Wrestling the PS5 into Talking to Plex

There’s nothing like firing up your PlayStation 5 on a Friday night, biltong in hand, only to discover that Plex — your meticulously curated library of series and movies — is nowhere to be found. Your phone sees the server fine, your laptop streams happily, but your PS5? Nada.

This is a surprisingly common issue. Let’s break down the problem, the dead ends, and ultimately the fix — Pro-IT style.

The Setup

• Flat LAN network (192.168.XX.XX/24)

• Plex server on 192.168.XX.XX

• PS5 on 192.168.XX.XX

• pfSense firewall/router handling DHCP & LAN rules

On paper, everything should work. Both devices sit happily on the same subnet. No VLANs. No guest Wi-Fi. Yet the PS5 refuses to discover the Plex server.

The Usual Suspects

1. Discovery vs. Direct Login Plex on PS5 doesn’t rely purely on local broadcast discovery. It actually phones home to plex.tv, checks which servers are linked to your account, then decides whether to connect locally or remotely.

2. LAN Networks Setting Initially, the Plex server was set to 192.168.XX.1/24 instead of 192.168.XX.0/24. That tiny typo meant the PS5 wasn’t treated as a LAN client.

3. DLNA? Meh.We tested enabling DLNA as a fallback, but DLNA strips away all the good stuff — metadata, transcoding metrics, watch history. Not ideal if you actually want Plex and not just raw folder browsing.

4. pfSense Firewall Default LAN rules were already “allow any → any,” so blocking wasn’t the issue.

The Hidden Culprit: DNS Rebinding

Here’s where things got spicy.

• Plex often tells clients to connect via *.plex.direct hostnames.

• These resolve back to your local LAN IP (e.g., 192.168.1.34).

• pfSense, by default, blocks these lookups because they look like DNS rebinding attacks.

Your phone worked fine because it was using Google DNS/Cloudflare. The PS5, however, used pfSense for DNS resolution — and got blocked.

The Fix

1. Correct the LAN Networks Setting.

   In Plex → Settings → Network:

192.168.XX.0/24

✅ Ensures Plex knows the entire subnet is local.

2. Add a Custom Server URL.

   In Plex → Settings → Network → Custom server access URLs:

http://192.168.XX.XX:32400

✅ Gives Plex.tv a direct pointer.

3. Whitelist plex.direct in pfSense.

   In pfSense → Services → DNS Resolver → Custom Options:

server: private-domain: "plex.direct"

✅ Allows your PS5 to resolve Plex’s special hostnames without dropping security elsewhere.

4. Restart Plex & PS5 App Now, log both into the same Plex account. The server shows up instantly, and the dashboard correctly identifies the PS5 as a local client 🏠 instead of a remote 🌍.

Lessons Learned

• Plex LAN access isn’t always “just LAN.” The Plex.tv handshake still matters.

• Tiny subnet typos (192.168.XX.1/24 vs. 192.168.XX.0/24) can break local detection.

• pfSense DNS rebinding protection is brilliant for security but needs exceptions for services like Plex.

With this sorted, Plex streams direct to the PS5 at full LAN speed, with proper metrics and transcoding stats intact.

Final Thought

Next time your PS5 throws a tantrum about Plex, don’t throw out the console or blame the biltong grease on your controller. Instead, check your Plex network settings, DNS rebinding, and custom URLs. A few small tweaks can turn “empty Media Gallery” into smooth, metadata-rich streaming bliss.