Remote buffering on local network?

[u/soratoyuki]

Hello! I switched from using Plex on my Roku TV to a 4k ONN box and, honestly, it's been a really mixed bag. I love the improved support for .ass subtitles, but I'm constantly being plagued with buffering issues I never had with the Roku. That said, I just switched back to the Roku and it's having the same issues, so I assume it's platform agnostic. The streaming box (and TV) is connected to the same WiFi network as my Plex server, so it should all be streaming locally. However, intermittently, whenever I click to play a file I get stuck buffering; sometimes just for a few seconds, sometimes the little white circle just spins endlessly.

Dropping the quality to 720 'fixes' the issue, but confusingly even if it were a remote stream, the original quality 1080 stream should be totally manageable. My apartment keeps us on a barbaric ~12mbps upload plan, but these shows even in 1080 are less than that.

Example 1: the right is the stream box, and shows being a remote play despite being a local 192.168 address. Example 2 comparing the ONN 4k and the Roku TV... which is converting down to SD....? Even though 1080 should be fine even if it were remote. Which it isn't.

Disabling remote access didn't seem to change anything, and remote streaming (in 720) still worked. Under network settings, I have 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 for LAN Networks and http://192.168.0.210:32400 for Custom server access URLs. As far as I know, that's supposed to solve the issue? I also have a Pi-hole with unbound running, which may be a factor.

Any suggestions on how to fix this and not have to deal with random remote buffering on my local network?

[u/DeaN_Casts]

They broke direct play on android based devices, head up to the profile pic settings, video, turn off allow direct play and it should instead Direct Stream without the buffering. Doesn't make sense but it should stop it.

[u/DeaN_Casts → u/DeaN_Casts]

If you just toggle direct play off in the movie or episode it also falls back on the transcode instead of direct stream so do it in the overall settings. Oops didn't see the part about it also being remote when it shouldn't that's a separate issue that I forget how to fix so hopefully someone else can help there.

[u/soratoyuki → u/DeaN_Casts]

Still baffled by the remote part, but this at least makes the videos playable.

[u/DeaN_Casts → u/soratoyuki]

No worries glad to help! I've been dealing with this Direct Play bug on android phone for months and now it seems to be on any android devices that have got the new app.

[u/ExtensionMarch6812]

> also have a Pi-hole with unbound running, which may be a factor.

To deal with dns rebind protection not resolving the plex.direct url and sending connections remote did you add the plex.direct exception to the pi-hole.conf in unbound?

Add this in /etc/unbound/unbound.conf.d/pi-hole.conf: private-domain: "plex.direct" and restart the service.

You can also add this in the pihole settings:

https://support.plex.tv/articles/206225077-how-to-use-secure-server-connections/#toc-4

[u/soratoyuki → u/ExtensionMarch6812]

I hadn't done either before, no. I added the private-domain line to unbound and restarted, but it still shows as a remote play. I tried to add the rebind-domain-ok line but haven't had any luck. Doing it through the web interface says I have to edit the .toml directly (which I do, but changes revert) or use pihole-FTL --config, but keep getting an error:

$ sudo pihole-FTL --config misc.dnsmasq_lines rebind-domain-ok=plex.direct

$ Config setting misc.dnsmasq_lines is invalid: not valid JSON, error at: rebind-domain-ok=ple

or

$ sudo pihole-FTL --config misc.dnsmasq_lines rebind-domain-ok=/plex.direct/

$ Config setting misc.dnsmasq_lines is invalid: not valid JSON, error at: rebind-domain-ok=/pl

[u/ExtensionMarch6812 → u/soratoyuki]

Not sure about the errors you’re receiving, might need to ask on the pihole sub for help with that, or someone here may be able to help.

You’ve confirmed your clients are using the pihole as their dns? I was helping someone recently and their clients were using the router dns and the router was still pointing to the isp dns servers, not the pihole.

If you check your pihole activity log, you should be able to see the plex.direct requests and if they’re being blocked or not.

You can try to set the dns manually on your onn boxes temporarily to 8.8.8.8/8.8.4.4 or 1.1.1.1/1.0.01 to see if that stops them from going remote which would confirm the rebind issue.

Also, disable ipv6 in plex if you don’t use it as that’s been causing issues for folks lately.

[u/soratoyuki → u/soratoyuki]

I went ahead and enabled dnsmasq.d in settings, and stuck in a .conf file with rebind-domain-ok=/plex.direct/ but streams still show as remote.

[u/StevenG2757]

I have two onn boxes and have not had a single buffering issue on my local network streaming locally.

Your ISP UL speed means nothing when you are playing locally.

You need to figure out why you are playing remotely and not direct. Are you running a VPN on anything?

[u/soratoyuki → u/StevenG2757]

No VPN, just a Pi-hole with unbound.