Remote Connection Issue

[Danielhartman 0]

I’ve seen this as a common reoccurring problem.  I’ve read the other threads and attempted other solutions but nothing seems to be working to resolve the issue.

I’ve had a premiere membership for years with no issue utilizing remote connection to my server.  Within the last month, I can no longer access my server when away from home, trying from multiple devices.

i have the most up-to-date Emby server downloaded on my iMac.  I have an eero router.  I am not using a VPN. I have made no recent settings changes that could cause the recent stoppage.  When attempting to sign in remotely it accepts my user name and password but then continuously spins without connecting.  Eventually resulting in a message that states it can’t connect and to ensure the server is running.  It’s running and working locally.  As previously mentioned I have attempted to access via mobile app, and one two other tvs on two separate WiFi networks that have always worked with no issues.

im open to any suggestions.

[Chillout 110]

Restarting the server fixes the problem for me but the issue is not obvious unless someone is trying to watch something remotely and just gets a spinning circle.  Authentication and browing works fine for me, just remote playback fails while locally everything is working fine.

I havent tried to troubleshoot, I'll just restart Emby server to get remote playback working again.

 

Edited February 18 by Chillout

[Danielhartman 0]

Appreciate the idea.  I did just go in and restart the server via the dashboard and then attempted to remotely connect but still get the same results of the spinning circle with no success.

[Luke 42107]

14 hours ago, Danielhartman said:

Appreciate the idea.  I did just go in and restart the server via the dashboard and then attempted to remotely connect but still get the same results of the spinning circle with no success.

HI, have you tried to connect manually by entering the server address?

have you checked to see if your ISP uses a CGNat?

Connecting from Client Apps

[Danielhartman 0]

When I enter the server address manually and click connect it immediately tells me “unable to reach server”. There isn’t even a spinning circle, just an instant response.  I do use Spectrum and I know they have been know to use CGNat but my ip addresses match so I don’t believe that is the issue.  
 

I'm walking through every step of the external connection guide and I have everything set up the way it says.  I’m to the porting option and I have limited knowledge on this so I am currently walking through how to do this.

I will update shortly.

Has anything occurred recently on the Emby side which might have caused this?  I made now changes previously.

[Nathanael 4]

2 hours ago, Danielhartman said:

Spectrum and I know they have been know to use CGNat but my ip addresses match so I don’t believe that is the issue.  

How do you know that is not the issue? If you are behind a CGNAT you can never connect directly as your WAN IP is shared.
For a test you can set the routers WAN access open, and see if you can access the routers webserver remotly. (But do not forget to close this access after your test! )

[Danielhartman 0]

4 hours ago, Nathanael said:

How do you know that is not the issue? If you are behind a CGNAT you can never connect directly as your WAN IP is shared.
For a test you can set the routers WAN access open, and see if you can access the routers webserver remotly. (But do not forget to close this access after your test! )

Thank you for pointing this out. I thought all I had to do was confirm the ip addresses were the same.  I reached out to spectrum and they confirmed that I am not behind a CGNat.  They did offer to set up a port for my device before they realized that I have my own router.  I went through my eero settings and added my device as a reservation and opened a port for 8096.  
 

After doing this I am now able to access my server remotely.  
 

My last question, because I know little about ports, does this open any vulnerabilities security-wise that I need to monitor or protect against?

Thanks again.

[TMCsw 252]

1 hour ago, Danielhartman said:

My last question, because I know little about ports, does this open any vulnerabilities security-wise that I need to monitor or protect against?

Absolutely!

As a minimum, make sure:

• The port must be secured with SSL/TLS
• All user names must be hidden for remote access
• All users have strong passwords
• Any Administrator accounts must not have remote logins

there are many more ways to secure your server, but you need to start with most of this...

[Nathanael 4]

Plain HTTP without any forced redirect to HTTPS is vonerable. 
I would also recommend to remove delete rights of all users exept the admin user.

[Danielhartman 0]

I’m at a loss guys.  Opening a port solved the issue for a week and a half.  I made no changes to any settings after.  Worked flawlessly for that time period.  All of a sudden it stopped again.  As mentioned, nothing changed.  I find it odd that I had to open a port at all because remote viewing worked for a few years with no issue prior, and now I’m back in the same boat with it not working anymore even with the port open.

 

open to any suggestions and curious if anyone else has had a similar issue in the past or recently.

[js28194 38]

Emby has a portmapper plugin that utilizes Upnp to automagically take care of port forwarding.  Tech Savvy people have this disabled and turned off and "manually" handle ports.  Since you haven't really explained your environment (from what I can read) and honestly, don't know much about eero what their web interface looks like for port forwarding its difficult to assist.  

If you goto whatsmyip.org from a laptop or computer and display the first 2 octects of your ip, we can tell if you are behind CGNAT or not.  I would never take the ISP word for it as generally fist level support don't even know what that means.  By first 2 octects I mean EXAMPLE  your ip is XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX  so if the first two are the first two XXX.XXX  again Example, if you have 10.xxx or 172.xxx or 192.xxx you are definitely behind CGNAT.  If you have let's say 99.xxx you have a public IP.

your INTERNAL network will most likely always be 10, 172 or 192.  The idea is to port forward all incoming requests from EXTERNAL 99.xxx port 8096 to INTERNAL 192.xxx

Thats the first step.