as someone who does stuff in my lab that can translate to a work context, i absolutely second this opinion.

if i am labbing to learn, then learning the best way to do it is always be the main focus, even if it means restarting what I was doing to change how some prerequisite is setup or functions.

today, OP is working with jellyfin, but as an example, what happens if later they get security cameras and want to use some sort of local ML to analyze events, and don’t want to put a lot cpu utilization to that task during lulls in activity? a solution might be to dynamically create and destroy containers for the analysis tasks, and the background on a network setup in an unrelated container stack that would allow scaling that means one less problem to solve later.

hardwire for testing? then when settled do the full install. maybe use a different laptop.

i looked at the cross-post, do you have the spec sheets for transceivers? do you have any sort of filter / mux panel.

short between pairs probably. tdr (time domain reflectometer) cable tester should help locate fault. might be pinched somewhere or something else

there are “casts” you can get to repair buried cable. usually used in copper telephone plant, i wouldn’t trust it to certify to a gig but you could use it for a backup link or if you play with pots at some point. or “temporary repair”

i would expect your lengthy research would have included “router model default password”, “reset password router model” and “port forward on router model”

12-24 from a telco guy, buy a 12-24 tap to help take the paint off