“Logging In” Never completes

[alockbox]

Thank you for this great application.

Attempting to run this in Container Manager (Docker) on a Synology NAS.

I tend to setup containers via task scheduler as it saves them all in an easy list for reinstalls, so my code looks like this, machineid altered but obtained directly from the preferences.xml file as no other methods suggested worked (/identity or /devices.xml, etc):

docker run -d --name=plexdlweb
-p 8766:8766
-e PUID=1026
-e PGID=100
-e TZ=America/New_York
-e PDW_SERVER_URL=http://192.168.1.200:32400
-e PDW_SERVER_ID=73987a73-7cf3-4955-8e7e-af54c711d2df
-e PDW_LANG=en
-v /volume1/HOMEDRIVE/MOVIES:/MOVIES
-v /volume1/HOMEDRIVE/TV:/TV
--restart always
zdimension1/plexdlweb

[zdimension]

Your ID doesn't look right, you probably copied the MachineIdentifier (notice the capital M) or AnonymousMachineIdentifier (which contain dashes) instead of the ProcessedMachineIdentifier (which has no dashes and corresponds to the machineIdentifier (lowercase M) returned by /identity and is the one that you should be using here). Can you try that?

Really surprising that neither /identity nor /devices.xml worked, what exactly are you getting from these endpoints? (404?) For example, can you give the output of curl -v http://192.168.1.200:32400/identity ?

[alockbox]

I was using the one titled MachineIdentifier which is what google brought up on all results when searching for “Plex ID” as stated on the main page. Thank you for engaging so quickly. I did locate the ProcessedMachineIdentifier, tried that, and got the same thing.

http://192.168.1.200:32400/identity results in a white page with no formatting and the unbroken text:

html, body, body :not(iframe)not(#annotationContainer) { background-color: #181a1b !important; border-color: #776e62 !important; color: #e8e6e3 !important; } embed { filter: invert(100%) !important; }

http://192.168.1.200:32400/devices.xml results in a forbidden error

http://192.168.1.200:32400/ loads the plex homepage fine, confirming already logged in.

[alockbox]

The log for the container shows quite a few JavaScript timeout errors. Was there anything else needed to be done after installation?

This is running in a docker container on a Synology NAS, and i don’t have JavaScript errors on any other containers.

[zdimension]

Okay, there's definitely something wrong with your Plex installation. /identity is the standard endpoint for checking status of a server, so it being unavailable is quite weird. Could you run the curl command I wrote so I can see the full HTTP output?

[alockbox]

Below is what was returned. I obscured the machine ID but verified it exactly matched what I’m using during my installation. As a side note, I have many containers that interface with the Plex install and none of them have issues, so I never questioned the installation, but I’d love to solve the puzzle. It updates fine as well.

% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 0> GET /identity HTTP/1.1

Host: 192.168.1.200:32400
User-Agent: curl/7.86.0
Accept: /

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< X-Plex-Protocol: 1.0
< Content-Type: text/xml;charset=utf-8
< Content-Length: 207
< Connection: Keep-Alive
< Keep-Alive: timeout=20
< Cache-Control: no-cache
< Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2025 10:04:36 GMT
<
{ [207 bytes data]
100 207 100 207 0 0 96234 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 202k

[alockbox]

The curl results look ok to me, but I’m not an expert. I also realize it’s very possible a browser extension like dark reader is what’s causing the weird results in browser when using /identity.

The results running the curl command from a Mac in terminal is the same, i have no idea why only partial pasting occurred above:

*   Trying 192.168.1.200:32400...
* Connected to 192.168.1.200 (192.168.1.200) port 32400
> GET /identity HTTP/1.1
> Host: 192.168.1.200:32400
> User-Agent: curl/8.7.1
> Accept: */*
> 
* Request completely sent off
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< X-Plex-Protocol: 1.0
< Content-Type: text/xml;charset=utf-8
< Content-Length: 207
< Connection: Keep-Alive
< Keep-Alive: timeout=20
< Cache-Control: no-cache
< Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2025 10:19:32 GMT
< 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaContainer size="0" apiVersion="1.0.0" claimed="1" machineIdentifier="0c578axxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxac682c4" version="1.41.8.9834-071366d65">
</MediaContainer>
* Connection #0 to host 192.168.1.200 left intact

[zdimension]

Ah, so the white page thing was a red herring, /identity does work... It's probably the browser trying to render the XML without success. But then, why the timeouts? Could you send the container/PlexDLWeb logs?

[alockbox]

plexdlweb.csv

These are the only logs I could find. Does it log out only to stdout/stderr?

When I install containers, I always create a folder (ie plexdlweb) in my docker folder and then run the install script. For this installation, there seems to be no data stored under that folder. Should I be specifying a path in the original install script? Perhaps the installation needs a few more variables when running on a Synology?

[zdimension]

Ah, well, it makes sense that there wouldn't be much in the server logs now that I think of it, since the login procedure is done client-side.

The login procedure calls the Plex auth service and waits for a token to be returned, which is then posted back to the server. Somewhere along the ways this never happens, and the server times out -- this is what we see in the server logs.

When you try to login, a popup opens, in which you enter your Plex credentials. Upon logging in, does this popup just stay open indefinitely? Like with a spinner? Or does it close and then nothing happens?

If it stays open, could you open the Inspect Element panel (in the popup) and see if there's any error in the JS logs?

[alockbox]

Ok I’ve made some progress, it does not seem to like macOS / safari browsers (iOS/iPadOS 18, iOS/iPadOS 26, macOS 15, macOS 26 all tested). On mobile devices, no prompts occur about a page being blocked. On macOS, the popup page is blocked (note: this has never occur with other docker applications that utilize the auth service). Once Dark Reader is disabled AND pop-up blocker is disabled on the address, the window to login with plex auth works and takes login credentials. After a few seconds, a white screen with a sad face appears:

500
Server error
TimeoutError: Response not ready after 3.0 seconds

[zdimension]

Oh, that one's fun. Didn't think about the popup being blocked. This is exactly why I didn't want to roll the auth myself and just copied the code from Tautulli, but it seems that it managed to break anyway. I'll try making a quick fix for the timeout thing.

I'm gonna try on Safari, could you try with Chrome or Firefox on your side, see if anything changes?

[alockbox]

I will try on chrome yes. I actually have tautulli installed and I just clicked login and it immediately opened the login page no pop-up blocker errors so I can confirm that works (on the latest version as well).

[alockbox]

Confirmed the pop-up functions fine on chrome on macOS. The same white screen with 500 server error.

[zdimension]

The plot thickens. I'm investigating

[zdimension]

Yeah I have no idea what's happening. I use the same code as Tautulli. I'll try looking at other Plex-based apps and see how they do the auth. Ugh.