STV Import: NetFlix for SageMC (v2.1) 28-Feb-09

[gplasky]

I'm begining to see some issues with this plugin. My long standing install on my WHS which had always worked and a new install on Win 7. Both are using the old style WMP based player. Not siliverlight.

My Watch Now has quit working. When I press Watch Now nothing happens. When I try to download for later it I get a dialog box that says "cannot add to download queue" This is on my long time install thru an extender with the loopback. I can play it in IE 7 on the server no problem.
I just installed this on a Win 7 client. Now at first it actually was going to allow me to download it but I didn't because it was a test. But still no play on Watch Now. The custom player never starts. When I try to download again it says "cannot add to download queue" . Again, playing thru IE 8 on Win 7 works fine.

When I looked at my Netflix account I think I am seeing somethig that wasn't there before. "Your Netflix ready devices and computers"
It says:

You may watch instantly on up to 6 unique devices:
Including personal computers and Netflix ready devices. You may also use this page to manually de-register devices you no longer wish to use for watching instantly. A deactivated device can be reactivated later if you wish to resume using it.

It shows my server and the Win 7 PC with an activation date of today.

Can this be interfering with the plugin now? I do have the option of using the Playon server and the HD200 but I would like to still be able to play this on the PC's. ANyone else seeing this?

From the Netflix log:

WatchNowMovieRemote recieved processRequest
WatchNowDataHTMLParser().getWatchNowDataList(60002746
WatchNowPlayerRemote recieved processRequest
start not found:var WNPlaylistMovies
Channel.hasExpired.ttl:Queue:Sat Jul 04 12:00:00 EDT 2009
Channel.hasExpired.ttl:Queue:Sat Jul 04 12:00:00 EDT 2009
Channel.hasExpired.ttl:Queue:Sat Jul 04 12:00:00 EDT 2009
Channel.hasExpired.ttl:Queue:Sat Jul 04 12:00:00 EDT 2009
!!!!!!!!! dlPath = \\MAIN\MovieTimes\NetFlixDown
*** downloadShow \\MAIN\MovieTimes\NetFlixDown\0907031949-60002746.wmv - null
*** downloadShow null url, aborting...
!!!!!!!!! dlPath = \\MAIN\MovieTimes\NetFlixDown
*** downloadShow \\MAIN\MovieTimes\NetFlixDown\0907031949-60002746.wmv - null
*** downloadShow null url, aborting...
refreshChannel:QueueEDRSS

Gerry

[robogeek]

Watch Now is still working here with the old NetFlix Player setup under WHS. Within the last few hours of having problems, have you tried to view or download a Starz network sponsored movie? I think Starz movies cause a black out of your Watch Now feature for a few hours, but I think NetFlix only blacks out the device that initiated the view or download...I think it's to limit the number of Starz movies that are viewable per day. If this isn't the cause, then I'm not sure

[SWKerr]

Originally Posted by gplasky

Silverlight isn't 64bit and there isn't a 64bit version. You need to run the 32bit IE with Silverlight. 32bit IE is used by default in any Windows 64 bit OS.

Gerry

With most things it appears that IE32 is called but for whatever reason the plugin seems to be calling IE64. It will run fine if I launch it from the browser.

Since they both seem to have the same executable and the 64bit one is in the default path for most 32bit windows installs "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer". I am guessing the plugin has it hard coded or that there is a pathing statement for it somewhere and it just finds the 64 bit first. I actually tried renaming the IE64 directory but it just got another kind of error message.

Does anyone have any suggestions or does anyone have it working with Windows7 64?

Note:
I am using Chrome for a browser now but changed back to IE as the defaultbrowser for testing this problem but I still get the same issue from the plugin. (I really do hate IE. I thought the newest version would be a major improvement but it still seems slow, buggy and unintuitive. I like the way it shows the tabs in the launch bar now but that is the only advantage it has over Chrome or Firefox)

[Morgan111]

Originally Posted by SWKerr

With most things it appears that IE32 is called but for whatever reason the plugin seems to be calling IE64. It will run fine if I launch it from the browser.

Since they both seem to have the same executable and the 64bit one is in the default path for most 32bit windows installs "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer". I am guessing the plugin has it hard coded or that there is a pathing statement for it somewhere and it just finds the 64 bit first. I actually tried renaming the IE64 directory but it just got another kind of error message.

Does anyone have any suggestions or does anyone have it working with Windows7 64?

Note:
I am using Chrome for a browser now but changed back to IE as the defaultbrowser for testing this problem but I still get the same issue from the plugin. (I really do hate IE. I thought the newest version would be a major improvement but it still seems slow, buggy and unintuitive. I like the way it shows the tabs in the launch bar now but that is the only advantage it has over Chrome or Firefox)

For silverlight, the browser is started from the executable defined by the ie_path property in Sage(Client).properties and defaults to:
plugins/NetFlix/ie_path=c\:\\program files\\internet explorer\\iexplore.exe

You can change this property so that it calls the proper browser.

[SWKerr]

Thanks Morgan111

I changed the path to:
plugins/NetFlix/ie_path=C\:\\Program Files (x86)\\internet explorer\\iexplore.exe

I need to reboot but after that it worked as expected.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by robogeek

Watch Now is still working here with the old NetFlix Player setup under WHS. Within the last few hours of having problems, have you tried to view or download a Starz network sponsored movie? I think Starz movies cause a black out of your Watch Now feature for a few hours, but I think NetFlix only blacks out the device that initiated the view or download...I think it's to limit the number of Starz movies that are viewable per day. If this isn't the cause, then I'm not sure

Well for whatever reason the old Netflix player has quit working for me on WHS and every PC. I'm gone to the light side now and have it functioning with Silverlight. This seems to be working OK but I noticed a little video tearing on the loopback to my plasma and extender. I'll keep testing but it should be OK with Silverlight.

I've also noticed in my Netflix account that playing a video on my PC with IE/Silverlight shows up as a different device when playing it with the Netflix plugin and Silverlight on the same PC. So keep in mind there is a limit of 6 devices and you may need to deavtivate an unused device so that you can have it running everywhere you want.

Gerry

[tahoetim]

Gerry,
Can you save movies to your queue?

[gplasky]

Using Silverlight does NOT allow you to save your movies to the queue. Only custom player and I think Internet Explorer will. Part of my issue was the custom player broke for me and I could neither watch nor download to the queue. I actually got a dialog box that said cannot add to queue. Don't know what broke and it appears to be only me.

Gerry

[tahoetim]

that's what i meant - i cannot add to the queue and have posted the issue a couple of times

[gplasky]

Personally I think things are changing at Netflix causing some of these issues. You can only have 6 devices for streaming Netflix. Every PC that I played a Watch Now in IE shows up in the active hyperlink listing with its own self-generated serial number. Every Watch Now movie I played thru the Netflix plugin shows as a seperate device with its own serial number in this list. So for the 2 PCs I worked with I now have 4 devices in my account "activated" for Watch Now. Netflix has also stated it would not support the old model for Watch Now forever so this may also be part of the problem. All I know is I couldn't download movies anymore with the old style player and it just wouldn't play Watch Now movies for me anymore. This is on installations that worked a month ago and nothing had changed.

Gerry

[tahoetim]

same for me.

I have been ridiculed on this site for complaining about the lack of support for plugins. I am paying for a netflix account to use a plugin that is broken.

I guess I can cancel my netflix account...

maybe the admins should take this plugin off the list until it's working again

[gplasky]

Well I'm paying for a netflix account to use Netflix. Streaming movies was a bonus from Netflix which is technically free. Little silly NOT to use Netflix for the DVDs/BluRay service. Just as the plugins are a bonus with Sage. If a user creates a plugin I can use I'm happy. If a plugin breaks I hope someone can fix it but if it doesn't get fixed then that's life.
Other programs have user created plugins and there is no guarantee those will work forever either. And the plugin ia available because the source code is also available. Anyone can pitch in to fix it or make it better. It took me about 20 minutes to switch over to Silverlight so it is hard to claim the plugin isn't working. And if Netflix is somehow preventing the shows from downloading then it's not the author's fault either. Be glad it's not like Hulu which cut off all access from third party apps like Boxee.

Gerry

[Mitch G]

I too started having problems where I couldn't download movies etc and couldn't play movies even. This may have started when I installed the latest Netflix plugin since I wanted to (finally) address the problem where I couldn't scroll past one page is movies. But I'm not really sure.
That said, along, the way I went and made myself a Silverlight Netflix user as well.

So, I decided it was time for a fresh install. So, I reinstalled the latest SageTV standard STV, and then the latest SageMC STV and then the latest Netflix plugin.
It now it works fine (mostly, I guess).
I don't really use the plugin to manage my queues at all. I do that through the web interface. But, I can watch watch now movies (using silverlight) I've added to my instant queue via the web interface.
In fact, I think the picture quality is actually better than I experienced with the custom viewer. There's some tearing at times, but overall I think it looks better.

So, it might not be the answer you are looking for, but a fresh install might be the way to go - you might not have to go all the way back to bare metal, and if you have up to date installs without the Netflix plugin, you may just need to start there.


Mitch

[tahoetim]

To each his own. For me, managing the queue from the tvs IS part of netflix.
I use the queue feature to keep tabs on what the entire of family of 5 has on order. Sometimes I veto the selections of the kids. I haven't allowed them to have access via a pc.

I can watch now movies fine. It's the queue thats been broken for weeks.
I went to the netflix site and looked into the registering devices page. I am wondering if the plugin needs to be modified to show the code that netflix asks for to register a device.

I'm not mad at Morgan. The plugin is broken because of something that changed at netflix.

[321liftoff]

Well...I reinstalled SageTV, SageMC, and the netflix plugin. I uninstalled the Hauppauge IR remote utility and reinstalled it. Now everything seems to be working correctly. Don't know what did it, though...

[brb84]

I've been working all night on this all night and am so close. Here's what I've done:

-Started new NetFlix account
-Installed Silverlight and verified that I can manually stream movies through IE8
-Downloaded and extracted Netflix SageMC plugin
-Entered in id/username/password/DL path/loopback channel
-From my Sage server went into Netflix menus and successfully launched a watch-it-now movie. It brought everything up through the loopback channel like it was supposed to (yay!)
-Imported the Netflix plugin to my HD200 and edited the extender's client sageclient file to copy over the id, username, etc from the server's sageclient file.
-From the HD200 extender went into the Netflix menu, successfully pulled up movies in my instant queue, changed the player to Silverlight, hit Watch Now, it opened up by loopback channel and....

...is hanging there . No movie. It's like Silverlight never quite got launched. SO FREAKIN CLOSE!

Anyone have any ideas here? It works fine on the server but not on the extender using loopback. As far as I can tell, all the settings are the same. I can even view trailers on the extender just fine.

[wacole]

Ditto here. [Running over the MVP] Most of the time the movie runs fine and then, for no reason I can determine, drops to a small-square in the middle of the screen. Stopping the movie and restarting seems to work OK. Most of the time this only happens once per movie, but occasionally it will happen several times.

Sometimes [as in random] when using the remote to adjust sound or to pause, doing so triggers the small-square problem.

I haven't a clue as to where to begin looking for a fix.

Having said all this, we really appreciate all the work that has gone into this addon and extender hack. It is really a great convenience and pretty cool too.

Thanks,

Bill Cole

[brainbone]

My apologies for being out of the loop here for awhile. Other responsibilities (feeding the family, etc.) have kept me busy.

Skimming through this thread (I admit that I gave up reading every post), it looks like the Netflix Plugin is not really working for most things at this point. Other than auto closing on completion, are there any other repairs to my portion, Netflix Control, that need work, and is there any point in me working on it?

[robbc]

It has been decaying for a while and the last Windows update I did made it unusable (Silverlight takes control and/or fails). Was a fantastic plugin when it functioned and I used it extensively (I killed by $60+ cable-tv bill a month).

Any chance this might get a work around? Or should I bite the bullet and get the Roku box specific for Netflix. At least I have a good programmable remote but I would miss the all-in-one integration I have now. A lot.

In looking at other PVR's support for Netflix watch now, it seems Netflix API is not the easiest thing to implement .

Is the module actively in development? Would pizza or beer or whatever help ?

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by brainbone

My apologies for being out of the loop here for awhile. Other responsibilities (feeding the family, etc.) have kept me busy.

Skimming through this thread (I admit that I gave up reading every post), it looks like the Netflix Plugin is not really working for most things at this point. Other than auto closing on completion, are there any other repairs to my portion, Netflix Control, that need work, and is there any point in me working on it?

Would you mind giving me a hand?

Is the silverlight control designed to be used with a client machine?

On my client machine when I select watch now, it goes to full screen and the movie plays but none of the keyboard commands work. I can not pause, fast forward, rewind, or stop. I have to minimize and close the window to stop it.