I first thought this problem was related to my new install of the Plex media server (installed on Windows 11 laptop), but the problem seems bigger than that. The issue is that neither localhost nor 127.0.0.1 are reachable regardless of port specified, not just port 32400 used by Plex. Chrome states "This site can’t be reached. 127.0.0.1 refused to connect".
The really weird part is that the server was up and the clients successfully connected to it when I first set everything up a few nights ago, and then stopped working the following morning despite me having made no changes. Tried rebooting my PC and my router and as expected, this made no difference.
I looked at another Stack Overflow Post https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34543443/cant-access-127-0-0-1 but none of the offered solutions solved my problem. Unlike the OP in that post, my issue is that neither localhost nor 127.0.0.1 are connecting.
Really stumped and appreciate any and all help.