Netflix pausing/buffering issues

Gee peripheral, didn't mean to get your panties in a knot. How about this hypothesis then? Netflix is competing with Apple with much of the same product. As an example you can watch Breaking Bad on Netflix for free, or pay Apple $39.95 for the content. Apple doesn't really benefit much if Netflix works perfectly so they are not going to put a lot of effort into making it work. That plus the ongoing rumours about a totally new Apple Television in 2012 and I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a fix!

You didn't get my proverbial panties in a knot. You downplayed what the rest of us have been suffering through since the genesis of this product & offered an asinine alternative. Of course you can buy Breaking Bad from iTunes or watch it on Netflix. But I'm sure not everyone that buys a ATV2 is buying it for the Netflix feature. But a vast majority is. Apple's smart enough to know that a bunch of people buying a $100 ATV2 is probably worth more than a few people buying Breaking Bad from iTunes. And when you say "watch it free" on Netflix, um, what are we paying this monthly fee for? It's not free.

Just because Apple might be releasing a television this year doesn't mean they are going to forget about the box. If that were the case, then I doubt they would make iOS 5 compatible with the iPhone 3G. Meaning, just because a new product comes out, Apple isn't going to completely forget about making their older products work as advertised.

Bottomline, we paid $100 for the ability to watch Netflix through our ATV's. That's what it was advertised to do, thus that's what it should do. However, the majority of the time for the majority of the owners, it's not working. A fix needs to be implemented & buying a Blu Ray player or Roku is a bogus suggestion.

1. Last I checked $100 was the going price for most media streamers, including ones that work with Netflix.

2. I got a bunch of stuff to sell that doesn't work. Anyone interested?

You took the words right out of my mouth. I bought Apple TV with great expectations that failed to materialize. NetFlix issues aside, I have had problems with I Tunes movies from day one so much so that I stopped renting them. Although I am a hard core Apple afficiando, Apple TV is vying for one of the worst products I have ever purchased in terms of the hassle factor and value (or lack of it) per dollar. The fact that Apple TV "only cost $100" does nothing to offset the endless hours spent trying to get it to work.

So far, streaming from the AppleTV using a power line adapter, instead of wireless shows no issues.

Tried both 2.4 and 5GHz. Not many wireless networks in area so no interference is expected, especially using 5GHz. Tried different channels, different network keys, rebooted the AppleTV several times. The only thing that seems to have made a difference so far is to make the AppleTV's connection to the internet wired.

I tried that and it seemed to work for a while but i started having streaming problems again. So in my case it didn't help to wire it direct to the internet

Yup. Set mine to manual IP address, and problem solved!

Open DNS servers did not work for me.

I wonder why if there are several forums related to the same issue, here in Apple Support Communities and on the internet, why Netflix or Apple come forward and say something about it?...

Disappointing.... I love the concept of the ATV. We bought one primarily to stream Netflix to the TV in our bedroom as well as watch stuff purchased on iTunes. I have the newest version of the Airport Express, and use the ATV, an iPad, PS3 and Xbox all to stream Netflix. The buffering issue (extremely frustrating) is on the ATV ONLY. My Internet speed through Charter is the 30mps package. I realize that this number fluctuates in times of high demand, so the last time my son and I were watching a movie and had to wait the 30 seconds or so for it to buffer (multiple times during the movie) I grabbed my iPad and did a speed test. Every time I was getting >10mbps.

There's been times where it was so frustrating we've moved to our other TV and used the PS3 which has never had a buffering issue... I sure hope Apple listens and does an update. Being that Netflix works on every other device it's clearly an ATV issue and not Netflix! Please fix

PS - I've tried all the HDMI, ATV restart, power down, etc tricks and nothing fixes the problem. Disappointing....

Try using a manual IP address instead of letting your network assign it automatically with DHCP. Solved the problem for me. Haven't had even one stutter/pause since I made the change.🙂

I take no credit for the solution, @nokeva on the previous page nailed it.➕

+1 on the manual IP settings. If you have not done this before, part of those setting will be to choose the DNS servers. Some are better than others. Your ISP will assign some, and they may not be the best for you.

May I suggest the free tool "namebench" which will run a series of benchmarks to find the best dns servers for you. Download it and run it on a wireless client on your network. I recommend increasing the test series to 500 from the default 250, and running it a couple of times. Then you can decide which are best for you.

barnesm72@gmail.com wrote:

Does Apple/netflix have an ETA on when the buffering/quality issues will be addressed?

I'm having the same problem.

I have a 40 Mbit connection and can stream Netflix/iTunes flawlessly from other devices on the same network.

Netflix denies having heard of this issue. Apple wants me to buy Apple Care before they talk to me.

With almost 150,000 views to this topic and over 550 replies I think Apple should be more forthcoming and address this issue. It seems we might have grounds for a class action suit.

Any attorneys out there?

Same thing started happening since last night, my cable speed is 20mb.

Before you go talking about lawyering-up, have you actually tried using a static IP address—setting your network manually?

Worked for me. Haven't had a single stutter or pause since.

If by "static IP" you mean manually configuring a static DNS server, yes I tried that and it did not work.

As I stated before, I have no problem streaming Netflix from other systems (e.g a MacBook) on the same home network. The problem seems to be related to the AppleTV.