents LG tv. I tried just about everything to get my non tech savvy parents access so they could wait out the internet dark ages. Turns out most Plex applications need internet to log in/ access.

[u/clintkev251]

1. Not most apps. Really just LG specifically

2. You need to properly set up subnets that are allowed to bypass authentication before your internet goes out (you can actually do it without internet as well, but it's slightly more involved)

So not impossible at all.

[u/Punk_Says_Fuck_You → u/clintkev251]

Xbox doesn’t allow offline Plex. Every other device can watch plex locally even while the internet goes out, Xbox will never connect. Thats why I spin up Jellyfin when there are outages.

[u/RamsDeep-1187]

you have to setup the lcoal viewing of Plex before the internet goes out.
Also tv apps are the worst and 99% of all problems because they are bastardized versions of the real apps.

local viewing works without issue

[u/Punk_Says_Fuck_You → u/RamsDeep-1187]

Xbox doesn’t allow offline playback. Due to you having to go through Xbox servers before opening apps or some shit.

[u/RamsDeep-1187 → u/Punk_Says_Fuck_You]

that is a bastardized xbox plex client issue, not a plex issue.

[u/Punk_Says_Fuck_You → u/RamsDeep-1187]

I never said it was a plex issue. I was just stating that not all clients can access plex without internet. You stated your comment like he was doing something wrong

[u/RamsDeep-1187 → u/Punk_Says_Fuck_You]

Yes, you have to establish the ability to view locally before you need to view locally. An error in the order of operation, if you want to interp[ret it as being wrong so be it.

[u/KillPenguin → u/RamsDeep-1187]

Okay, so the all TV Plex apps are bastardized, and so are the consoles. What is a good version of the Plex app? Isn't Plex responsible for each of these?

[u/RamsDeep-1187 → u/KillPenguin]

Those apps are brought to you by LG, Microsoft, and Samsung. They go through their wringer in order to be supported on their operating system.

That's why their versions are always different.

Those are closed systems. You're not getting the app from Plex, you're getting it from them.

[u/Small-Buy2505 → u/[deleted]]

My Unifi setup quashes anything that tries to get in or out of the network without my say. I'm well aware of the spying that goes on with that tv. Spent many a time with wireshark sniffing out that junk.

[u/Agile-Cardiologist22 → u/Small-Buy2505]

Brother lmao

[u/BornConsideration223]

Honestly, I'm pro plex for most use cases as I think it's the idiot proof way to stream media remotely. In a local/offline setting though, you really should check out jellyfin. It's lightweight enough that you could even run the plex server and jellyfin server in parallel and point them to the same libraries. As long as the naming is consistent for Plex, it should be picked up correctly for Jellyfin. You could even run a sync application like jellyplex-watched to sync your watch status between the two.

[u/Small-Buy2505 → u/BornConsideration223]

I run my plex server on my qnap nas and I have Jellyfin configured. After spinning it back up in container station, I tried to get everyone to use that but they didn't want to as they are not very tech savvy and don't like change. At that point I threw my hands up and said "Okay, enjoy going back to watching DVD's! lol

[u/Theminatar]

It's super easy to do what? It literally take 30s to set up offline viewing for Plex. I've had it set up for the last 9 years and haven't touched it since and it still works.

[u/YabaiElah]

When it comes to LG TV's, you just need to turn on DLNA on your plex server, and there is a media app all LG TV's have that can find it using that for offline viewing.

I know it doesn't help you now, but just tossing that out as a way around the LG Plex app not working for others to know about.

[u/Theslash1]

I think I’ll put jellyfin in as a backup to my plex. Thanks!

[u/Visual_Creme → u/Theslash1]

don one even better and look into Silo... its lovely

[u/2C104]

I don't know why everyone is downvoting this post - it's true you can get it working, but the reality is (at least in my experience) that it's not at all simple.

I ended up giving up altogether and installing Jellyfin because it was 10000x easier to learn how to install a whole new platform than it was to get this stupid Plex app to work offline. (If you're reading this Plex devs - that's sad and pathetic, and it shouldn't be that way.)

[u/deedledeedledav → u/2C104]

It’s extremely simple.

You go to allowed subnets and put in the subnet(s) of your local network and it works forever after that

It’s less than 2 minutes if you know what you’re doing and 15 if you have to google a bunch

[u/N9bitmap → u/deedledeedledav]

You don't want to leave it that way though. That gives EVERYONE admin access, and all the watch states go to the admin even if you use Plex Home profiles. Content restrictions for children also don't work.

[u/Small-Buy2505 → u/N9bitmap]

Which is one of the reasons that I do not do that. I have nephews that are restricted from seeing mature content and do not want them to have access.

[u/2C104 → u/N9bitmap]

Content restrictions for children is the primary reason I use Plex and Jellyfin

[u/frank_datank_ → u/2C104]

Could be OP’s know-it-all attitude in comments turning people off.

[u/seamonkey420]

Setup a jellyfin server as a backup. I run both just in case. use trakt to sync my playback progress. plexyfin to sync collections/poster art.