Hey all, I’m very new to self-hosting and have no background in anything computer-related. I’ll explain in as much detail as I can. I’m running Plex on a Synology DS220+. I’m using the Plex app, i.e. not using Docker (see note below).
The issue: I can watch Plex on my local network in 4K, but outside my local network it barely makes it to 720p. I thought it was an issue with my upload speed, but I got gigabit last week and it hasn’t fixed the issue. I have remote access enabled in Plex through a manually-specified port. The issue persists with my own account and any friends who have access to my library.
I appreciate any advice, links or questions you can offer!
NOTE: I understand the benefits of Docker and I promise to transition in the future. I spent many hours learning and troubleshooting, and it was even functional at times, but eventually I needed something that just worked.
EDIT: You all have been so helpful and supportive. Thanks for meeting me where I’m at and sharing some potential issues.
EDIT2: I found the culprit by accident. I had UPnP enabled on my router. I turned it off and my local speeds increased significantly, and my Plex library is available remotely. I don’t know how or why UPnP is related, but that’s what the solution was for me. Thanks again for all your input and support.
As someone who tried to set up Intercontinental sharing with Plex, I found out two things that could be an issue. One would be the relay option. That’s somewhere within your server. You might want to disable that. That should then allow you to directly connect to your home server.
And the second one was that the client device that I was using didn’t really support the format that I want to look at and that ended up just making it so that the video was transcoded that is going to degrade your performance. If the second thing is happening, you might want to check your quality settings to see if you’re using directplay. If not, Plex might transcode on the fly to a lower quality to mitigate buffering.