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Netflix Problems

Anybody else having this problem? I had no trouble signing into my Netflix account (Instant Queue, recently played, etc...) but when I try to play something on the ATV it takes a long time to load then stops after two or three seconds. I tried this over wi-fi and with ethernet. I do not have particularly fast DSL but I watch Netflix on my Mac all the time with no problems. Also, I had no trouble streaming a movie trailer on the ATV. Just a Netflix bug? Any ideas?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Sep 29, 2010 8:25 PM

Top-ranking reply

sriramk

Level 1

0 points

Posted on Oct 1, 2010 6:45 PM

I spoke to Netflix support and they helped me fix this issue.

Solution: Switch from your automatic DNS settings to Google's DNS server. General->Network->Configure TCP/IP->Manual and pick 008.008.008.008.

Now, I was stumped a bit since I have an XBox 360 on the same network with no issues. The support guy said that Apple TV connects to their licensing servers a bit differently so this should fix the issue.

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793 replies

scrooks

Level 1

0 points

Mar 9, 2012 8:38 PM in response to mjmgrand

Have you upgraded to the new version released this week? I did, and then I started having the errors you mention. I believe they are not related to the dns issue, but it's something new due to the OS update. An Apple TV reboot seems to fix it for a while for me. I expect we'll soon see an update to the update.

heburnll

Level 1

6 points

Mar 27, 2012 7:43 PM in response to nmballa

Weird thing, but I noticed the time zone on my router was different than the time zone on my ATV 2, and ever since I changed that, everything has been perfect. I don't know why that would matter, but ever since I got this for christmas, this is the first time everything has worked perfectly.

Apr 6, 2012 3:33 PM in response to iscrub

I had to to a software update...it's under General...Software Update. Takes a little bit of time for everything to reappear...and I also restarted. The appearance is different. But it works! Good luck!

Jun 5, 2012 7:16 AM in response to michael_967

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.

sefit

Level 1

0 points

Sep 14, 2012 10:06 PM in response to CalebG

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🙂🙂

icminc

Level 1

0 points

Jan 3, 2013 11:22 AM in response to CalebG

If you are using an Apple Airport for your wireless connection, you may want to esure you have the latest firmware update installed on it. If not, the latest ATV update can throw them out of sinc with each other. I was having major issues with Netflix on ATV after I updated and discovered that my firmware needed to be updated as well in order to keep them communicating. Since the firmware update, the whole system is working perfect. No issues.

Nov 30, 2010 5:53 PM in response to CalebG

ATV2 Netflix was working perfectly until the upgrade. Switched DNS to 8.8.8.8 and it works fine now but seriously, Apple needs to fix this asap.

Mar 22, 2011 8:11 PM in response to vazandrew

actually, it's an issue with todays ios update - according to Tim with AppleTV support. Apple is aware and will issue a fix in the next 24-48 hours.

scrooks

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2012 12:47 PM in response to CalebG

If you're using OpenDNS with your Apple TV, here's the fix: http://steve.crooks.net/2012/02/26/making-apple-tv-and-opendns-play-nice/

Oct 1, 2010 2:30 PM in response to a brody

a brody wrote:
All I can say is even with a 7Mbps connection, streaming is unreliable with my Sony Bravia XBR9 TVs. It works sometimes all the way through a 2 hour movie, when other times it stalls on a 1 hour TV show midway through, and repeatedly thereafter.

This is all about the video bitrate. Bitrate in video playback is always variable because it's based on the compression level of the frames that happen to be playing +at the time+. Frames where not much is in motion, or where the detail is low (fairly flat & plain) will compress very well. Frames where everything is in motion and have a lot of detail wont compress as well. Then there's the overall compression level that was used when the movie was rendered. You've probably seen shows where there's no defect on your playback device, but the background looks a bit boxy & pixelated (typically obvious in dark shadowy areas or when there's a single "color" with levels of tonality (e.g. the sky where it's varying tones of blues.) A high bit-rate film wont have those boxy & pixelated artifacts.

I picked a random TV episode from my iTunes library (it happened to be Grey's Anatomy) and did the math. That episode would require an "average" network speed of just about 6Mbps to stream.

But it's dangerous to assume that "average" is adequate because bitrate is always variable in video playback. You might only need 3-4Mbps in one area only to have it spike to 9-10Mbps at some other point in the same video. The network connection really needs to be sized to handle the "peaks" or you'll experience some playback pauses while it "buffers" the content. Also this assumes the bandwidth is actually available to you. If someone else gets on your network and starts doing something that uses bandwidth, that's going to reduce the portion of bandwidth available to you because you are sharing the connection.

Wikipedia has an article on video bitrates which depicts a typical HDTV with MPEG-4 AVC (which I think is close to what Apple TV uses) would need a bitrate of 8-15Mbps for playback (but that's high-quality ... not heavy compression. My guess is Netflix compresses a bit more aggressively.)

Gaugevox

Level 1

0 points

Oct 1, 2010 5:53 PM in response to CalebG

I just got my new ATV today and am disappointed to be experiencing some netflix issues. I tried playing a couple episodes of a show and every time it would go back to the menu after a few seconds of playing. I am wired into my router and had tried a restore and power cycle to no avail. I tried a movie and it did the same thing, but eventually jumped back into playing. I went back to the shows and fast forwarded past the part where it usually dropped out, and this time it worked.

Oct 8, 2010 8:02 PM in response to not_an_apple_fan

I watched stuff on Netflix via AppleTV all day, but early evening started getting the error that it couldn't connect to Netflix. I could stream on my computer. I saw the posting to change the DNS on the ATV to 8.8.8.8. Took a few minutes to change, and was able to continue streaming without any problems.

Oct 13, 2010 8:02 AM in response to davepaisley

I never used wireless, just Ethernet cabling and had similar 5 second netflix playback and return to netflix menu when using apple airport router. All internet based traffic did not work correctly. Tried resetting, dns change, etc. Nothing listed here worked. I switched to a dlink router and had no problems. The airport does not have the detailed network settings that a non apple router does. Apple needs to take a dlink router and see why apple tv works there but not with their own router. I could do it, but it would take hours to days to figure it out. It is hard to believe that these issues did not appear in internal and home testing prior to large scale manufacturing.

On a side note, what do you think the dns servers like google does with all the network address lookups? They have a list of all Internet access from your router, plus time of time, and location. Don't know about you, but i think that google knows more about us all than your friends and family. People worry about government spying, but what about companies like google, Comcast, Microsoft, etc?

Oct 13, 2010 10:09 AM in response to davepaisley

If it's able to stream shows from your Mac very quickly then it doesn't sound like it has any networking issues. There's the known issue of OpenDNS (I know several ISPs use OpenDNS) but there's the Google public DNS server work-around (manually using 8.8.8.8 as the DNS server address) which seems to fix the problem. Also you report the issue with any remote streaming (e.g. even from Apple) and DNS work-around is normally only need for people who are just having the problem with Netflix (and nothing else.)

I'm wondering what kind of network performance your ISP is giving you when your Apple TV is having problems streaming shows from the Internet.

You might get on your computer and go to speedtest.net and let it check your speeds. Streaming a movie takes a good bit of bandwidth and if the ISP can't keep up it'll be a problem... but that should be a problem for anything that can stream Netflix, not just Apple TV. Some ISPs really suffer during "prime time" (when everyone is home using the Internet) but don't have issues at other times of the day (when people are at work or school.) It is important to test your ISP connection at the same time of day when your Apple TV is having problems.

patdpoo

Level 1

6 points

Oct 16, 2010 8:49 AM in response to patdpoo

Here's the latest for me. I completely unplugged everything: the Apple Airport Extreme, cable modem, Sony tv and ATV2. I hadn't realized that we didn't completely unplug everything at the same time. My husband had unplugged TV and ATV, but never the rest. So after starting again, I completely reset my Airport and put it back to my defaults. All this seemed to help a bunch. Still not able to stream TV shows like The Office as it is still bumping out to the start after about 4 seconds. But successfully was able to watch Heros and a complete movie on Netflix. That is progress from previous attempts.

I have a support contact with Apple whom I will attempt to contact today or tomorrow who wants me to try some things the engineers told him to do.

Will update how that goes.

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Netflix Problems