So yesterday everything was perfect. Plex running flawlessly on my dedicated server PC (Ryzen 5 2600X, 3x4TB + 1x10TB HDDs), remote access working, Plex Photos syncing via Resilio Sync, accessible on all my devices. Life was good.
Then my motherboard died.
I pulled the boot drive and moved it to an old spare laptop. Here's where the nightmare begins.
What's broken:
- Main Plex app on Android shows "Gray Market Media — Offline" even on the same local network
- Plex Photos same thing
- Remote access (outside network) doesn't work
- Plex's Remote Access settings page shows green "Fully accessible" when I hit Retry, then flips back to red on refresh
What still works:
- Plexamp — connects fine, music plays
- Browser access locally (192.168.x.x:32400/web) — works perfectly
- app.plex.tv in mobile browser — works
- canyouseeme.org confirms port 32400 is open and ISP is not blocking it
What I've tried:
- Set a static IP on the new laptop (via netsh)
- Updated port forwarding rule in modem to point to new IP
- Set laptop as DMZ host
- Manually specified port 32400 in Plex Remote Access settings
- Disabled UPnP conflict (had manual rule fighting with UPnP auto rule)
- Uninstalled/reinstalled Plex app on Android, cleared all data
- Signed out and back into Plex account on all devices
My theory:
The server ID changed when I moved to new hardware. Plex's cloud has the old server ID cached and the main app relies on cloud discovery while Plexamp apparently doesn't. The remote access instability is related — it works momentarily then drops, suggesting Plex's relay can't maintain a stable connection to the new server identity.
Unfortunately I don't have a backup of the old Plex database so I can't restore the original server ID.
Has anyone dealt with this before? Is there a way to force Plex to re-register the server with a fresh ID across all devices/apps? Or is there a way to manually point the Android app to a local IP instead of relying on cloud discovery?
Remote access working is critical for me — I have a lifetime Plex Pass and the whole reason I invested in this setup was to have my media accessible anywhere. I ditched Google Photos entirely in favour of Plex + Plex Photos + Resilio Sync for photo backup and remote viewing, so having this broken isn't just an inconvenience, it's my entire media and photo ecosystem down. I'm not looking to go back to Google or any cloud subscription service — I just want my self-hosted setup working the way it was 24 hours ago before my motherboard decided to die.
Any help appreciated — this has been a full day of troubleshooting and I'm losing my mind.