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Settings for advanced use and troubleshooting

moodyblue edited this page Mar 5, 2018 · 24 revisions

Overview

PlexConnect is designed to work out of the box on most configurations; it will use GDM to auto discover the IP of your Plex Media Server (PMS) and it will use Google's DNS server (8.8.8.8) to resolve any non-PlexConnect URL's for the aTV. The install guides have been updated to reflect this but there are circumstances where either users want to have more control or need to manually configure settings to prevent issues. This is done through editing a file named settings.cfg, which is created the first time that you run and then cleanly shutdown PlexConnect (press CTRL-C when the terminal or CMD window is focused and wait for the processes to be stopped and the command prompt to return).

  • Only edit the "Settings.cfg" if you understand what you are configuring, the stock file should work for almost all users (although you can always trash it and a new default one will be automatically generated).

  • Do not edit the Settings.py file, this is a system file!

PlexGDM

Disabling GDM auto discovery of your Plex Media Server

GDM is used to auto discover your PMS server, if you are having issues with it not automatically discovering your PMS or it is showing the wrong IP then you can disable this and hard code your PMS's IP (and port if using a non-standard one).

GDM auto discovery may get confused if you are running VmWare (or similar) or a VPN because of the IP addresses generated by these; the symptoms are usually that you cannot see your content thumbnails and content will not play, disabling GDM and setting a manual IP has been shown to resolve this particular issue.

NB if GDM is not disabled it will override any hard coded PMS IP. A sample configuration is shown below (note the capital 'F'):

enable_plexgdm = False
ip_pms = 192.168.178.10
port_pms = 32400

Plex Icon

When you decide to hijack a certain ATV application (such as trailers) to access Plex, the top-level ATV menu continues to use the original name and icon, so you have to remember that behind that app you have Plex and not trailers. You may replace the icon with a Plex one following this procedure.

DNSServer

Disabling the PlexConnect DNS server to use your own

You can disable the PlexConnect DNS server to do the DNS redirection for 'trailers.apple.com' using your own DNS server or router. Please edit the following line to show 'False' (note the capital 'F') and setup the necessary routing for "trailers.apple.com" externally:

enable_dnsserver = True

Using your ISP's, Gateway's or geo-unblocker service DNS server on the ATV

PlexConnect is setup by default to use Google's public DNS server to route all DNS enquiries for the other ATV apps, however because this hides your location from the content delivery networks you may find that some of the other applications slow down as content is not served from the nearest location to you.

Alternatively may also wish to change this setting to make use of a DNS geo-unblocking service.

This can be changed to e.g. your ISP DNS server by editing the following line:

ip_dnsmaster = 8.8.8.8

Manual Override of used DNS Port

When running in parallel to another DNS, e.g. on a NAS, you might want to push PlexConnect's DNS to another port. You can do so - just remember to install the correct port forwarding rules externally.

port_dnsserver = 53

Prevent automatic aTV iOS updates

As long as you keep the ATV's DNS server setting pointed at PlexConnect this will prevent the aTV calling home to check for updates:

prevent_atv_update = True

WebServer

Manual Override to PlexConnect's IP

In some environments PlexConnect is unable to figure out the local IP address of its host system. You can disable the auto detect feature by editing the following lines, specifying your local IP address.

NB if you do not disable the auto detect then it will override any IP that you have hard coded in settings.cfg.

enable_plexconnect_autodetect = False
ip_plexconnect = 0.0.0.0

Manual override of used WebServer Port

Your aTV will request data from ports 80 (http) as well as 443 (https). Change to port configuration of PlexConnect only if you have other means of handling the requests or port forwarding rules in place. See also the forum for the stickies on OSX server and Windows server.

port_webserver = 80

Configure PlexConnect's SSL WebServer

Parameters related to the SSL web server. If disabled, or the port is modified, aTVs requests need to be handled externally.

enable_webserver_ssl = True
port_ssl = 443
certfile = ./assets/certificates/trailers.pem

Misc

Log & Debug

Modify the logging behavior or change the path to PlexConnect.log (note that the loglevel setting is case sensitive).

loglevel = Normal [High, Off]
logpath = .
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