this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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Plex has paywalled my server! (lemmy.giftedmc.com)
submitted 1 day ago by haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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I tried testing a movie from my home server in plex through firefox and repeatedly got this message, even after reloading.

I knew that they had paywalled the apps on mobile and streaming from outside the network but now they have also blocked watching your own movies through your own hardware.

I do get the point that making software should be able to sustain people but I dont see the move of plex as a fair thing to do. Yes, they have made great software but taking your home server hostage feels like the wrong move.

Even a pop up that says "we need you to donate please" would have been fine. make it pop up before every movie, play donation ads before any movie but straight up disabling the app is kinda cruel.

Anyway, i have switched to jellyfin and it is insanely good. please give it a try. you can run it alongside plex with not issues (at least i had none) and compare the two.

In any case, good luck. Let me know if you need help.

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[–] PhAzE@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 hours ago

Plex has pay walled FREE servers streaming to FREE clients only.

If you have a plex watch pass (for client) you're good and can stream from any server. If you have a plex pass (for server) any one can stream from your server. But you have to have one or the other.

[–] DieserTypMatthias@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 hours ago (2 children)

What about switching to Jellyfin?

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 1 points 25 minutes ago

I have been using rygel. I don't need anything fancy, dump a few media folders onto any VLC player on the LAN.

[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 4 points 2 hours ago

Already done. Thanks for the suggestion though. :)

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 22 points 6 hours ago (7 children)

It's pretty rare that a company starts taking away free features and doesn't end up fucking payers in the end.

The biggest bar to Jellyfin is TV clients, the second biggest is security.

TV clients can be fixed with a one-time purchase of a $20 android TV stick. If viewing your familys ARR content isn't worth $20 you probably don't need to do it anyway.

Security for remote streaming is a harder thing to handle. Most people are capable of port forwarding, But just hanging a smallish public project out there in the open is always a dicey proposition. It honestly needs real fail2ban, probably SSL, 2FA and password complexity requirements.

We could probably make a jellyfin helper container to handle some of this. Walk people through Let's Encrypt, dynDNS, port forwarding tests, add fail2ban with a firewall, maybe even slap suricata in it.

We need to convince the project to add 2FA and password complexity requirements.

I don't know guys what do you think is it crazy? does it make sense? Would anybody actually use it?

[–] Taldan@lemmy.world 1 points 2 minutes ago (1 children)

probably SSL

*TLS

SSL has been deprecated for a decade at this point

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 56 seconds ago

Would you consider this a particularly constructive comment?

[–] rollerbang@lemmy.world 9 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I access my stuff via VPN. As for sharing with others, I simply don't do that. VPN is still an option though. Or temporary client whitelisting, etc.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago

Now that's an interesting thought.

A web page with Authelia, login and a firewall.

If you're not logged in, All you get is a login page. If you are logged in, It passes you straight through to jellyfin.

So any device and client would be able to access it without issue once a phone or computer on the network had logged in just once.

The web page modifies the HA proxy ACL and forces a reload.

[–] kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

You can address the 2fa by putting it behind something like authelia, but still, the project needs to step it up

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 hours ago

Authelia is super easy, if the clients can handle it

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[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Security for remote streaming is a harder thing to handle. Most people are capable of port forwarding, But just hanging a smallish public project out there in the open is always a dicey proposition. It honestly needs real fail2ban, probably SSL, 2FA and password complexity requirements.

Yeah.

It's tough because I get they're an open-source project, and they're volunteers, but at the same time, security is something that should be the highest priority.

Though, you could just make it so that it's not accessible via WAN and instead has to go through a VPN, though that'd make it harder to share with others.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago

That's what I do myself but in a lot of cases VPN is beyond the grasp of the grasp of the friends and family that are being shared with.

Tailscale is somewhat approachable for this, there are a number of streaming devices that support TS clients. But then tailscale will eventually enshittify their free offering. Wrapping headscale into this will add yet another layer of complication. VPN is far more secure but I think it makes it unapproachably complicated for many.

[–] JessieGearGirl@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

As someone who is … lazy and took advantage of some Amazon Black Friday Fire TV stick deals, and who doesn’t want to drop the $200 for a Shield:

Any Android sticks/players you might recommend?

[–] melroy@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 2 hours ago

Bittorrent joined the room.

[–] XannyDevito@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 hours ago

The Onn dongles from Walmart are probably the cheapest. The firestick should work fine and there are also Chromecasts from Google.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Basic functionality, I've heard good things about the crappy Walmart ONN branded ones.

I know there are Alibaba options, But I'm awfully afraid of a lot of those have worst security issues than opening up jellyfin.

[–] pory@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

+1 for Walmart Onn, very easy to debloat and degoogle, supports SmartTubeNext, S0undTV (Twitch), Jellyfin, Plex, whatever else you want.

[–] JessieGearGirl@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Thanks- was hoping there was something out there that’s a bit less tied into some large Amazon-y or Google-y type anything

For all their lack of privacy, the Fire Sticks perform pretty well

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[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 34 points 8 hours ago (25 children)

Old news, but time for Jellyfin. I made the switch a couple months ago. Some minor teething issues, but better, IMO, especially now as my family all have LDAP users and that just works.

[–] a_baby_duck@lemmy.world 1 points 59 minutes ago

I made the switch a few months back as well. Have you had the issue where"Recently Added" just straight up doesn't work? It's about 50/50 for me whether my new downloads show up there or not, and if they do, it's usually inserted somewhere down the list between other things I added months ago. Not sure if there's a workaround, but it's my #1 complaint with Jellyfin. Otherwise, it's been great.

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