Netflix display error with Safari 8/OSX 10.10 Yosemite

Agreed. And allow me to join the party here. I have a MacBook Air (13 inch, mid 2011). It doesn't have, and has never at any time had, an external monitor connected. There are no devices attached of any kind, in fact. I don't think I've even ever done AirPlay mirroring, but if I ever have, I'm certainly not now, and haven't since the Yosemite upgrade. I'm pretty **** sure the built in display is HDCP compliant. I have no other A/V apps running.

That's about the purest setup you can envision, so I'm confident in saying this is a bug, pure and simple. There's absolutely nothing about this computer that could have an HDCP issue, even in the past. Like others, this drives me up one wall and down the other. It needs to be fixed.

I get the same problem on my MacBook Air mid 2011 running Mac OS X Yosemite v. 10.10.3

It's never plugged into a second monitor, never mirroring and in the Netflix playback settings, I don't have the silverlight or HTML option.

The error message pops up frequently. Usually what I do is stop playback, go back and re-select the show and it plays again... for 5 minutes before displaying the same error message. I don't understand what the issue is and I don't know how to fix it.

I hate to say it, but I've "fixed" it by using Firefox and Silverlight. I hate it, and it's a garbage hack, but it's that or not watch Netflix. I don't know if it's on Apple or Netflix, but it is an insult that it's gone this long without a fix. That it's all in the name of copy protection that doesn't even work to prevent piracy in the first place… well, that's just galling.

I found that calibrating the display stops this problem = System Preferences>Monitor>Calibrate...just use the defaults, you will get a "Calibrated" bar, no more Netflix problems thereafter, no need for Silverlight.

I Can only calibrate the colours. Not the monitor. I have a mid 2011 MacBook Air.

I realize it is only colrs, but the calibration seems to reset things in Yosemite. Can't give you a logical explanation, it just works. No Silverlight or changes in Netflix. We watch Netflix every night on MPB.

For me, I just unplug my second monitor. My main monitor is HDCP compliant. HDCP doesn't like two monitors, that includes Windows. On windows the driver let's you choose a primary monitor and in fact this is nothing new. However, even on Windows this doesn't always work well.

Once I've unplugged my second monitor (not just switched it off, but unplugged it), Safari works as it's meant to. As it's meant to (not in any kind of emulation mode) you get the following benefits: 1080p vs the normal 720p, higher bitrate and lower CPU usage. Ever noticed how your CPU is driven hard with netflix? It's sliverlight - html5 (what's on the new netflix / safari setup) get's rid of that problem.

Works quite nice - no idea why they had to make it so difficult though.

Man this is annoying.

I have DisplayLink installed - because I use it to drive a third monitor.

I tried changing the Silverlight settings and recalibrate without success.

I have been on OS X 10.10x for some time - though I haven't used Netflix on this system in awhile so there have been updates to Safari and other items.

First time I have seen this error message.

Same error — I tried using Chrome and it worked.

Ok, I've been wrestling with this problem on my late 2011 Macbook Pro since I upgraded to Yosemite. It's a pain in the neck because I want to use the HTML 5 solution that the latest version of Safari offers to run my machine cooler. This thread is right to demand a solution. It's pretty relevant to my machine with its dodgy graphics card (replacement program from Apple just announced). Anyway, during the day I plug into an old Dell monitor. With the latest version of Safari I can't run Netflix because the monitor is not HDCP compliant. I have to use Silverlight on Firefox in this case if I want to watch Netflix.

When I unplug from the Dell Monitor and want to watch Netflix on Safari on just the laptop I have the problem that this thread describes. As far as I can work out iTunes is the culprit. Somehow iTunes is remembering that I've been connected to a large non HDCP compliant monitor. Even when I force quit iTunes in Activity Monitor there is a still a background process running that can't be force quit.

The only solution that I've found is to restart and not launch iTunes. This always works for me.

I'm wondering if others who are having the problem may have success if they restart and make sure not to start iTunes. If this works, then it may be that iTunes is creating a false positive about the HDCP compliancy of the computer.

It's an interesting theory, but I'm afraid I'm a counter-example to it being a general solution.

As I noted in my post a page or so back, my Air has never, ever been connected to an external monitor, HDCP compliant or otherwise. I'm also a pretty rare iTunes user, and don't have it start on boot, so when I've previously tried (and failed) to solve this issue by rebooting the system, iTunes would not have been a factor for me unless the "iTunes Helper" process that runs all the time in the background is the culprit somehow. I believe that can be prevented from running via some launchd trickery, which I may even try at some point, just to be thorough.

I'm certainly glad you found a workaround for it… I sure wish it worked here 😟

I use Netflix on my iPad and Apple TV and it only seems to happen between midnight and 6 A.M. I've called CS and they ask you to jump through a bunch of hoops implying that the problem is on my end and is the modem and wifi that needs resetting. But I can stream movies from Hoopla without any problems. And if I wait and re-try later without the jumping of hoops it plays just fine. So, as of now I'm concluding that it's Netflix dropping out for some reason. From reading the threads with all the different systems and hardware it seems to be a search in the opposite direction. It's not us. It's Netflix.

This just worked for me. I had originally deleted silverlight after installing yosemite and kept getting the same annoying message when using netflix. Apparently some parts of silverlight were still installed and causing the headache. 1. open finder, 2. click on GO and then while holding the OPTION key select the LIBRARY, 3. search for any files containing either silverlight or microsoft in the library and delete them. This worked for me

I have tried your solutions to the issue and for some reason thy are to working for me. I can't even find the option you speak of in my account preferences under playback settings.

I found an interesting solution. If you have Bluetooth enabled and are connected to the internet via wifi, disable the bluetooth connection totally. As in, shut it off. I have found that that works to remove the HDCP compliance error message and smooths out the playback.

For some reason, the two signals cause a bit of a hiccup with each other. Apple, get on this issue, guys.