Problems w/ Netflix in Safari 7.0 on external monitor

Question

Problems w/ Netflix in Safari 7.0 on external monitor

Help!

Here's my problem: I've got a brand new MacBook Pro Retina 15" hooked up to two Dell U2414H monitors. When I tried to watch a video on Netflix on one of these monitors, however, all I got was a black screen in Safari with a gray box that said "Plugin Failure." It will play on the laptop screen, but not the external monitors.

I uninstalled/ reinstalled Silverlight

I uninstalled/ reinstalled Flash Player

I rebooted the browser, computer, and toggled every security switch I could find

I also tried watching Netflix in Firefox. That worked just fine on either the laptop monitor OR the external monitors, so I believe this to be a Safari problem.

Can anybody help? I'd really like to watch Netflix on my big(ger) screens, and can't stand Firefox these days.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.2)

Posted on Mar 13, 2014 11:44 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 14, 2014 11:24 AM in response to TuxedoCartman

Hate to look like an idiot responding to my own thread, but in the interest of sharing info here's my solution...

It was the thrice-****** Silverlight plugin. The newest one didn't work, so after painstakingly tracking down all the crap Microsoft put on my computer and nuking it, I was able to download an older version of Silverlight (4.xx), and voila! It works now.

So thank you, Microsoft, for continuing to foul up computers even when I not running Windows. Truly, thine reputation be deserved.

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Answer 2

csvercl

Level 1

5 points

Mar 15, 2014 9:19 PM in response to TuxedoCartman

i have the same problem after updating Silverlight. have uninstalled & reinstalled several times. currently uninstalled newest version again, and trying to install an older version.

when installing onto my disk, it keeps telling me there is a newer version already installed, so doesn't allow me to install the older version. so i'm obviously having some trouble finding all the files to un-install.

hope they find a fix for this. i've seen this in a few other Mac troubleshooting discussion sites.

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Answer 3

Mar 16, 2014 11:52 AM in response to csvercl

Did you get the files Silverlight has installed in your hidden directories? If you use the "Go to Folder" command under Finder, you should be able to navigate to /private/var/db/receipts. There you'll find two files Microsoft installed for Silverlight. I can't recall the names of them at the moment, but you'll know them when you see them. Delete those, and you *should* be good to go (provided you got all the easier to find ones, that is).

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Answer 4

pfokos

Level 1

10 points

Mar 21, 2014 9:07 AM in response to TuxedoCartman

My coworker found this fix. The current version of silverlight won't start if the machine is running with the discrete NVIDIA GPU. Some apps need it and using an external monitor will cause it to use the discrete. Turn off all your apps and unplug the external montitor. This should put you back in the integrated Intel GPU. Now try to start a Netflix video, once its running you should be able to plug your external monitor back in and start other apps.

You can also use this utility http://gfx.io to see which GPU is being used.

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Answer 5

csvercl

Level 1

5 points

Mar 22, 2014 5:35 PM in response to TuxedoCartman

thanks, TuxedoCartman, that did the trick.

pfokos, didn't try your solution because i'm using a MacBook Pro - no separate monitor.

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