www.netflix.com won't come up at all on my computer- thoughts?

[Fiver]

I appreciate Netflix.  I am very disappointed how many pissy people there are on the forums. I almost hate to add my question, but I have no intention of being pissy, anyway.  I'm not sure why people feel it's okay to act that way online.  Anyway...

On my Macbook, www.netflix.com won't come up at all, no matter which browser I use- I'm not even talking about the Watch Instantly feature.  

I called Netflix customer service.  She first thought it might be our ISP, so I called them.  On our PC, it comes up fine (including the Watch Instantly, incidentally), so it's not a modem issue.  

The ISP suggested it may be the security features on my computer.  But, I don't even have my firewall enabled at the moment. 

I have all three browsers updated (I realize Chrome won't work for the WI, but I wanted to see if the site would at least come up).  I also have used Firefox and Safari.  I have an intel chip and Snow Leopard.  I don't think any of this should interfere with the website itself coming up, but I thought I'd mention it.

I think the site used to come up on the old Firefox version.  The new one has caused me a lot of grief on other sites as well, but I don't know if one can downgrade a browser.  

Separately, I had to replace the hard drive recently, so I got one with twice as much room on it.  Before I was pushing it for space, but again, I think the main site should have worked. 

The ISP's last suggestion was to call Apple.  I don't know if they'll talk to me, though, since I no longer have Apple Care.

So, any thoughts?  My daughter took the PC laptop out of town with her, so I finally have to try and deal with this. :)

[Sock Puppet]

Try verifying that it is not your ISP, the fact that the site doesn't work in any browser suggests it is one of two possible things.

1.) A system level setting.
2.) A network issue.

Verify that your browser can reach Netflix by going to DNSStuff.com (you want to test from a browser) in the center box do a trace route (type www.netflix.com in the box).

If the trace route completes, the very last line at the bottom should look similar to this...


[Reached Destination]http:// www . dc1 . netflix . com
(it could say dc2-dc3 etc but it should be similar).

If it doesn't, then its a problem with your ISP... Most likely their DNS (Domain Name Server). To work around their DNS visit Open DNS and sign up for the free basic service, you'll need to download a tiny program, but its very simply to use (just install and run).

This will change the default DNS service assigned by your ISP to the Open DNS system.

If the trace route does complete... But you still cannot load the site... The problem is somewhere in your system settings, however I am not familiar enough with Mac's to know where to have you check.

P.S. IW does work with Chrome :-)

P.P.S. My guess (because you can reach us here at community.netflix.com- even though we are not hosted on their server- the redirect is there- so you are reaching it) is that it is related to your ISP's DNS server.

[Fiver]

Hmmm. Thanks. I had contacted the ISP. The thing is, we use the same modem on my daughter's PC laptop with no issues at all. I think it is Mac related. I'm finding that others with Macbooks are having similar problems, but so far, no one has a solution that's working.

[Sock Puppet]

A PC and a Mac are going to handle DNS servers a bit differently... ISP's will ALWAYS try to blame the other guy, so you should really be proactive and test yourself ;-) If others in your area/circle of acquaintances are having similar problems with their macs, do they have the same ISP as you do?

A trace route takes all of a minute at best, it if complete per the above post, then you know for a fact its a setting in your Mac, however its not at all likely that a setting in your Mac will block access to www . netfilx . com but not block subdomain access to www . community . netflix . com. They are both located at the same place.

[Bvnni]

Hi,

I'm going through a similar situation. My HP/Vista Laptop loads netflix just fine whereas this emachines/xp desktop suddenly stopped loading netflix a few days ago. It seems like after I set up my Wii and PS3, all the browsers on the desktop (chrome, firefox, ie, opera) stopped loading netflix. I ran the DNS route checker as suggested above and it states it's complete. I've turned off all of the antivirus/firewall/connection restrictors and still the desktop is effected. The laptop continues to run fine.

The only difference between the wii/ps3/laptop is that they are wireless to my router while the desktop is directly connected via ethernet.

[Sock Puppet]

Is this the site... Or just IW... How many devices do you have connected? You are allowed 5.

If the trace route completed then there is a setting on your computer that is blocking access.

In XP go to "Control Panel" - "Internet Settings" "Security (tab))" You are looking for something like this:

Click on the icon for "Restricted Sites" and then the button that says "Sites" if there is anything there look specifically for any entries like *.netflix.com- www.netflix.com--- Etc. This will block access to the site irregardless of if you have anti virus or anti spam/malware programs running. If you find entries select them and delete/remove them. You will need to reboot your computer for the change to take effect, but that should fix the problem.

This happens if there are a lot of people using a computer, or often times if our kids (or spouses, significant others or roommates) are playing with things they should not.

[Fiver]

I did the trace route, and that's fine. I can't figure out anything on the settings that would be an issue. Thanks for trying.

[Sock Puppet]

Well if the trace route was fine then it has to be a setting on your mac somewhere.

Im sure there is also somewhere similar to what I suggested for Bvnni above to check on his PC in a Mac's settings, that would be the only thing I could think of. Can you take a screen shot of your browser showing what you see when you try to go to Netflix.com? And post it here?

Also, Do you have java support installed on you mac?

I also did some checking and found this article for Mac systems which refer to the problem you've reported... Check here and perhaps try the steps suggested to see if it is indeed incorrect DNS settings...

[Bvnni]

For the record, this is a screenshot of what I see when trying to load netflix.com

I've gone through the restricted/allowed and security site settings on each browser and CP. Netflix was never listed on any of them. Going a step further, I ran CCleaner, uninstalled both firefox and chrome, then reinstalled. Still the same problem.

Ran the trace route again and this is what I get: Screenshot of results. Same as the first go. On a better look at it, I noticed that while it does say 'complete' there's a lot of 'router did not respond'. Is that normal/ok?

Opening up the Linksys browser, I did a traceroute through the router UI and it reports it as complete as well for www.netflix.com.

On a lark, I connected my HTC Fuze to our WiFi and it loaded netflix.com perfectly. Not a single hiccup or delay.

At most, we have three devices connected at one time, but not more than four. At the moment, the only two connected are the Laptop and this Desktop as the Wii and PS3 are off. If you mean linked/registered, again only four: desktop, laptop, Wii, and PS3.

For the heck of it, I'm going to try a little experiment with the laptop. I'll report back to this thread the outcome.

Thanks for all the feedback/help btw!

[Bvnni]

Okay, so I did the whole experiment thingy.

I unplugged the desktop, disconnected my laptop's wireless and plugged it directly into the router via the same cable. Again, the laptop loaded netflix just fine. So, it's nothing to do with the router settings. There's something specifically on the desktop.

-jaw to palm- I've added netflix to all of the 'allow', 'trusted', 'excluded' lists on XP. Still, nothing.

Does Netflix ban IPs for any reason?

[Fiver]

I did look through every setting on everything I could think to look on, on both the computer itself, network settings, and browsers. I can't find anything that would be blocking it. If I did add a screen shot, it would look like a tab that says "new tab" and then blank space. That's it. The tab has the little spinny thing that indicates it's working on getting to the site (the bottom says: "Waiting for www.netflix.com" but I left it for a long time, like I went to cook dinner, just to see, but it never came up. I'm on a wireless, but again, this is not different than it used to be either.

Bvnni, it works fine on my daughter's PC, so at least in my case, it's not the IP... it's something with this Mac, and I'm pretty sure it's something that's changed. I don't recall it being this touchy about sites in the past.

I also posted this on an apple forum... had 60 views and no replies! Nuts.

[Sock Puppet]

OK I got a good clue from the screen shot. When a site is unreachable it "should" display the default 404 error page included with the browser, this may also show info from the DNS provider.

But the image shows "Google" on it, which tells me the Google toolbar is the problem, its probably tracking your usage and filtering all the pages through the process. Netflix doesn't allow outside tracking or "spidering"... So the aspect of the Google toolbar that tracks your usage cannot follow you at the Netflix site, so the toolbar will not let you connect to the site.

I "suspect" if you try uninstalling the Google toolbar (or at least trying to disable it) that it should stop trying to track your visits, and will hopefully fix whatever it broke.

[Fiver]

Huh. Ok. I'll see what I can do and let you know.