[safety1st]

Whatever's going on at Plex HQ is very weird. I've used it for years and when I first set it up, it WAS software I controlled (or so I thought). I mean it was open source, you installed it locally, and there was no such thing as a Plex account or paid services at the time. Eventually they added the account, the upsells and the nags and scary messages which all led you towards getting an account, but I avoided doing so until last year.

When I finally relented and registered an account all kinds of bugs cropped up, like my local media started streaming through their server and became unplayable as a result. There was no clear way to reverse it. Around the same time their Android app started requiring a Plex account to function (not sure if that was just an update they pushed, or some flag that got flipped by me using an account once).

I think I ultimately just nuked my Plex install, reinstalled, and never attempted to log into a Plex account again. I live in perpetual certainty now that one day an auto-update will make Plex simply melt down and stop working one way or another for me. It's not really a big deal, I will just have to set up Jellyfin and live with it when that day arrives because it can't possibly be worse than this experience, right? Needless to say I will never give Plex Inc. a single penny after watching this enshittification.

[shepherdjerred]

Plex will only stream through their servers if there is not a direct connection to your server. You need port 32400 open on your network.

I thought there was a way to disable this, but the docs don't mention it: https://support.plex.tv/articles/216766168-accessing-a-serve...