Netflix Problems

Seriously this guy has to be the closest thing to a positive Troll. I being a lover of apple products can see a defect in his thinking. "Youre tooo close to the subject".

I have a 6Mb internet connection and stream netflix off my PS3 and it play's at Xtreme/HD most of the time or reaches High/HD within 30 sec of starting an HD movie. Same goes for my 360 which are on the same Gigabit switch my apple TV is on.

When palying netflix my connection usage avg's 4 - 5.3Mbs when i play on my apple TV it avg's 2 -1.2 Mb and the quality reflects it. The apple TV is on the same switch as the other 2x. So there is a perfomance difference.

The Apple TV3 (1080p) has major issues trying to get a netflix stream to Hd quality. Tried CAT 5e and CAT6 (350Mhz) cables and same so it's not hardware on my side but Apple Netflix. It's eithter an OS issue or Netflix throttling apple devices since they make up a larger % of users..

So Buster old post but nothing rearely fades away on the internet. Apple makes mistakes.

I have an ATV2 and it is a love-hate relationship when using netflix. I could be streaming movies or tv shows for hours without problem or it would be completely impossible to watch anything, the thingy spinning forever until I get "Unable to connect to Netflix at this time. Error 108". I have grown to hate this error 108.

-When this happens, streaming the same content (movie/tv episode) from my laptop worked fine, so netflix is not to blame.

-Run a bandwitdh test when it happens, I get over 5Mbps, so my broadband is not to blame.

-The wifi strength on the ATV shows max strength, so wifi is not to blame.

Sometimes unplugging the power works, but not always (the restart from the Settings menu never works).

I have had ATV2 for over a year, and had this problem all that time. It is really frustrating. Considering the hundreds of entries in this *Apple* forum, going back to 2010, it is obvious that Apple doesn't care.

One day I am going to take a hammer and smash this apple TV to pieces. There are other streaming devices out there for comparable prices.

Just because it runs on the laptop doesn't rule out Netflix, it has shown that certain servers in conjunction with the unit can cause issues. The wifi strength is not an accurate indicator, try istumbler or netstumbler to check interference.

This is a user forum so you will not see a response from Apple at any rate

vazandrew is right you know. There are a lot of factors that could be causing you your problem.

For one thing I think 5Mps is probably boarderline since your bandwidth varies with network usage.

It would be fine if you always got 5Mps. But you probably dont. In amplifier hifi speak you need some more headroom. The DNS server can be the issue too. Go into network settings and try another DNS server. Maybe Google open DNS. I had to play around with mine for a while to get it to play nice with the ATV. There are free websites out there that will look for the closest fastest DNS on your network and tell you the address.

Wifi interference can cause this glitch too. A wireless phone on the same frequency, etc.

If your ATV works fine sometimes and not others, there is a factor there that is causing it. Once you find the issue you will be happy again. I know the intermittant stuff is the biggest pain.

I'd been struggling with ATV2/Netflix issues for several weeks. Netflix would freeze after 30 seconds, or sometimes it would make it to 55 minutes of a 1 hour show. The ATV2 would stop after displaying the spinning sliced wheel for several seconds saying "Netflix is not available. Try again later." I called Netflix and was told that my ATV2 was downloading at 200Kb/s while my Xbox was downloading at about 7Mb/s. I have 20Mb/s download ADSL. I was also having problems using the Remote App with my ATV2, as well as issues with the ATV2 finding my iMac to access my iTunes library with Home Sharing.

I finally discovered that the problem was my Turtle Beach EarForce X41 Headset transmitter jamming the ATV2. Both use the same spectrum and I had recently relocated the transmitter about 3 feet away from the ATV2. My Xbox was unaffected because it was connected to an Airport Express (AE) 802.11n (1st Generation) v7.6.1 through an Ethernet cable. The ATV2 WiFi signal strength indicator showed full bars. I solved the problem by connecting the ATV2 and Xbox into the switch section (ports 2 and 3) of a Linksys BEFSR41 v2 Router-Switch with the AE connected to port 1, so that all devices could still maintain their original reserved DHCP addresses and use the DNS provided by my Wireless-N ADSL2+Modem Router model DGN2000 V1.3.12.0 which is the only WiFi network in my home.

I returned my Netflix streaming quality to Best under my Account preferences and I've been using this setup for several days now with beautiful Netflix quality streaming and no interruptions. I now remember having a similar problem while trying to stream a rented movie at a friend's house last year with the same ATV2 except it was running iOS 4.x. The movie wouldn't stream. In that case there was also a Turtle Beach EarForce X41 Headset transmitter located a few feet away from the ATV2. The AE is operating with an RSSI of -40dBm and 48Mb/s and it's about two feet from the headset transmitter, so it appears that the ATV2 simply has a poor radio, at least one that is significantly worse than the AE. Finally, I believe an indicator of poor bandwidth might also be loss of sync between subtitles and video/sound for those Netflix shows with subtitles especially near the end of the stream. I also get good sync now.

Turtle Beach EarForce x41 headset transmitters? Seriously? Did your ATV have problems with video streamed from non-Netflix sources? If not, it's not your headset transmitters. My Crapple won't stream Netflix well whether it's running over ethernet or wireless. It makes no difference. It works fine with everything else, whether it's on ethernet or wireless. So the problem is Netflix specific. Nobody should spend hours troubleshooting a $100 device...it's a waste of time. This issue exists probably because Apple sees no benefit in solving it; likely because they view Netflix as a competitor and would rather AppleTV users got their video from iTunes. I gave up with the thing a long time ago and bought a Roku. The Roku works. I'd recommend people stop fighting with the AppleTV and just buy a device that works. Ironically, that's probably the only thing that will convince Apple to fix the problem.

Not true, and not everybody is experiencing it because it's related to certain servers. It's something both companies would need to look into fixing. Others because it's their network.

Vazandrew, you're missing the point. Whose fault it is is quite irrelevant. A $100 device like this should simply work, out of the box and without troubleshooting. The consumer should not have to root out the cause of some network conflict or spend hours talking to customer service representatives who have no clue what to do and refer you to the "other guy's" reps. My Roku runs Netflix out of the box, no problems (wirelessly). My PS3 runs Netflix out of the box, no problem (wirelessly). My networked DVD player runs Netflix out of the box, no problems (wirelessly). *Only* the AppleTV can't run Netflix. There is a problem, of whose cause I really don't know or care. The ATV doesn't work well with Netflix and that's Apple's problem (whether they are the root cause of the problem or not). Apple should fix the problem or it should remove the Netflix app from the device so people aren't mislead into thinking they'll be able to reliably stream Netflix with it.

It works out of the box for me and the majority of users so yes I stand by that. If one does experience issues then you do need to troubleshoot the network first as it is a streaming device and any similar device would require this. Some users have experienced issues relating to certain servers in conjunction with the unit and in that case it would be due to both. In one hand you're saying you don't care whose fault it is but then demanding Apple fix it. They both would need to work togther to solve that issue.

Vazandrew, first, I don't know how you conclude that it works perfectly for a majority of users. We don't know how many people are affected, or how many people just tolerate the constant stopping and starting silently and think that's just what Netflix internet streaming is like. Regardless, it is clear (to me at least) from the various postings all over the place that this is a wide-spread issue affecting not "some," but a significant number of users so this is not an isolated problem.

Second, yes, Apple might very well have to work with Netflix and perhaps with some ISPs and network managers to solve the issue, but as the largest company by value in the world, I am guessing Apple has the muscle to make it happen. They certainly have a lot more than I do as an individual consumer, and it is their reputation on the line, not mine. If they haven't exerted the effort to remedy this problem after all this time (and we know they have the capability to do it if they put their mind to it) then they share in the blame.

As I say above, nobody should have to spend a lot of time troubleshooting network issues for their AppleTV. If they have to then the device is a failure, plain and simple, regardless of where the source of the problem lies. I disagree with your statement "you do need to troubleshoot the network first as it is a streaming device ..." etc etc. I don't need to troubleshoot anything. I can toss the brick in the garbage and buy one that works, and dedicate my time to more rewarding pursuits.

I'm sure there are a lot who do tolerate it but if the majority were in fact experiencing this it would present itself as a much bigger issue then it has. I never said it was isolated, just that it's not a hardware/software issue.

I never said they weren't part of it, but that there is no point putting it all on them. I agree that they do have to put the effort in.

I disagree with the last statement. If one has a troublesome network issues then yes a user does have to look into it. The unit is not a failure if it's caused by the network.

Anyway, you no longer have the device and are happy with your Roku so no need to go on about it.

I don't have any troublesome network issues. My network works just fine. It's just the Apple which didn't work. It is important to get the word out, since people should know this device has problems, and Apple should know their reputation is suffering. Sure I've replaced it, but it cost me $100 which I spent in reliance upon Apple quality and that Apple "just works." Not in this case.

Didn't say you did, I said one needs to troubleshoot it first if experiencing issues and if they are there then simply buying another device isn't always the solution.

Apple don't read these forums. I know people who have done the exact opposite. Anyway do what you need to do.

My ATV also had problems with Home Sharing because of the Turtle Beach interference. I don't use my ATV for anything else because I find the new interface ugly, more difficult to use, and not as responsive as the previous version. It really was the headset transmitters. I'm an electrical engineer and I did far more troubleshooting than the typical consumer, which I believe proves your point Jacob, in that nobody should have to do this amount of work to get a consumer device to work correctly. I won't get a Roku because I need a TV interface to my iTunes library and iPad.

I posted my solution because I thought it might solve some of the issues others are experiencing. While my ATV works significantly better than it did before, there are still infrequent periods (maybe 1 in 20 TV shows and movies) where it will pause, buffer, pause, buffer, etc. which is annoying. Netflix could be at fault here because when Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud in Virgina recently went down a few weeks ago, it amazingly knocked out my Netflix access for hours all the way over here in Oregon. Who knows how many Internet routing and server issues are affecting my Netflix stream. Netflix could really help resolve this issue by providing a way for us to see the real-time streaming rate on each device from within our account. Or maybe they don't want us to see that info...

When I first got my ATV it worked perfect out of the box i was playing netflix movies with no problems, then one of my neighbours had bought the same router as mine. ( and it was running on the same frequency or channel, as my roughter did ) after that my ATV had so many problems trying to play movies from netflix that i took it to the Apple store. They told me alot of things that could be wrong with it but one of the things he told me was that my router could be running on the same frequency as another router, so i went back home and changed the channel my router was running on and after that i had no problems.... i know this wont apply to everyone but if you change the chanel on the router that just might do the trick. GOOD LUCK🙂🙂