Apple TV - Netflix Streaming issue

I am having the same issue....

We resolved this issue yesterday by performing all of the following steps:

1. Performed Software Update on ATV.

2. Signed out from Netflix account.

3. Disconnected ATV from Wifi Network by "forgetting" network settings (Settings > General > Network)

4. Put ATV device to sleep

5. Unplugged ATV for 5 minutes (removed power cord from unit)

6. Re-attached power cable to device and powered ATV unit on

7. Went back to Network Settings and re-entered Wifi credentials

8. Once network was rejoined, clicked on "Netflix" icon from home screen and re-entered subscription information (email/password)

Voila! Error was gone, and was happily watching Netflix. Because this was an authentication error, I believe that somewhere in the communication code between ATV and Netflix something got garbled. Resetting all communication settings that affected it seemed to do the trick.

This has been going on for the past month or so and is still NOT FIXED!

It's nice that others are posting solutions that worked for them, but these can only be temporary. We turn our tv off every day, so restarting ATV is not a fix.

Trust me, I have tried everything that I can think of... restarting, reseting to factory defaults, loggin out and logging in, restarting the router and ATV, turning everything off then on, disconnecting cables and reconneting, etc... I have a new APE, so it's not a signal issue either. ATV connection is usually good or excellent and we have no other connectivity issues with any other device on our network.

This is a serious Netflix issue and It's gotten worse since the latest ATV update. Right now, Netfilx is unwatchable. Any show or movie, as soon as it starts will be in 1080p for a short period (a few seconds to maybe a few minutes at most), then drop down to low quality definition. I've checked the bitrate by viewing the Netflix "Example Short 23.976" and it will start out with a bitrate of 1050 kbps (at most), then drop down to 235kbps! Just terrible.

Everything else plays at 1080p high def just fine. Airplay, Movies from the Apple store and Hulu all work great, Netflix is the only service having this issue.

Also, I've got 50-70Mbps down and 10Mbps up, so it's not my ISP.

Going to call Netflix tomorrow to see what is going on. Definitely going to have them refund the past month or two for this BS.

I am having this exact same issue, classiclabs.

Haven't been able to watch Netflix for the past couple of days. Not sure how long this issue has been occuring but it's pretty frustrating. Netflix is pretty much unwatchable.

Try changing your Netflix password

Please explain why this would do anything to solve a streaming issue.

I did it a couple years ago. No problem since

Another thing that is important to note is that viewing Netflix on the iPad works just fine, also viewing netflix through the native app on our blueray works great too. Both iPad and Blueray show all shows/movies in high def. No streaming issues at all.

The issue is only with netflix on ATV.

I have posted this solution months ago.

On your appletv assign a fixed IP address. Also reserve it on your modem/router.

Reason; appleTV is forever requesting DHCP. Meaning it somehow wants to be reminded what's its assigned IP address is.

First time I posted it I had disbelievers. Those who comment without trying. If it does not work for you after having tried it, let is know. I do not need a theoretical lecture on why it won't work.

Everything seems impossible until it's done.

I saw this post months ago and did try this. It worked for several months, but I have since moved and have a new ISP (Comcast). After using DHCP for a few weeks, I noticed the poor quality come back. So I again, assigned a static IP address in the ATV2 settings, and also in my router. Reset both the router and ATV2 and it works for the first 5 - 15 minutes, but then degrades. I see it happening on Netflix and on the newly added ABC app that was added.

The ATV2 shows the WiFi signal strength as full. Odd thing is I never see this degrade when watching any movies (rented or streamed from the cloud) in iTunes.

Only thing I haven't tried is plugging the ATV2 directly into the router, which would be difficult as it is on the other side of the house.

I have a Sony Blu-Ray player that I have started using for Netflix, actually thinking of getting a Roku device to replace the ATV2, though not something I really want to do.

This was only 50% of the solution for me.

I had to have my Appletv on a static address AND initiate the Netflix stream from my iPhone or iPad Netflix app using airplay.

Your network speed may have nothing to do with it... you may have latency or other issues.

Set DNS to Comcast's DNS servers.

Try restoring apple tv.

Post on dslreports.

Comcast is known to shape their traffic, so make sure you aren't at or near cap.

Did your wireless router change in the move?

I just finished setting the ATV2 DNS to Google's DNS servers (8.8.8.8) as I saw in other posts that using Google's or OpenDNS would help. I actually did reset the ATV2 when we moved. As far as the router, yes, it did change. Comcast cable modem is a wireless router in one. Of course they told me there was no option to only get a cable modem.

If using Google's DNS servers don't work, I'll try changing the DNS server settings on the Comcast Router to either Google or OpenDNS.

I did try to use my old router and disable the wireless on the Comcast one, but my speeds were cut in half (which I found odd). So I switched back to using theirs. Will know more on using Google's DNS servers once we try to watch a few things this evening. I'm trying to at least keep the times we watch consistent in whatever tuning I've done.

Hi Mark,

Unfortunately, your comcast all in one is precisely the problem.

I would try again to use your own router with these instructions:

http://forums.comcast.com/t5/Home-Networking-Router-WiFi/How-to-put-modem-in-bri dge-mode/td-p/1827245

Bridge mode means that the router (the comcast one) passes the traffic through to the secondary router, which is what you want.

I think you're going to have better luck posting on the comcast forums. If you can link me to the thread when you create it, I would like to follow it.

Comcast is also very responsive via twitter. they're famous for it. @comcastcares.

Let me know if there's anything else I can do to help you.

(Btw, I had a similar problem with AT&T Uverse. once the connection was bridged, the dns problem went away. In their case, it affected page loads, and the problem as explained on the web was that the dns server on the modem did not wait sufficient time for a response... this does of course affect streaming too.)

--Sam

P.S I wanted to say also that I don't believe for a second that comcast doesn't have cable modems anymore. you could buy one, but comcast won't support third-party cable modems. Make sure you get docsis 3 or docsis 2 as specified by your connection.