Question regarding remote access issue (not Emby issue)

[jasonmcroy 316]

Hey guys. While on a Christmas vacation/road trip, I unfortunately realized I couldn't connect to my Emby Server remotely. I thought it was an Emby issue because I could connect still to a Plex server I keep in the background but rarely ever use. I was able to remote into my HTPC from my laptop and I tried several different things to find out what was going on. I stopped my firewall, but that didn't help. I restarted the server and my HTPC remotely but that also did not help. No matter what I tried I could not connect to Emby from any Android App, my browser or my Shield TV device.

 

We returned home a couple of days ago and everything works fine within my network. Today I did some more testing with my phone by using the data plan rather than Wi-Fi to see if it would connect. Still no connecting to it.

 

I then decided to restart my modem/router and let it reboot. That fixed it completely!

 

So, I realize this isn't an Emby issue, but I was hoping that some of you that know a lot about this subject might be able to tell me why all of a sudden I couldn't remotely connect until I rebooted the router when a month ago I could connect remotely just fine.

 

There have been no changes to my network or router at all. It seems to me this shouldn't happen and I would like to be able to avoid this in the future since I don't travel that often but when I do I don't want to run into this issue again.

[Apotropaic 41]

HI, some of my users see this issue from time to time but I've never got to the bottom of it, sometimes it will be specific apps that can't connect. Other users can connect fine externally however so I usually ignore it.

 

I rarely reboot my router and the issue usually resolves itself, I always thought it was an issue at the users end but looking at this again it's probably something to do with stale state tables on the router.. Are you using an ISP provided router or something like pfSense?

 

Also, just out of interest are you port forwarding on your router and/or do you have the 'Enable automatic port mapping' feature turned on?

[dcrdev 255]

Well if it was working within your network, but not outside and a simple restart solved it - then that would to me suggest a problem with your router. Perhaps a bug a nat that causes the rule that forwards emby to a public port - I would recommend trying a software/firmware update on your router.

 

Although I suppose theoretically your isp could be doing some kind of traffic limiting - detecting a lot of data being transmitted over a specific port; I know some isps are shady in that regard. Perhaps a modem restart, triggered a new ip assignment and that's why it started working again.

[Tur0k 148]

How old is the modem/router?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jasonmcroy 316]

Are you using an ISP provided router or something like pfSense?

 

Also, just out of interest are you port forwarding on your router and/or do you have the 'Enable automatic port mapping' feature turned on?

 

I am using my ISP's router/modem. I am not port forwarding. I have never had to do that before. I am not familiar with "Enable automatic port mapping" so I know I haven't turned it on myself.

 

 

How old is the modem/router?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I am not sure how old it is overall. I have had it for about a year and 1/2.

[mastrmind11 722]

No idea how you'd be able to connect to your internal network w/o some form of port mapping in your router.

Edited January 5, 2018 by mastrmind11

[Tur0k 148]

So I would be suspicious of a failing gateway modem.  other possibilities are that your public IP changed.  do you use a DDNS service when accessing your home network from the public Internet?  what service are you using to remotely access your home systems?