Problem with Emby Remote

[FancyNerd92 9]

Hello, i have a problem with Emby Remote I'm getting an error This site can’t be reached. But fist of all I'll start with my router setup.

I have for main router an Asus RT-AX88U in LAN AiMesh with other 4 Asus routers RT-AC68U. THe main router is connected in LAN1 on my provider modem/router ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B because of VoIP (they don't provide SIP Accounts so I'm stuck with them...). After a Googling i found that maybe my problem is CG NAT, so i tested in cmd "tracert <<192.168.my.ip>>" and my data is this:

 

After that I call my provider and I said them to deactivate my CG NAT but they said to me I have not. So I tried to connect my Windows machine direct to ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B and not through Asus RT-AX88U. After that I was able to get in on Emby Remote and i was run another test and I get this:
 

So I haven't CG NAT in my connection but I'm guessing something is going on with ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B. I want your help because I don't know what is the problem and what I can do about it.

Thanks!

 

[Luke 42085]

Hi, please see this for some advice with CGNAT's and let us know if it helps:

Thanks !

[Carlo 4561]

5 hours ago, FancyNerd92 said:

Do you know what the 192.168.50.1 address is?  Was that the computer you plugged directly in?  If it was then it looks clean.

Keep in mind if you have two routers in place you could be causing your own double NAT.  You either need to set the first router in bridge mode (no routing, no NAT, no anything) plugged directly into the 2nd router which now is in charge and does NAT/routing/firewall, etc

or

You have to setup port forwarding on the 1st router pointing to the 2nd router.  Then on the 2nd router you setup port forwarding to your Emby Server.

See if that helps,
Carlo

[rbjtech 5284]

From what I'm reading above - I believe the ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B LAN Port is connected to the Asus RT-AX88U LAN Port ? If yes, then this is correct.  All the Asus 'routers' are just being used as Access Points (Mesh).

If you are connecting to the WAN Port on the Asus RT-AX88U, then this is wrong as Cayars says above - you have introduced double NAT onto your LAN, making this much more complicated then it needs to be.

Let us know and we can then advise the next steps if required.

Edited March 16, 2022 by rbjtech

[FancyNerd92 9]

10 hours ago, rbjtech said:

From what I'm reading above - I believe the ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B LAN Port is connected to the Asus RT-AX88U LAN Port ? If yes, then this is correct.  All the Asus 'routers' are just being used as Access Points (Mesh).

If you are connecting to the WAN Port on the Asus RT-AX88U, then this is wrong as Cayars says above - you have introduced double NAT onto your LAN, making this much more complicated then it needs to be.

Let us know and we can then advise the next steps if required.

No, ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B LAN Port is connected to Asus RT-AX88U WAN Port. So the solution is to connect from WAN port to LAN port on Asus?

[FancyNerd92 9]

10 hours ago, cayars said:

Do you know what the 192.168.50.1 address is?  Was that the computer you plugged directly in?  If it was then it looks clean.

Keep in mind if you have two routers in place you could be causing your own double NAT.  You either need to set the first router in bridge mode (no routing, no NAT, no anything) plugged directly into the 2nd router which now is in charge and does NAT/routing/firewall, etc

or

You have to setup port forwarding on the 1st router pointing to the 2nd router.  Then on the 2nd router you setup port forwarding to your Emby Server.

See if that helps,
Carlo

Yes the 192.168.50.1 is the ip of main Asus router. The ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B it's "crashing" when i put it on bridge mode and it want reset, for that reason I have it as modem/router and I have turn off the WiFi antennas. How can connect them right without make the ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B in bridge mode (because of crashing) with Asus? Now I have ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B LAN Port connected to Asus RT-AX88U WAN Port.

[rbjtech 5284]

So you need to connect the Zyxel LAN Port to the Asus LAN Port - not it's WAN Port.

You do not need to bridge mode anything - The Zyxel will do the Internet Public IP > private IP NATing - and all DHCP/DNS requests will come from the Zyxel.

All the Asus routers need to just be 'Access Points' - ie broadcast the LAN IP over wireless.

You have unfortunately purchased the incorrect equipment for what you really wanted to do - all you really needed to do was purchase Access Points and connect to the Zyxel but you 'should' be able to configure the Asus Routers to be 'Access Points' - in other words turn off the WAN/Routing side of things, as you do not need that functionality.

edit - yep - the Asus AX88 has an 'Access Point Mode' - see below - the other Asus routers need to be in 'Repeater' mode.

Once all that is done and operational - then you need to setup the Emby Server port forwarding on the Zyxel.

 

Edited March 17, 2022 by rbjtech

[Carlo 4561]

9 hours ago, FancyNerd92 said:

Yes the 192.168.50.1 is the ip of main Asus router. The ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B it's "crashing" when i put it on bridge mode and it want reset, for that reason I have it as modem/router and I have turn off the WiFi antennas. How can connect them right without make the ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B in bridge mode (because of crashing) with Asus? Now I have ZYXEL VMG8623-T50B LAN Port connected to Asus RT-AX88U WAN Port.

Bridge would be cleaner as it would allow the Asus to manage your network and it would appear as if the Zyxel didn't exist. It would basically just be a modem, not a router in bridge mode.

See below message.

8 hours ago, rbjtech said:

So you need to connect the Zyxel LAN Port to the Asus LAN Port - not it's WAN Port.

Maybe, but it depends on what features are being used in the routers.

@FancyNerd92, without bridge mode you will have two similar devices probably both setup to hand out IPs, hand DNS, maybe do QOS, gaming services, VPN or anything else available on the routers.

You could go LAN to LAN but then the Asus is only functioning as a a dumb 8 port switch and many of the features built in will not work correctly.  So I'm going to say you do not want to set it up this way. Using the LAN port will also cause issues with your MESH network and other 4 Asus routers. Instead I'd leave the LAN cable going into the WAN port.

So Internet to WAN port on Zyxel out LAN 1 to WAN on Asus RT-AX88U router.  Your 4 other RT-AC68U routers are hopefully plugged into LAN 1-4 on the RT-AX88U and not connecting to each other via WIFI for best performance.

You didn't mention I don't think what IP range the RT-AX88U is using for the LAN but I'm assuming it's not 192.168.50.x range the Zyxel is already using. So let's assume you are using 192.168.100.x range. It doesn't matter as long as it's different from the 192.168.50.

So I propose you live with 2 NATs. Let's assign 192.168.100.1 as the RT-AX88U router's static IP. You will also want to setup a static IP for 2 DNS servers it will use for lookups. I would use 1.1.1.1 & 8.8.8.8 if you live in the USA. 1.1.1.1 is the fastest DNS resolver on the net powered by Cloudflare. It can be used "dumb" or fully encrypted using WARP (don't worry about that for now). The AX88U will receive an IP likely to be 192.168.50.2 from the Zyxel will use it's own NAT and set itself up as the default gateway of 192.168.100.1.  It will also handle routing between the 2 subnet of 50 & 100.  All is good and you can use any feature on the Asus RT-AX88U or connected MESH routers.

Now the setup of the Zyxel. First if you have IP based phone or IPTV from your Internet Provider you want those connection plugged into the Zyxel instead of the ASUS to keep things simple. Other than those two connection and the ASUS nothing else is plugged into it.  Turn off the WIFI radios as well so it doesn't interfere with your MESH unless you want to have a guest wifi network that is truly outside your home LAN.  In that case you can keep wifi turned on but use 2.4 only and set the channel far away from your ASUS 2.4 channels. If you're tight on bandwidth and do setup a guest network you can turn back on QOS and make adjustments for IPTV, phone, ASUS LAN traffic and guest network. That gives you the freedom to sink the guest network and make phone, TV, gaming a priority over other traffic (or whatever you need). If you use QOS on the Zyxel, turn it off on ASUS as you don't need it in two places.

If your not using phone, tv or guest wifi on the zyxel you can take a short cut and configure a DMZ zone.  You assign the static IP of 192.168.50.2 (what the ASUS gets). That in affect sends all traffic directly to the ASUS. This will surely work and make it so you won't have to touch the Zyxel again in the future if you need additional port forwards. However if it doesn't bother you and you want extra protection don't do the DMZ. Instead you will setup a manual port forward on this router anytime you need one.  So let's setup the first one for Emby.

Create a new port forward rule. WAN port 8096, all IPs, TCP to 192.168.50.2 port 8096.  Done.  That will forward any Internet traffic the Zyxel receives on port 8096 to the ASUS router.  

Now you want to make sure the computer running Emby Server has a static IP or reserved IP on your network so it doesn't change.  I'd suggest setting up a reserved IP in the ASUS. You should be able to pick it from a drop down choice of devices connected.  If you changed the IP from what the Emby Server was using reboot the server and check to make sure it gets the new IP.  Now we setup another port forwarding, this time on the ASUS.

Create a new port forward rule. WAN port 8096, all IPs, TCP to 192.168.100.(Emby IP) port 8096.  Done. So now internet traffic on 8096 comes in the Zyxel, port forwards to the Asus router then port forward to your Emby server. No forwarding is needed to for IP traffic going back out as it just follows the default gateway.

Restart Emby if you haven't already and go to the Dashboard.  Look at your remote IP and check to make sure it's not 192.168.50.1. If it is we need one additional adjustment but it should be your actual WAN address. Next check your local IP shown on the dashboard and make sure that's the IP you reserved for it. Open the Network menu and scroll down to "Allow remote connections to this Emby Server." and make sure it's enabled/checked, scroll down to "Enable automatic port mapping" and turn this off. Scroll down and click the save button.  Now go to plugins menu, find the Port Mapper plugin, click the 3 dot menu when you hover over it and uninstall it.  Restart Emby and remote access should now work.

After Emby restarts do a quick check of the dashboard LAN/WAN IPs to make sure they look correct. Open a new browser tab and go to canyouseeme.org.  It should have the same IP listed as your dashboard shows for remote/wan.  Assuming it does, change the port on canyouseeme.org to 8096 and run a port test.  Hopefully it works.

If that test didn't work report back best you can and upload your server log with the post for us to look at.  You can download the server log from the logs menu and it will be the top file listed. Click the download button.

If you get stuck and need a hand, send me a PM and I can remotely help you,
Carlo

[FancyNerd92 9]

3 hours ago, cayars said:

Bridge would be cleaner as it would allow the Asus to manage your network and it would appear as if the Zyxel didn't exist. It would basically just be a modem, not a router in bridge mode.

See below message.

Maybe, but it depends on what features are being used in the routers.

@FancyNerd92, without bridge mode you will have two similar devices probably both setup to hand out IPs, hand DNS, maybe do QOS, gaming services, VPN or anything else available on the routers.

You could go LAN to LAN but then the Asus is only functioning as a a dumb 8 port switch and many of the features built in will not work correctly.  So I'm going to say you do not want to set it up this way. Using the LAN port will also cause issues with your MESH network and other 4 Asus routers. Instead I'd leave the LAN cable going into the WAN port.

So Internet to WAN port on Zyxel out LAN 1 to WAN on Asus RT-AX88U router.  Your 4 other RT-AC68U routers are hopefully plugged into LAN 1-4 on the RT-AX88U and not connecting to each other via WIFI for best performance.

You didn't mention I don't think what IP range the RT-AX88U is using for the LAN but I'm assuming it's not 192.168.50.x range the Zyxel is already using. So let's assume you are using 192.168.100.x range. It doesn't matter as long as it's different from the 192.168.50.

So I propose you live with 2 NATs. Let's assign 192.168.100.1 as the RT-AX88U router's static IP. You will also want to setup a static IP for 2 DNS servers it will use for lookups. I would use 1.1.1.1 & 8.8.8.8 if you live in the USA. 1.1.1.1 is the fastest DNS resolver on the net powered by Cloudflare. It can be used "dumb" or fully encrypted using WARP (don't worry about that for now). The AX88U will receive an IP likely to be 192.168.50.2 from the Zyxel will use it's own NAT and set itself up as the default gateway of 192.168.100.1.  It will also handle routing between the 2 subnet of 50 & 100.  All is good and you can use any feature on the Asus RT-AX88U or connected MESH routers.

Now the setup of the Zyxel. First if you have IP based phone or IPTV from your Internet Provider you want those connection plugged into the Zyxel instead of the ASUS to keep things simple. Other than those two connection and the ASUS nothing else is plugged into it.  Turn off the WIFI radios as well so it doesn't interfere with your MESH unless you want to have a guest wifi network that is truly outside your home LAN.  In that case you can keep wifi turned on but use 2.4 only and set the channel far away from your ASUS 2.4 channels. If you're tight on bandwidth and do setup a guest network you can turn back on QOS and make adjustments for IPTV, phone, ASUS LAN traffic and guest network. That gives you the freedom to sink the guest network and make phone, TV, gaming a priority over other traffic (or whatever you need). If you use QOS on the Zyxel, turn it off on ASUS as you don't need it in two places.

If your not using phone, tv or guest wifi on the zyxel you can take a short cut and configure a DMZ zone.  You assign the static IP of 192.168.50.2 (what the ASUS gets). That in affect sends all traffic directly to the ASUS. This will surely work and make it so you won't have to touch the Zyxel again in the future if you need additional port forwards. However if it doesn't bother you and you want extra protection don't do the DMZ. Instead you will setup a manual port forward on this router anytime you need one.  So let's setup the first one for Emby.

Create a new port forward rule. WAN port 8096, all IPs, TCP to 192.168.50.2 port 8096.  Done.  That will forward any Internet traffic the Zyxel receives on port 8096 to the ASUS router.  

Now you want to make sure the computer running Emby Server has a static IP or reserved IP on your network so it doesn't change.  I'd suggest setting up a reserved IP in the ASUS. You should be able to pick it from a drop down choice of devices connected.  If you changed the IP from what the Emby Server was using reboot the server and check to make sure it gets the new IP.  Now we setup another port forwarding, this time on the ASUS.

Create a new port forward rule. WAN port 8096, all IPs, TCP to 192.168.100.(Emby IP) port 8096.  Done. So now internet traffic on 8096 comes in the Zyxel, port forwards to the Asus router then port forward to your Emby server. No forwarding is needed to for IP traffic going back out as it just follows the default gateway.

Restart Emby if you haven't already and go to the Dashboard.  Look at your remote IP and check to make sure it's not 192.168.50.1. If it is we need one additional adjustment but it should be your actual WAN address. Next check your local IP shown on the dashboard and make sure that's the IP you reserved for it. Open the Network menu and scroll down to "Allow remote connections to this Emby Server." and make sure it's enabled/checked, scroll down to "Enable automatic port mapping" and turn this off. Scroll down and click the save button.  Now go to plugins menu, find the Port Mapper plugin, click the 3 dot menu when you hover over it and uninstall it.  Restart Emby and remote access should now work.

After Emby restarts do a quick check of the dashboard LAN/WAN IPs to make sure they look correct. Open a new browser tab and go to canyouseeme.org.  It should have the same IP listed as your dashboard shows for remote/wan.  Assuming it does, change the port on canyouseeme.org to 8096 and run a port test.  Hopefully it works.

If that test didn't work report back best you can and upload your server log with the post for us to look at.  You can download the server log from the logs menu and it will be the top file listed. Click the download button.

If you get stuck and need a hand, send me a PM and I can remotely help you,
Carlo

First of all thanks for all your analysis, i have VoIP on Zyxel so i beleve it's not working the DMZ, or bridge because when i put it on bridge mode I'm lost internet and phone. Sadly I'm stack with provider's equipment for main modem...

Now I think i did everything you said "correctly" but I'm can't connect to my Emby Server Remote. If you can to help as you said remotely it will be perfect. I will PM you my info.

Thanks a lot!

[rbjtech 5284]

10 hours ago, FancyNerd92 said:

First of all thanks for all your analysis, i have VoIP on Zyxel so i beleve it's not working the DMZ, or bridge because when i put it on bridge mode I'm lost internet and phone. Sadly I'm stack with provider's equipment for main modem...

Exactly - as soon as you take it out of it's standard mode, you'll lose the VoiP setup as it's all integrated ..

As you can see from Cayars rather long post about  - you are simply in for a world of pain trying to use two consumer routers with NAT.

Your choice - but I would scrap the Zyxel altogether and seek alternatives for VoiP - which lets be honest, is old tech, but I assume you are using as it's 'free' with your Internet provider ?  If not, then just change to one that uses SIP and use a SIP gateway on your LAN..

 

[pwhodges 2014]

1 hour ago, rbjtech said:

VoiP - which lets be honest, is old tech, 

[Off-topic:]

Kind-of; but then, bear in mind that in the UK the analogue phone system (both pstn and isdn) will be decommissioned in 2025 and replaced by - guess what!

https://business.bt.com/insights/digital-transformation/uk-pstn-switch-off/

I've no idea what they are going to do about those remote places that have an analogue phone but can't get either a mobile signal or Internet - just cut them off, I suppose.  Or I guess they could make up a unit to go in the relevant exchange to convert between systems just for the local loop - at a price.

Paul

Edited March 18, 2022 by pwhodges

[Carlo 4561]

16 hours ago, FancyNerd92 said:

First of all thanks for all your analysis, i have VoIP on Zyxel so i beleve it's not working the DMZ, or bridge because when i put it on bridge mode I'm lost internet and phone. Sadly I'm stack with provider's equipment for main modem...

Now I think i did everything you said "correctly" but I'm can't connect to my Emby Server Remote. If you can to help as you said remotely it will be perfect. I will PM you my info.

Thanks a lot!

I sent you a PM so we can setup and do the remote session. It's just a matter of finding a time for Athens <->New York City times to sync up. LOL

Carlo

[FancyNerd92 9]

I want to thanks Cayars, for his amazing help through remote connection, his makes it worked! It was difficult but Cayars is top!

Thanks man, and of course all of the Emby support is amazing!

Through years I didn't find nothing similar like of your support guys, that must be said!