Netflix Streaming Issue

Ok so after messing around for a late few hours I found the answer for me. This may work for anyone else who has bootcamp installed. click on the windows drive and do the search for Silverlight. Silverlight shows in the finder, you will find that when you hilte the file & look at the bottom bar of the finder screen it will show you that it is under the apple drive/library/applicationsupport/microsoft/playready. So use the drive icon on your desktop and load the File thread above. the dreaded file that Bill & everyone else recommends removing (read this thread as I deleted the file) this showed up only after I had followed Bills instructions and wiped silverlight off both drives and tried to reload netflix which gave me that same error. I took off the file and YEA!! got my movie. so here is my fix. if this is unclear please reply and I will try to help. good luck

Rex Ross,

How do I find "hardisk/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Playready/mspr.hds" Searching in Finder and finding nothing. Sorry, not very adept. Am a recent sufferer of this weird Neflix malignment, though, and don't want to pay for a service I can't use. Would LOVE to use your fix, though!

Thanks!

Bill Bradford,

I was able to follow all of your instrucions other than 3.: when I got as far as "current-username" there was no Library>Application Support>Microsoft. I had two other options at the "current-username" level: Guest and Shared. Nothing in Guest but Shared had Library>Application Support. However, there was no Microsoft, only Adobe.

So, I did all of the other steps, restarted my Mac (MBP 5,2 : can't remember the year; I bought it used), went to Netflix and it prompted me to download the newest version of Silverlight! Yay! So, I did. Then I went to try Netflix and got EXACTLY THE SAME ERROR MESSAGE: "Whoops, something went wrong. Internet connection problem. An internet or home network connection problem is preventing playback. Please check your internet connection and try again. If the problem persists, please call Netflix at 1-866-579-7115. Error Code: N8156-6205." I use pay-as-you-go WiFi for internet; don't have a home network.

Naturally, when this first started a few days ago, I started by disconnecting/reconnecting my WiFi (I subscribe), called Netflix (twice) who walked me through the cookie deleting (I think? sorry I'm not sure) process and Finder>Go>Computer>Mac HD>Application Support>Microsoft>Play Ready>msdr.hds (I think). I found the steps they walked me through on a Netflix help site after I'd already talked with them. Nothing Netflix had me do worked and they were stumped. I kept reading online that this wasn't an internet connection error (as Netflix claimed) but was a Silverlight problem. That's how I found my way here. So, now I have new Silverlight and my problem is still not fixed. Any ideas?

I guess my next best bet is to call my ISP but I don't hold out a lot of hope for that based on 1) them and 2) the fact that it seems like lots of other people have had success with the wole delete/reinstall Silverlight solution. BTW, I'm running OSX 10.8.4 and Safari 6.0.5.

I appreciate any help you or anyone else can offer.

Thanks!

Under the Bridge,

I just tried that, too, and it still doesn't work for me. Does anyone have any other ideas?

Thanks!

For me deleting the 'mspr.hds' file worked. The trick is finding the right directory.

In my case (Mac OS 10.6.8) it was HardDrive>Library>Application Support>Microsoft>PlayReady>mspr.hds

Note that you have to start from your root directory (which you can get to by using the keyboard shortcut [shift+command+c]; you won't find the PlayReady directory if you go through HardDrive>Users>UserName>Library... or if you click on the 'Library' in the 'places' list on the left side of a Finder window).

Start from the root and you shouldn't have any problems!

I have a relatively recent mac mini, connected to the HDTV, with which I view Netflix. I upgraded to Mavericks recently, and ran into the DRM problem when I tried to watch a movie with Netflix. Following Netflix' work-around (close and re-open Safari) did not help. Netflix customer support pointed me in the right direction with advice to move the [Macintosh HD:Library:Application Support:Microft:]PlayReady folder to the trash and empty it. However, there was *no* PlayReady folder. Netflix customer support technician suggested using an account with administrative privileges, to view the directory, but that was a bust. The next advice was to uninstall and then reinstall Silverlight, but instead I started Safari and logged into Netflix when I was logged in as the administrator. The movie played. The PlayReady folder had been created. I then logged in with the non-administrative account and Netflix played movies. Summarizing:

1. log in as administrator
2. sign into netflix and try to play a movie
3. if it doesn't work, try something else
4. if it does work, log on as the non-administrative user, sign into netflix, and try to play a movie
5. if it doesn't work, try something else
6. if it does work, make the popcorn and continue watching ...

Okay I was in the same boat as those who had this problem (on mavericks), but had no PlayReady folder, and thus the typical solutions above didnt work (including deleting the plugin and reinstalling).

Here is my solution that finally worked. First close all browsers then delete the following ->

/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/PlayReady [if its there, in my case it wasnt]

/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Silverlight

/Library/Internet Plug-Ins/Silverlight.plugin

/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.PlayReady.plist [this is actually a folder with hidden contents, delete it completely]

The rest will be in your home directory (Users/Username), as designated by "~".

~/Library/Saved Application State/com.microsoft.silverlight.savedState

~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Silverlight

Also look in ~/Library/Preferences and delete any files with com.microsoft.silverlight in the filename (cant remember the exact filenames, but it should obviously be related to silverlight when you see it).

Once that is done, install the latest version of silverlight from the dmg downloadable from microsofts site. Start your webbrowser and try netflix. Let me know how it goes.

SIDENOTE: I also deleted ~/Library/Saved Application State/Safari/Localstorage/http_social.microsoft.com_0.localstorage in the process, which I doubt was relevant, but just incase I'll add that here.

That did it. Thank you thank you thank you.

Thanks "To serve mankind, with a cup of instant smile"! That did the trick!

I'm on Mac OS X 10.9 and had a similar issue with Silverlight where I couldn't play Netflix or Amazon Instant Prime videos. Everytime I right-clicked on a video and tried to open Silverlight preferences, it would crash. For what's it's worth, I was able to fix the issue a little differently...

I did everything Bill suggested and did the whole uninstall and reinstall thing. No luck... I tried a guest account and saw that it worked so figured it was an issue inside my home folder, so...

In case anyone has the same problem, tries the above, and has the same issue, I was able to solve my playback problem by going to ~/Library/Application Support and deleting the whole "Microsoft" folder. That was it! Drove me nuts for a couple of hours. After searching google up and down for a solution, I figured I should probably post what I had done to solve the issue in case anyone else needed help.

I have tried all that was suggested but no luck.

Anyone else had sucess with any other tricks?

I know this is late, but incase there is some other poor soul searching for a FIX, I have a new one!

I got error n8151 on Netflix.

I too did not have a Playready folder on my Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10.5

I tried every fix out there. I uninstalled silverlight and reinstalled many times. I deleted all receipts. I found no Playready folder and YES I was on the global library of my HD on an administrative user account. Still, I made another admin user account and still no Playready Folder. I deleted ALL internet plug-ins so there was no chance of "interfering" as one Microsoft employee suggested. I changed browsers, I changed preferences in system and safari. I repaired utility disk. I restarted my computer many times, and after almost every change. The only fix I didnt try was deleting the Playready folder because, well... I seriously DID NOT HAVE ONE.

SO.....

I again, uninstalled silverlight and every folder, receipt, etc. that had silverlight in the title.

Then...

I downloaded an OLDER version of Silverlight. Silverlight 4.0.60310.0 to be exact.

-Silverlight 4.0 has a Playready folder

Then I went to Netflix and it asked me to update to Silverlight 5.0. And I did.

-I thought for sure this would just be another fail.

But it solved my problem. I now have a Playready folder from 4.0 and I'm updated to 5.0 and my movies play!

This is really ODD because Netflix has a set of instructions to fix error n8151 which involve DELETING the Playready folder. In actuality, I was lacking a Playready folder and obtaining it was my fix!

Try this

1 - Open netflix site

2 - Go to Safari's Preferences

3 - Click the 'Advanced' tab.

4 - check mark next to 'Show Develop menu in menu bar.'

5 - Close Preferences

6 - In the Develop menu, there is now an Enter Responsive Design Mode menu item

7 - switch to this mode and REFRESH netflix site

@Macros Illustri: I went into "Develop" > Enter Responsive Design Mode. I'm not sure why, but it was set to iPhone 6s. I have a 13" MBA with a 1440x900 display: that was not an option. There was one that was 1300ish, so I chose that. I refreshed the Netflix site. This did not help anything. I still get exactly the same error message.

In other news, I called Netflix who told me that Safari is, for the moment, not functioning with Silverlight. This happens periodically. It's out of Netflix's hands and is up to Apple to fix. The Netflix guy suggested I try Chrome and I was able to watch Netflix there. This is a Safari problem and until Apple decide to fix it, I don't think there's any way to watch Netflix (and maybe use any Silverlight application) until they choose to do so.

I've had a Netflix subscription since before they started streaming and I've had a mac since 2009: I think in the past 7 years I've experienced this kind of problem, Safari not playing with Silverlight, about 4 times. Eventually, VERY eventually, Apple decide to get around to fixing the problem. It takes them so long, though, I don't plan on checking back to see if I can use Safari again for at least 2 weeks.

I'm not sure how long it's been since you tried to watch NetFlix on Safari but it has been fixed for at least a year I think. It works just fine with Silverlight as well.