Netflix Problems

Ordered ATV 2 the day it was announced and it worked perfect until the upgrade to the OS. It then was so slow downloading Netflix and YouTube that it was unusable. I tried all the fixes I found on these forums to no avail. Yesterday I called Apple and after 45 minutes of testing and resetting etc, the tech set me up an appointment to swap it out. At the Apple store the tech ask if he could test the unit, I said sure, expecting it to work perfectly. It work very slow just like at home. The new ATV that he gave works great. Bottom line, if you are having this slow down problem, you may have a defective ATV and no amount of tweaking will fix it. Good luck to all who have this problem.

I used to follow this discussions because I had the same problems with Netflix, ie. sometimes I can play movies, sometimes not, more often not. Then I read somewhere that I should find out the best DNS service to use using Namebench (http://lifehacker.com/5420931/namebench-helps-you-find-the-fastest-dns-server-fo r-your-computer). I did and I updated my AppleTV DNS, and it's been 2 weeks now with no problems. Hope this helps.

I've been working on the "no netflix videos" for a few days now, and finally tried something new and got it working. Prior to this I could browse everything, but trying to play would spin the pinwheel, and then go back to the movie description window. Now everything works great and I can stream movies and TV shows from Netflix.

Here is what I did.
1. I connected my ATV2 directly to the back of my cable modem. This worked.
Going with the idea that maybe there is a connection that is being started from Netflix I decided to try normal port forwarding things on the router.
2. I setup UPNP. That didn't work.
3. I setup a DMZ (basically it port forwards all incoming new connections) to the ATV2. That didn't work either.

My final setup now until Apple/Netflix/Me figure out what's wrong and fix it is the following:
I used an old Ethernet switch, and have the these things connected to it:
1. Cable modem
2. Linksys E3000 - WAN Port (my main Internet router for my house with lots of stuff behind it)
3. ATV2 Ethernet port

The big difference in this setup is that the ATV2 has a public Internet address as opposed to a private address. If you have more than one Internet device in your house, you are probably using private addressing. Your ATV probably has an address that starts with 192.168.x.x where x any number between 1 and 254.

I'll post some pictures at my blog in case you would like to try this and need a little more description. http://tigelane.blogspot.com

I have the exact same problem:

I now know for a fact that apple tv 2nd gen (after 5 hrs of tinkering and being shuttled between apple, netflix and comcast) will not work with the Cisco E3000 router (I'm using DD-WRT firmware v24-sp2 (10/26/10) mega - build 15508M NEWD-2 K2.6 Eko).

I'm very curious to know if you are using the stock CISCO E3000 firmware. Can you post the firmware version?

I was able to stream if I connected apple tv directly to my cable modem.

The annoyance is every other device on my network can stream netflix just fine.

What is apple doing wrong here? I attempted to use wireshark but I couldn't see any traffic going in/out of apple tv.

Thanks bkmartin. I did more checking around and the problem is related DD-WRT and other routers that monitor DNS requests for a "rebind attack". When they see what Netflix is trying to do, they block the traffic. I'm not sure why this happens on a ATV, and my iPhone, while not happening on the other three computers in the house.

1. As you said bkmartin, hard setting your DNS to either google (8.8.8.8) or your ISPs DNS would work for anyone with this problem.
2. If you happen to be running dd-wrt on your router, then you should upgrade to a version that has the option "No DNS Rebind" on the Services page in the DNSMasq and set it to "Disable". Then reboot the router. This is working for me.
3. If you have a different router or device running DNSMasq, then you should look in their forums for a fix to the issue. Most likely, it will be a setting to turn off protection from DNS Rebind attacks.


There is a thread here that talks about the rebind attack:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1001817

and one here that talks about the dd-wrt issue and how to get around it:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=518676&sid=26f3585e507c4a2acf83f3fb 817971a1

Grandplan, if you changed the DNS to static google, then upgrading/changing the router software won't help that problem.

I would try connecting the ATV directly to your DSL Modem. If that works, and changing your DNS doesn't, then this is a different problem then the DNS rebinding issue. Please try to connect directly to the DSL modem and let us know how what happens.

DNS Rebinding attack:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_rebinding

Content for Netflix comes from Akamai. I believe (it's encrypted with SSL so I can't be sure) that Netflix does some redirection with DNS so that your IOS devices (ATV, iPhone, iPad) go to Akamai and that is when the routers detects that a DNS Rebinding attack is happening. Netflix could change how this works, but it's not super likely, and could take quite a while since they have built an entire video delivery solution around it. Mac (and possibly Windows) clients must not get redirected in the same way, so they work even if you have a router that with stop the DNS rebinding attack.

-Tige

Before you restore to factory defaults, try unplugging for like 30 seconds. I had the same problem and that fixed it. I turned ATV back on and Netflix came back. I was also missing "TV Shows" from Apple, which was also fixed. Let's see them claim this one is Netflix, the Internet, or my router. 😉

I was having the same problem described in many of these posts. Was able to sign-in and browse titles in Netflix but I was getting error 112 when attempting to play a title. Everything was working fine previously and I was pretty sure it wasn't a bandwidth issue.

When I unplugged the Apple TV for about 30 seconds, it restarted and that solved my problem.

I upgraded the modem itself. I called my ISP (a local company in southeastern CT) and discussed the problem and told them that I wanted a new modem. I upgraded from the Motorola SB5101 to the SB5101U. I'm not sure how much of an "upgrade" this really is but this is brand new and my original one was 5 years old. I didn't change any settings. I have a new Airport Extreme connected to the mdoem.

When I first got a Netflix-enabled plasma TV, I tried using it with my wireless network. It kept losing the connection to the Panasonic server so it couldn't download the latest software update. I read about a device called an ethernet bridge here on the Apple forums. It's a kit consisting of 2 boxes and 2 ethernet cables. You plug one box in directly to an outlet and connect it to your modem or router with an ethernet cable. I have mine connected to the Airport Extreme because it has extra ethernet ports. You plug the other box directly into an outlet near your streaming device and connect it to the device with an ethernet cable. These boxes must be plugged in directly to an outlet or a very good extension cord. It won't work if you connect it to a surge protector.

When I connected it to the plasma TV and changed the TV setting to ethernet instead of wireless network, it immediately connected to the Panasonic server and downloaded the software update in no time. I typically have no trouble streaming from Netflix with either that TV or my Netflix-enabled blu-ray player. It occasionally has to rebuffer but not often.

When I first got Apple TV, it did work wirelessly but with interruptions. So I bought more bridge components and it worked great . . . for a time. No pauses at all. After a few days, it would bring me to my queue but wouldn't play anything. So I sent it back to Apple and got a new one. That worked very well initially but then had the same problem. I decided to try upgrading the modem before contacting Apple again. So far so good now that the new modem is in place. We'll see after extended usage.

I have not tried downloading from iTunes after getting the replacement ATV2. My first attempt with the original one failed. It took forever to download a TV episode and then told me it wouldn't be available for 6 hours. I'll follow up on that this week.

As far as the ethernet bridge is concerned, it uses your house current to extend a hard-wired ethernet connection through the house. I'm using the Netgear Powerline AV 200 model. LinkSys and Monster make them as well. I bought my components at BestBuy and Staples.

Here is my situation up til now...

In the beginning my apple tv had frequent slowdowns and lost audio. I just roughed it out and dealt with it as they came.

Then the problems went away for a few weeks. All was well.

Past week the problems are back. I also am having problems with the Netflix app on my iPad as well.

Well last night I discovered something interesting. I wanted to see what exactly was going on wifi wise with my Airport Extreme while watching a movie on apple tv. I opened the Airport Utility and clicked Base Station->Logs and Statistics. In here I select the "wireless clients" tab.

Here listed is the Mac address of all of my connected devices. Also shown is the signal, noise, and rate for each device. Long story short, you need a certain signal to noise ratio for a wireless network to work it's best. My ratios were all good. This was 8:30 pm.

I left that window open on my computer and began to watch a Netflix movie on my ATV. 45 minutes into the movie I start having problems. I Check my signal to noise ratios and lo and behold, they are crap! Not just for my ATV, but all my connected devices!

The apple tv in particular had a signal of -84 and noise was shown at -92. Not good enough to stream movies.

My ATV is connected to 5ghz only.

I am getting interference from something. I have streaming problems every night at the same time each night!

Here is an article that discusses what I am talking about...
http://www.macworld.com/article/151509/2010/05/speedupwirelessnetwork.html

I ended up changing channels on both my 2.4ghz side and my 5ghz side. It took a few tries but I was able to find a channel that brought my signal to noise ratios back to acceptable.

From what I have been reading about what Netflix requires for wifi speed in order to stream HD content, and how signal to noise ratios affect speed and to what degree, it looks like it doesn't take much noise or interference for a wifi signal to be degraded to the point where Netflix may not stream properly. It doesn't matter how fast your ISP connection is.

Anyway, I found a wifi channel that seems to be working good now. I have my fingers crossed. We'll see what happens tonight.

I also had a lot of these kinds of problems: video freezing for buffering, and loss of sound for periods of around 15-30 secs. All intermittant; neither Netflix nor Apple could give a satisfactory solution. And my other netflix device (an LG Bluray) would work perfectly with my setup.

So here is what I tried: I bought a range extender (this one to be precise: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DMEYCY/ref=oss_product) and then connected it with the Apple TV via ethernet cord. In other words, I bought a new Wifi antenna for the Apple TV, under the theory that maybe its the interaction between my Apple TV and my router.

And...it's worked so far! (through about 5-6 shows, HD and SD) I've had only one hiccup since - one time Apple TV stopped playing a video in the middle and exited to the main menu saying it was not connected to the internet (then promptly reconnected 5 secs later). This is direct contrast to before - where I'd have freezes/sound problems 3-4 times per hour.

So, if you're having, you may want to try this (if you're willing to spend the extra money to get your Apple TV to work the way its supposed to work out of the box). And if it doesn't work for you, well, just buy the extender from a place with a good return policy!

I have multiple netflix clients and have never had problems, until ATV:
Wireless: WII, iPad, iPhone
Wired: desktop browser, Tivo, ATV2

Out of the box, the ATV would navigate the Netflix menus without a problem; but would not stream anything. I even plugged the ATV directly into the DSL modem, with the same results. I tried changing the DNS to 8.8.8.8, and that had no affect. I finally changed the DNS to match the DNS in my DSL modem

*-- that fixed the problem completely *

The next day I reset the DNS and went back to DHCP; and it still worked. In fact, it worked everywhere were it would not before.

Like most others here, I was having problems with the Apple TV2 being able to stream everything except for Netflix. My specific problem was upon selection of a movie to play, the device would return to the screen after blacking out for a few seconds with the spinning wheel.

I also found that using 8.8.8.8 for DNS fixed my problem.

So I swapped out the DNS address with my local ISP and again no problem. Switching back to using my local router as the DNS server returned me to the original issue.

I run DD-WRT on my router, so had the ability to narrow this down more. I found that when I turned off DNSMASQ for DNS, the Apple TV2 worked. Of course, this is because the router was now feeding the external DNS servers.

So I think there is an issue with AppleTV and it's compatibility with DNSMASQ. Since many routers ship with DNSMASQ enabled, this may be a root cause.

Anyone else able to manually turn off DNSMASQ on their routers using stock firmware?

It is NOT a Netflix problem. It is a download problem from wireless. I've been having the same problem. Called Apple, they advised I call AT&T to see if we could boost the download Mbps. Apple said the download Mbps should be no less than 5. I went to a site called www.speedtest.net from my desktop...5.66 Mbps download speed, then again using the speediest.net app on my iPad...1.52 Mbps. I was losing 4 Mbps at a distance of 30 feet from my desktop.

Called ATT, went into my modem/wireless router settings and changed the wireless channel my router was using because we were getting interference from other wireless networks. Currently, works like a charm.

trip1ex wrote:
I do not have any issues actually. But I called Netflix to check the bit rates to my ATV because of a theory I read that even customers without problems are getting low bit rates to their ATV.

Sure enough. I'm getting much lower bit rates to my ATV than even my Wii which as 3x the bit rate to it.

Take a few minutes and call up Netflix and post the numbers they give you. It would be interesting to see. Very informative for everyone.

Number is on their website under Contact us at the bottom then by clicking Call Customer Service.

In a previous conversation with them (Netflix), they stated that you needed at least 5 mbps to get DD 5.1 from them...... I don't see a reason to call as every HD DD 5.1 movie has played perfectly since Comcast fixed my issues. I'm getting at least 5 mbps..... My advice to users still having issues is to validate their service with their ISP, check their router and make sure the correct TCP/UDP ports are passing through their firewall, that the router throughput doesn't change due to stateful packet inspection on the firewall or by invoking encryption (WEP, WPA2) on the wireless portion. Netflix should be the last place to check, after sectionalizing their home network and ISP. Software/firmware fixes from Apple on a myriad of issues is a "one size fits all answer". JMHO.