Your Apple TV won't be able to connect to your Mac if it can't accept an incoming connection. It's not about accepting connections from the Internet, simply on your local network.
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PlexConnect is worth the effort with Apple TV
- Thread starter Mr. Zarniwoop
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Your Apple TV won't be able to connect to your Mac if it can't accept an incoming connection. It's not about accepting connections from the Internet, simply on your local network.
This Apple TV connects to my Mac just fine. Airplay works. I'm not sure what that has to do with Plex not working.
Back to Plex, you didn't explain why I would need to unblock Plex in the firewall.
I was addressing your question about the firewall. Of course AirPlay and other services work fine, those are designed by apple and already allowed thru OS X's firewall. By default, the port plex wants to use to share its content will be blocked by the OS X firewall. This may very well be the reason it cannot startup
That could be, but until the user decides on a client its just a server that should load and allow configuration. I have plenty of software both retail and vertical that requires an outside connection for any functionality, yet even when not connected to any network I'm able to bring the software up and configure it.
Again, I think its bizarre that I'm forced into a locally-served web page to configure this thing. It makes sense to do that for a router, because the router is an external piece of gear with no other function than to pass packets. With no OS and no input device other than a piece of cable, it makes sense. But for this? Not so much.
I tried your suggestion about the firewall a few minutes ago, btw. Big difference in the behavior. Now I no longer get a simple black page, or a black page with a static Plex logo. Now I get a black page with a Plex logo that fades out after two seconds.
Unless anyone has suggestions on why this thing doesn't work, I'm done.
Again, I think its bizarre that I'm forced into a locally-served web page to configure this thing. It makes sense to do that for a router, because the router is an external piece of gear with no other function than to pass packets. With no OS and no input device other than a piece of cable, it makes sense. But for this? Not so much.
I tried your suggestion about the firewall a few minutes ago, btw. Big difference in the behavior. Now I no longer get a simple black page, or a black page with a static Plex logo. Now I get a black page with a Plex logo that fades out after two seconds.
Unless anyone has suggestions on why this thing doesn't work, I'm done.
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Just to add my 2 cents , I sent last few years ripping our DVD's to iTunes but started with Plex earlier on this year, wow what a difference so much easier to work with, everyone in the house can connect to the movie & TV library, & watch it from iPhone, iPad or ATV..it's exactly what iTunes & Apple TV should be like! (Apple I hope your watching this thread!)It also plays and transcodes any format!
It also picked up our storage of old home movies on our NAS stored in iMovie format!! we could never play them through the ATV!
It also picked up our storage of old home movies on our NAS stored in iMovie format!! we could never play them through the ATV!
No search necessary, its the 3rd icon on the top line. Pretty hard to miss.
Are you running a VPN? Perhaps no available in the country you've selected??
Not sure if anyone would know but I don't know much about this stuff so any help would be awesome.
I have PlexConnect on my laptop and then I set up the ATV3 to access it via trailers. All works well when I run the plea connect app via terminal.
I tried to set up plexconnect as a daemon and used instructions that are mentioned here. The plist shows up in the launchctldaemon folder but when I restart the laptop and then try and access it via the ATV nothing works.
Is there something that I am messing up here? I know its not a big deal to have to put the code in to activate it but given as this fix should be simple I would love to get it working.
I have PlexConnect on my laptop and then I set up the ATV3 to access it via trailers. All works well when I run the plea connect app via terminal.
I tried to set up plexconnect as a daemon and used instructions that are mentioned here. The plist shows up in the launchctldaemon folder but when I restart the laptop and then try and access it via the ATV nothing works.
Is there something that I am messing up here? I know its not a big deal to have to put the code in to activate it but given as this fix should be simple I would love to get it working.
Every other movie I watch stops with just the spinning wheel showing and I have to restart my ATV to finish the movie.
Any ideas?
Any ideas?
willy, have followed this procedure (MAC)?
Plexconnect as Daemon
On OSX you can run PlexConnect as a daemon, which will automatically start on boot and run as a background process. NB ensure that you have PlexConnect fully working before setting it up to automatically start at boot.
First, stop the running instance of PlexConnect if you have one open (CTRL-C)
Open a terminal window and navigate to the "OSX" folder in your PlexConnect "support" folder (you can do this by typing "cd", hitting the spacebar, dragging the OSX folder to the terminal window and hitting enter)
Enter (without the quotes) "sudo ./install.bash"
Provide your Administrator password and press enter.
A PlexConnect plist will be installed to /Library/LaunchDaemons (for the forthcoming boots) and the PlexConnect daemon will be started.
Additional Commands
sudo ./uninstall.bash <will shut down the daemon and uninstall it - (removes the plist).
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.plex.plexconnect.bash.plist <will unload or stop the service for this boot.
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.plex.plexconnect.bash.plist < will restart the process.
sudo launchctl list | grep plexconnect < indicates whether the process is running (first number - PID) and (if neccessary) an error number.
Plexconnect as Daemon
On OSX you can run PlexConnect as a daemon, which will automatically start on boot and run as a background process. NB ensure that you have PlexConnect fully working before setting it up to automatically start at boot.
First, stop the running instance of PlexConnect if you have one open (CTRL-C)
Open a terminal window and navigate to the "OSX" folder in your PlexConnect "support" folder (you can do this by typing "cd", hitting the spacebar, dragging the OSX folder to the terminal window and hitting enter)
Enter (without the quotes) "sudo ./install.bash"
Provide your Administrator password and press enter.
A PlexConnect plist will be installed to /Library/LaunchDaemons (for the forthcoming boots) and the PlexConnect daemon will be started.
Additional Commands
sudo ./uninstall.bash <will shut down the daemon and uninstall it - (removes the plist).
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.plex.plexconnect.bash.plist <will unload or stop the service for this boot.
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.plex.plexconnect.bash.plist < will restart the process.
sudo launchctl list | grep plexconnect < indicates whether the process is running (first number - PID) and (if neccessary) an error number.
Hey OP the link for the instal guide seems to not work for me, do you have an uodated link.
Still getting the problem with movies stopping and having to restart the ATV3.
Is it just iOS7 being crap?
Is it just iOS7 being crap?
Well, I decided to give it another go, and actually got somewhere this time.
I reinstalled the PMS app, and this time I made sure to allow it to receive everything like you said. My firewall is probably swiss cheese now, because it asked for permission to allow incoming connections on about 8 different things. I clicked on the PMS app again... and nothing.
Then I remembered to look for the "Greater than" sign in the top bar. I pulled it down and selected "Media Manager", and a web page opened, filled in black, with the Plex logo in the center. I also got the "approve Flash" dialog, which I answered yes to, since what the hell, I'm leaving the machine wide open anyway with this Plex stuff, might as well just hand over the keys while I'm at it.
After doing that, nothing is happening. I came back to it a while later and it was still doing a great job at nothing. Just the logo on a black screen.
I reread the Plex install instructions, and it mentioned that I should pick an HT app. Maybe it requires one to be present in order to work? So I downloaded one for the iMac. I ran that, and was pleasantly surprised to see it actually did something. It took over my screen completely, and then it actively ignored my trackpad so I had to use the keyboard for everything. it also told me that I should sign in to Plex.
I skipped that, and then I was presented with the options "search" and "channels", over and over and over. Clicking on any one of the "channels" got me two iTunes icons and an iPhoto icon. The first iTunes icon was my music library, and the second one was my movies. None of my artwork was displayed, even though every movie file out of the sixty in my collection has at least a single one sheet attached.
Overall, the interface was horrible. It was very close to XBMC. I couldn't imagine using Plex HT as a media browser or player.
Despite being pretty, their support docs are actually pretty bad. Practically nothing in there applies to what I'm seeing happen here, from install to configuration to usage. It says that I'll be prompted to sign in or sign up to Plex.tv when I first start the server. That doesn't happen, I just get the black screen.
While I'm on the subject - Plex seems obsessively focused on getting me to sign up for their free account and run everything I do on this local machine through their free stuff. Their web app - even run locally - requires a Plex account. Apparently so does most of their software. Why? Even if their server software worked on this machine, its not going to be hooked up to the net, its going to run locally, with no net access.
Anyway, I said I finally got somewhere. I discovered that I have to have cookies enabled on Safari. That was it. That was the whole problem. I turned on cookies (yet another crack in my security), and suddenly I get a populated web page. Settings, options, and a bunch of prompts to sign up for Plex or upgrade to premium. I was also unfortunately surprised to find my entire photo album had been identified by this thing and grabbed. I didn't ask it to do that. I have hundreds of production still photos in that library that are from well known TV shows. If they get out online because of this thing, I'm in trouble. Yet I'm unable to delete this library. So the software is telling me what it gets to serve?
I'm seriously disappointed with how much time trying to get Plex working has cost me, and it has set this project behind quite a bit. If it gets to decide what media it grabs, I'm done with this thing.
I reinstalled the PMS app, and this time I made sure to allow it to receive everything like you said. My firewall is probably swiss cheese now, because it asked for permission to allow incoming connections on about 8 different things. I clicked on the PMS app again... and nothing.
Then I remembered to look for the "Greater than" sign in the top bar. I pulled it down and selected "Media Manager", and a web page opened, filled in black, with the Plex logo in the center. I also got the "approve Flash" dialog, which I answered yes to, since what the hell, I'm leaving the machine wide open anyway with this Plex stuff, might as well just hand over the keys while I'm at it.
After doing that, nothing is happening. I came back to it a while later and it was still doing a great job at nothing. Just the logo on a black screen.
I reread the Plex install instructions, and it mentioned that I should pick an HT app. Maybe it requires one to be present in order to work? So I downloaded one for the iMac. I ran that, and was pleasantly surprised to see it actually did something. It took over my screen completely, and then it actively ignored my trackpad so I had to use the keyboard for everything. it also told me that I should sign in to Plex.
I skipped that, and then I was presented with the options "search" and "channels", over and over and over. Clicking on any one of the "channels" got me two iTunes icons and an iPhoto icon. The first iTunes icon was my music library, and the second one was my movies. None of my artwork was displayed, even though every movie file out of the sixty in my collection has at least a single one sheet attached.
Overall, the interface was horrible. It was very close to XBMC. I couldn't imagine using Plex HT as a media browser or player.
Despite being pretty, their support docs are actually pretty bad. Practically nothing in there applies to what I'm seeing happen here, from install to configuration to usage. It says that I'll be prompted to sign in or sign up to Plex.tv when I first start the server. That doesn't happen, I just get the black screen.
While I'm on the subject - Plex seems obsessively focused on getting me to sign up for their free account and run everything I do on this local machine through their free stuff. Their web app - even run locally - requires a Plex account. Apparently so does most of their software. Why? Even if their server software worked on this machine, its not going to be hooked up to the net, its going to run locally, with no net access.
Anyway, I said I finally got somewhere. I discovered that I have to have cookies enabled on Safari. That was it. That was the whole problem. I turned on cookies (yet another crack in my security), and suddenly I get a populated web page. Settings, options, and a bunch of prompts to sign up for Plex or upgrade to premium. I was also unfortunately surprised to find my entire photo album had been identified by this thing and grabbed. I didn't ask it to do that. I have hundreds of production still photos in that library that are from well known TV shows. If they get out online because of this thing, I'm in trouble. Yet I'm unable to delete this library. So the software is telling me what it gets to serve?
I'm seriously disappointed with how much time trying to get Plex working has cost me, and it has set this project behind quite a bit. If it gets to decide what media it grabs, I'm done with this thing.
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Agreed.
The OP was in regard to getting PlexConnect running on AppleTV, and though my most recent post doesn't reflect that, if you go back to my original contributions to the thread, I wanted to use Plex through AppleTV to have a standalone working media server, from a single iMac to a single AppleTV. I had to start somewhere, and that was where I encountered Plex Media Server.
My posts then described my fight in trying to get this supposedly awesome system working. I went through a month of aggravation with the setup. Others here attempted to help and I appreciate it, but having PMS working for me just wasn't in the cards. My frustration built, hence that last post.
My objections to Plex stem from its crazy reliance on web-based configuration, and its absolute insistence on exposing the machine and its contents to the outside world. Once I saw that this thing decides what media will be exposed and I had no say in it, it went from being a wonky piece of code to a feature-rich piece of spyware.
But back to the topic: I was never able to get as far as working with PlexConnect. I'm going to give AirParrot and Beamer a try, but those look like simple mirroring programs, and not a way for me to use AppleTV to simply play from a movie library on a local iMac.
Why does this have to be so difficult? I can Airdrop/Airplay between machines/boxes/iOS devices without anything more than making sure I'm signed into the same wifi network on each device. But if I want to browse those same files from one device on another device, why does Apple require signing into iCloud on both to enable HomeSharing? If this was peer-to-peer networking for simple file sharing I could just use the Network Browser or whatever OS X has these days. Neither the iMac nor the AppleTV will be online, so I need to hook them to the net just to enter an iCloud password so Homeshare is available?
It makes no sense. Quite a few people on ASF have posted the same thing.
The OP was in regard to getting PlexConnect running on AppleTV, and though my most recent post doesn't reflect that, if you go back to my original contributions to the thread, I wanted to use Plex through AppleTV to have a standalone working media server, from a single iMac to a single AppleTV. I had to start somewhere, and that was where I encountered Plex Media Server.
My posts then described my fight in trying to get this supposedly awesome system working. I went through a month of aggravation with the setup. Others here attempted to help and I appreciate it, but having PMS working for me just wasn't in the cards. My frustration built, hence that last post.
My objections to Plex stem from its crazy reliance on web-based configuration, and its absolute insistence on exposing the machine and its contents to the outside world. Once I saw that this thing decides what media will be exposed and I had no say in it, it went from being a wonky piece of code to a feature-rich piece of spyware.
But back to the topic: I was never able to get as far as working with PlexConnect. I'm going to give AirParrot and Beamer a try, but those look like simple mirroring programs, and not a way for me to use AppleTV to simply play from a movie library on a local iMac.
Why does this have to be so difficult? I can Airdrop/Airplay between machines/boxes/iOS devices without anything more than making sure I'm signed into the same wifi network on each device. But if I want to browse those same files from one device on another device, why does Apple require signing into iCloud on both to enable HomeSharing? If this was peer-to-peer networking for simple file sharing I could just use the Network Browser or whatever OS X has these days. Neither the iMac nor the AppleTV will be online, so I need to hook them to the net just to enter an iCloud password so Homeshare is available?
It makes no sense. Quite a few people on ASF have posted the same thing.
No, not true. I installed PMS, opened Media Manager, and everything was there. I never told it to add my library and I never pointed to any directories. I couldn't, because up until I found out about needing cookies enabled in order for PMS to run the first time (or any time, I found out a few minutes later), I never had access to any configuration steps. So after the latest install attempt - the one that "worked" - I found all my photos were in the Plex server even though I hadn't even given it a direction to do so. And it was all done in a matter of seconds. That makes me wonder if perhaps all those previous frozen attempts at install resulted in a hidden library that was created somewhere on the machine, something that their clean install instructions carefully neglect to tell you about.
The reason your router and NAS are configured by browser is that its the modern way of telnetting into headless logic. There isn't anything to steal in a router, so you password protect it and jump into it via a browser from inside a local network, just like we used to access minis from dumb terminals in another building or town. The reason to NOT do it that way on server software residing on a local machine is simple: security. This isn't a router. This Plex software is meant for a home or business computer. You don't use that same type of configuration because you could end up handing access to your data to people who have no business seeing it. Besides security - that server software is an application on a machine that may have multiple uses and users - its not a dedicated piece of hardware without a display. Why in hell would I need a browser to configure and access a server program from the same machine I was running it from?
To extend your logic, if there was nothing wrong with using http config on PMS, then why didn't Apple use Safari to set the local firewall in OS X instead of a System Preference? Why not just use Safari to set ALL system prefs? Hell, you could configure your entire machine remotely then, like a boss.
No, the way this should have been done is with a proper client/server, with handshake and password attempts. Establish the client identity and move on to the task. Just like what I did to pair AppleTV to its iMac. Plus iOS has all sorts of authentication built in, especially on iPhones, so there is no reason to use a swiss cheese front end like a web browser.
The thread is indeed about PlexConnect. And bearing that out, I came into the thread because I wanted to get that running on this local machine in the hopes of solving a long struggle to get a simple way to display a movie library on AppleTV. I never got that far due to the craziness that is PMS and PHT. Along the way I helped correct your perception about how a server should be properly accessed, I hope. I'll never know because you glossed over that to tell me to go away.
I should note that there were quite a few posts in this thread about iOS apps, QNAP, Synology, NAS, and many other things. Whole posts where PlexConnect wasn't mentioned. You should contact those posters about the errors of their ways. Along with the couple of people who couldn't figure out what Plex was even useful for and made sure to tell you about it. At first I looked at them as possible trolls, but now I see they were simply more guarded in how they spent their efforts. I commend them.
Everyone, please make sure you mention PlexConnect at least once in each post in this thread, per Charlene.
I should note that there were quite a few posts in this thread about iOS apps, QNAP, Synology, NAS, and many other things. Whole posts where PlexConnect wasn't mentioned.
You should contact those posters about the errors of their ways. Along with the couple of people who couldn't figure out what Plex was even useful for and made sure to tell you about it. At first I looked at them as possible trolls, but now I see they were simply more guarded in how they spent their efforts. I commend them. Everyone, please make sure you mention PlexConnect at least once in each post in this thread, per Charlene.
If you are on a Mac, use openconnect to set everything up. Instructions for both Windows and Mac are here: https://forums.plex.tv/index.php/forum/136-appletv-plexconnect/.
As time passed, people found easier ways to get the certificate on the ATV. You can do it by entering a URL on the ATV - no need for a USB connection so don't let earlier instructions scare you off.
Good luck. It is worth the effort. I've tried a Roku, plain ATV, using computers as media centers and nothing beats an ATV with PlexConnect.