Netflix Problems

Software update seems to have done the trick! Perhaps someone is watching! Thanks.

I wanted to give an update since I was involved with many post on here in 2010 when we first bought the Apple TV2. We had tried many things recommended by support and people here and they helped for a time, but then we had the same problems all over again, multiple times. My husband wanted to throw the device away because it had given us so much grief. I was telling our problems to a tech friend and they told me to try to check the HDMI cable. We of course had done that very early on as it was suggested by someone, but she said buy a gold platted HDMI cable. We have not had a problem since! I recommened that you don't shrimp on the HDMI cable and pay a little more for the best one, it did it for us! I know it sounds simple but it's definitely worth a shot.

Hi, was having this exact problem with APPLETV. I contacted NETFLIX and reported the problem of being cut off every few seconds. I did not have an issue when I got on again to watch a movie. good luck

Hi all, anyone still having this problem? I am trying to watch Law & Order SVU and get the "Netflix unavailable at this time" message or the "internal error 500". Seems to be just this program. Called netflix and they said they would look into problems with content. Wondering if anyone else had any luck. update 4.4.4 didn't work to fix this. neither did resetting atv, the network or the netflix account. reverting back to 4.4.2 seems to work but then it auto updates all the time, so not a long-term fix... any further ideas?

I just got off the phone with Netflix. Very positive experience. I was only on hold for 1 minute. Tech support guy was really nice. Here's what he had me do. It worked:

Logout of your Netflix account on the ATV.

Unplug ATV.

Wait 15 secs.

Plug it back in.

Login.

Voila.

HTH!

I first noticed this after the previous AppleTV update. It is strange since worse at night.

1. It is not a broadband speed issue. I have 100 Mbps

2. It is not a netflix only issue. Last night when I had trouble with a movie, I tried to watch the same movie on my mac without a single problem. (I also tested my iPad and iPhone with no trouble)

3. I even tried over a 3G network and had no trouble.

4. I think it is an Apple issue and they will need to fix it, since there are no setting one can really change to impact the performance of netflix on AppleTV.

5. I called Netflix and they were able to confirm that the problems we were having were exclusive to the AppleTV in our household.

I think we might have to wait for the next AppleTV update before the problem is solved?

I believe you are right my friend. Its an Apple issue. I even have this problem watching tv shows purchased from Apple on ATV. Restart, update, and the problem goes away.....for a while.

This has been an issue for quite some time. Curious that it has not been solved yet.

Perhaps they just have not found the real problem yet.

Fingers crossed for the mother of all updates.

Well, I've been working on this problem at home for two or three weeks every night. I have had the ATV2 for 14 months.

For the last couple of months, some playback is so slow that it can take an hour to watch a half hour program. I tried the google DNS trick. Found out what is the fastest DNS server and switched both my airport extreme base station (g) to that. Factory reset my appleTV. Factory reset my airport base station. Downgraded its firmware (a trick under Lion due to the loss of Rosetta support). Still plenty of stalls.

The thing is that it all worked plenty fine until last month or so, so I suspected the most recent ATV update.. It cd still be that.

However, I got a bandwidth app and have done some speed tests through the day and am stunned by the results. I have time warner cable in a rural area.

I get 15mbps download throughput at 5:30 in the morning.

At 8:00 pm when I get stalls on my appletv, I whipped out the iPhone and tested it again.

I was getting 850kbps.

I recommend that you test the speed of your wifi through the day and see if you are really getting he 100mbps they tell you that they are selling you.

I think that the matter here is that Netflix doesn't buffer by design. I recently read that in the evenings, about half the traffic on the net is Netflix. That is kind of hard to comprehend, but it gives some indication of the scale of growth they are having, and, presumably, the changes out local ISP are failing -- err, trying-- to cope with. I'll be talking to time Warner today.

Laurence: "It is not a netflix only issue. Last night when I had trouble with a movie, I tried to watch the same movie on my mac without a single problem. (I also tested my iPad and iPhone with no trouble)".

Per Netflix tech support, servers for TV streaming are separate and apart from servers for the computer and mobile devices. Also, the resolution for mobile and computer does not take up the bandwidth it does to stream high def.

All, I've been having trouble streaming through my Sony Blu Ray for the last two years. Last night I switched to ATV, and had similar problems. Thus, it is not necessarily an ATV issue (firmware was updated). Tonight I will try rebooting my modem, which has sometimes worked in the past. I.e., it may be an issue with my local broadband carrier (Comcast in Northern California).

My apple tv and Netflix worked for about a year. Then, for the past month, I've been getting the 139 error along with the streaming issues. I shut the power off from ATV, log out and back in to Netflix. 139 error generally goes away. When watching 24, the buffering gets worse as the show plays. Have you or has anyone found a fix for the buffering issues?

I've had the Apple TV 2 since it came out and have had this problem continuously. It was so bad originally that I just used my TivoHD to watch Netflix. That works fine until you run into the 100 episode limit that Tivo has with Netflix queues (another story) so if I'm watching something like Star Trek Deep Space Nine and I want to jump around from season to season, or watch anything with more than 100 episodes out of sequence, I have to use the Apple TV but the constant stopping and starting or "netflix not available" issues have been making me crazy. Keep in mind everytime I had trouble, I ran speedtest.net and comcast.speedtest.net and all reported 50+Mbps (yes I pay for a lot of bandwidth) download speeds and very low ping times. I even ran pingtest.net to check latency and it was fine, so I know it's not a bandwith issue. And the clincher is, that anytime I run into this problem, I can switch over to Tivo and watch that episode from where it left off with no problems!!!! The Tivo and the Apple TV are both hardwired to the same router.

After reading through this thread and others, I tried all of the following:

1. setting DNS on ATV to Google - worked for a while, then problem returned.

2. setting router to use Google DNS - worked for a while, then problem returned.

3. Enabling multi-cast on router (trying to fix iPhone wifi sync issue) - worked for a while, then problem returned.

4. Log out of Netflix, then log in again - worked for a while, then problem returned.

It occured to me the only thing these all have in common was rebooting the Apple TV and that it worked for a while, then problem returned.

So now I have a routine, when I'm done watching the Apple TV, I unplug it. Then I plug it in the next time I want to use it, and since it's just rebooted, it works fine for the couple of hours I want to use it.

Simple solution. Dumb, but simple.

Message was edited by: jrgutknecht, spelling

I have spent the last year on comcast with the 20Mbps upgraded internet service with Apple TV and Netflix. I get rebuffering needed every 30 seconds or so and have been very frustrated. I have called comcast who stated that its a problem with netflix and apple. Netflix says its a problem with comcast and apple etc...

Ultimately I have found that by changing from comcast to century link as my internet provider that I have no more rebuffering problems on the Apple TV & Netflix. The whole problem was COMCAST. They are decreasing loading speed to less than 0.5mbps when I am paying for 20mbps. A speed test shows 12 to 25 mbps which should be more than enough but when downloading netflix with apple tv I only get a very low speed with comcast due to restricting the speed. Century Link with APPLE TV works amazing. I have never had a rebuffering problem since.

JohninDenver,

I would be the first to want to blame Comcast, it's so easy 😁

But in my case, anytime I have this problem, I can switch to another Netflix capable device, on the same network, on the same TV and it's fine.

The last time this happened, I was less than 3 minutes into an hour long show. Apple TV buffered a couple of times, after the third time, I stopped playback, switched over to the Tivo and loaded that show and finished watching it on the Tivo.

It could be coincidence, but since I've started rebooting the Apple TV daily, I've not had this problem and nothing else has changed. (knock on wood)

jrgutknecht,

I have to agree. Last night I was watching a movie and after 30 minutes it started to buffer and pause. After the third pause, I stopped the ATV and switched to a macbook connected to the same network (both ATV and MacBook hardwired to same network) and on the same TV. I watched the rest of the movie without interruption.

Also a speedtest showed over 100Mbps while watching the movie!

In my mind there are a few possible reasons for this:

1. Netflix content in a browser uses a different sever to Netflix on ATV (or there is local network cache?)

2. My ISP throttles content using ATV Netflix server but not the browser? This does not make sense as surely there are more browser users than ATV users?

3. Apple has done something to the Netflix version on their ATV? Reduced buffer size?

4. AppleTV hardware does not have enough buffer? This does not make sense at ATV movies in HD have no problem.

Although 1 is possible, I believe the most likely is 4.

A conspiracy theorist might suggest that either Apple or Netflix had done this on purpose, but I do not believe this to be the case.

Thoughts welcome.

For me the issue seemed to be content-specific. I could watch some things without any problems on Netflix via ATV, but for others I kept getting Internal Error 500 or Netflix Unavailable messages; or otherwise they'd buffer every 30 seconds or so.

In the end I think the issue was resolved when I called Netflix, followed all their instructions (to no avail) and finally convinced them it was a content issue when I showed them I could play some stuff but not others. Over the next few days, I noticed the same TV series working better and better - now problems seem to be rare. So I'd recommend calling Netflix if your issue is content specific.