Netflix error in Windows 7

[ravadac]

I've been having problems the past few days in WMC logging into Netflix. I can run from all the browsers on my PC. I reinstalled silverlight as a precaution but no go there. I decided to a little digging into the network packets and I'm seeing that the api at Netflix is sending back a 400 bad request when trying to authenticate in WMC. The stated reason from Netflix is "X-Netflix-Error-Cause: Proxy Error: signature_invalid". Anyone have any ideas?

Should I keep looking? Is this a spurious error? Anyone got the WMC Netflix client to work recently? It's been working fine for me for the past 3 months then all of a sudden I started getting the "You're having a problem with your internet connection ..." - like 3 - 4 days ago. I logged out, and can't log back in

[mschnebly]

okay, I have figured out what was causing my issue. It ended up being a DNS problem. I use manual IPs on all my media centers and I had been using Google DNS. I changed my DNS server settings on my media centers to my routers IP and rebooted my media centers and Netflix started working normally. While I do not like using my router for a DNS if it gets Netflix working in WMC I suppose it does not matter.

Yep, I just verified on my system that it's the DNS settings.

[abigrock]

okay, I have figured out what was causing my issue. It ended up being a DNS problem. I use manual IPs on all my media centers and I had been using Google DNS. I changed my DNS server settings on my media centers to my routers IP and rebooted my media centers and Netflix started working normally. While I do not like using my router for a DNS if it gets Netflix working in WMC I suppose it does not matter.

Yep, I just verified on my system that it's the DNS settings.

Sadly I just checked again and if I close Netflix and try to go back in after the DNS change it stops working again with the INTERNET CONNECTION error. I spoke with Netflix last night and they basically told me it was my ISP and I needed to contact them. I doubt Charter will do anything or can do anything. It is definitely my ISP because at work I have Verizon and it works fine but if that same machine is home or at my in-laws who also have charter then the WMC Netflix does not work.

[ravadac]

I don't believe it's DNS related. I tried using both TW's DNS settings and Google's public DNS settings. I've flushed all my DNS settings too. The fact is that if you can watch it via a browser on your PC but you can't watch it through WMC then it's probably some odd interaction between MS WMC's plugin and Netflix's API service ( hosted my amazon ). I tend to think that the invalid certificate that I posted earlier has something to do with why WMC is failing.

[ravadac]

I have to retract the last one. I re-read one of the posts and it appears that google's public DNS servers are to blame. I thought that I was using a different DNS settings but checked my router and sure enough it was serving up Google's DNS settings. I changed over to TW's servers ( 209.18.47.61 and .62 ), restarted windows media center, logged in and everything is working properly now.

[MediaManXL]

Wow, I started getting this error on both of my MCs last week. They both had been working fine for months. I spent hours yesterday uninstalling/reinstalling/troubleshooting Silverlight and rolling back my computer, uninstalling Windows updates, etc. I never even considered the possibility of a DNS issue since Netflix plays fine in the browser.

Does anyone know specifically what host name is causing the problem? I'd like to try adding it to my hosts file to make sure it resolves my problem before I start changing the DNS configuration of my network.

Thanks!

[smalltownguy2]

Called Netflix today. They really can't help with WMC issues. Dammit.

I deleted my extra profile (the one for my daughter) and also uninstalled Silverlight.

Tried launching Netflix in WMC, and no dice. Still "check internet connection" problem.

Launched a web browser, logged out of Netflix, and logged back in again. Left the browser up, minimized it, and launched WMC again. Tried starting the Netflix plugin and this time it worked.

I have no idea what to do to keep this working reliably.

*GRRRRRRR*

[MediaManXL]

I can confirm that this error was DNS related for me. It's resolved now. I do know that there can be other causes of this same error message, but in my case it was definitely DNS related.

To resolve it, I removed Google public DNS from the list of forwarders on my internal DNS servers and flushed the DNS cache on each of them. I then stopped the DNS client service on my Media Center computers and was then able to connect and play movies through the Netflix plugin on all of them.

I would still like to know if anyone knows specifically what host name was being incorrectly resolved, just for future reference. I did a netmon trace of the connection and see Media Center talking to several different (about 5 or 6) different Internet hosts, but I'm not sure which one was resolving incorrectly before I fixed the issue.

Anyway - YMMV, but I can definitely confirm DNS was the issue for me. If yours was working fine previously and stopped working around 2/20/14, I'd strongly recommend looking at DNS before you start messing with Silverlight or IE cookies or anything else. I wasted half a day going down those dead ends before finding this thread and fixing the DNS issues (big thanks to those above who pointed me in the right direction!)

[smalltownguy2]

Flushing the DNS cache on my upstairs HTPC only worked once I also cleared the IE cache. Playing videos reliably again.

Didn't work on my downstairs PC, until I read back a bit further in this thread and saw that someone mentioned that static DNS with Google was causing problems. I have a static IP address on my downstairs HTPC, and I was using 8.8.8.8 (google) as my DNS server. I changed that to the DNS of my ISP (Charter), which is 24.196.64.53. I cleared the DNS cache, cleared the IE cache, and rebooted. Seems to be working OK now.

I'll report back after a day or two.

Who would of thought that GOOGLE, of all companies, would have an error in their DNS routing??

[awendt]

I am in Illinois with AT&T Uverse and I've had this problem for few days. I'm using DCHP on all my HTPCs, but my router is using Google DNS servers. What other DNS servers can I try besides Google's and AT&T's? Do people know for sure that is the problem with Netflix in WMC? Thanks.

[smalltownguy2]

I am in Illinois with AT&T Uverse and I've had this problem for few days. I'm using DCHP on all my HTPCs, but my router is using Google DNS servers. What other DNS servers can I try besides Google's and AT&T's? Do people know for sure that is the problem with Netflix in WMC? Thanks.

Google shows the ATT DNS servers as:

Primary DNS: 68.94.156.1

Secondary DNS: 68.94.157.1

I'd try those.

[MediaManXL]

I am in Illinois with AT&T Uverse and I've had this problem for few days. I'm using DCHP on all my HTPCs, but my router is using Google DNS servers. What other DNS servers can I try besides Google's and AT&T's? Do people know for sure that is the problem with Netflix in WMC? Thanks.

If, for some reason, you don't like your ISP's DNS servers, you can try using this tool to find some that work for you.

https://www.grc.com/dns/benchmark.htm

I do know for sure that Google DNS was causing the issue for me, but there are several other causes of this same error message as well.

[ravadac]

I've been running for the past 2 days with RoadRunner's DNS servers w/o issue.

[Indymil]

Netflix started working in media center on both my computers today. I have done nothing to fix the problem... believe it was fixed externally somehow.

[awendt]

Mine started working on its own today. I did nothing. Whatever.