Netflix Linux Installation Crippled ?

BrendanC · 2013-08-11 01:58:14

I recently started building an Arch based system and am gradually installing the packages I like. In the past I ws able to get Netflix up and running in Linux Mint (Ubuntu based) via the ppa that Erich Hoover created a while ago. His ppa is based on having Wine, Silverlight and Netflix-Desktop installed - ref:

http://www.iheartubuntu.com/2012/11/ppa … p-app.html

I found a couple of Arch based packages (netflix-desktop) which are supposed to set up Netflix on an Arch installation. These also require that Wine be installed, patched and recompiled (which takes a long time - btw). However after downloading and trying to compile them I kept getting install/compile errors:

- error occurred in Build
- Makepkg unable to build wine-silverlight

This happened twice and I was not able to find any other reports re this problem - so I wonder if there is a fix for this.

At this point I went back to my Mint installation to verify that things still worked - however I've upgraded Mint a few times and I needed to reinstall my Mint version. (This is precompiled in some PPA files so is easier to do than on Arch). Lo and behold - that did not work either - basically I get to the Netflix screen and then the browser just hangs. The error seems to be related to some Silverlight upgrade Netflix and/or Microsoft did to prevent Linux users from watching movies on unsupported (i.e. Windows/Macs) devices. (I'm not sure about this, but I suspect that they want to control how their content is accessed).

Has anyone here done a recent install of Netflix on Linux - I'd like to confirm that it's doable before I invest more time/energy on this. (I don't know that it matters but I'm testing this here in the US - things could be different elsewhere).

WonderWoofy · 2013-08-11 02:04:21

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1195746

BrendanC · 2013-08-11 20:28:57

OP here posting back with an update:

I managed to get the software installed/compiled on Arch. However I immediately ran itno a similar problem with the Firefox browser hanging when Iry to access Netflix. T

his makes me think that Netflix/Microsoft may have mande some tweaks to Silverlight to deny Linux access. AFAIK this is a very recent change on their end, as I was able to access Netflix from linux (Mint) in the past.

Anyone else care to jump in here with their experiences and possibly confirm/deny this?

Multimoon · 2013-08-12 00:45:26

I don't believe that it was a recent change, I watched star trek just this morning on my arch desktop. I have a rather old build of the package though, I never saw a need to update it, so it could simply be a bad update to the package, not netflix itself. I also find it unlikely that Microsoft/Netflix would do anything to expressly deny linux users access, as this in a sense is wasting money. It would not be worth the effort for them to have the development team spend the time to block linux users, when it would only shorten their userbase.

BrendanC · 2013-08-12 01:18:09

OP back again -
It appears that others are getting the "can't find server at movies.netflix.com" error message.
I don't know if you have seen this recent link re Netflix and Linux, but it confirms my suspicion that something has changed recently on the Netflix server side (IMHO). It would be helpful if someone else can test whether a fresh install works - at this point I would not recommend trying to upgrade something that already works without first backing everything up (just in case).

https://answers.launchpad.net/netflix-d … ion/229828

cfr · 2013-08-12 01:58:30

If they were deliberately detecting and blocking WINE, though, there's no reason it would work with an older build of the packages - they are still identifying themselves to the site in the same way. Plus that thread suggests it is working fine for some people and not others which again would be weird if they were blocking on the basis of the user agent string (as suggested in that thread). Not that that would be a good way to go given it is easily faked in any case.

Moreover, there are users reporting success in the thread WonderWoofy linked to at least a month after the posting on launchpad.

I'm all for a conspiracy theory if possible but I think the plot needs work.

Last edited by cfr (2013-08-12 01:58:51)

BrendanC · 2013-08-12 18:33:30

OP back again with an update:

I've done some more testing based on your responses and agree that the 'conspiracy theory' is not appropriate here. In fact it's beginning to look like a bug in Firefox that is causing the problem. I believe (but am not sure) that this may have been introduced in a recent version of Firefox.

Basically the issue seems to be an unexpected parsing error that is returned by Firefox when accessing the Netflix (and possibly other Web sites). When I used normal Firefox (i.e.*NOT* the Wine version) to search Netflix I got the error below (Unexpected XML Parser error).

I installed Chromium to confirm that this was a Firefox specific problem and sure enough I was able to access my Netflix account via Chromium. For reasons I do not fully understand the Firefox problem only affects some websites, and does not appear to affect all users. Some of this could be version specific.

For the sake of completeness I'll add that I tested this on both Firefox V22 and V23 and ran into the same problem. I've also found otjher reports of this issue elsewhere online. Here's a link to the Firefox/Mozilla support forum:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/940974

Sorry to report that despite following their recommendations (remove, full reinstall, change profile, firefox reset etc)I was still unable to make a successful connection - maybe some others can help resolve this issue.

Since this is clearly a Firefox issue I'll post a separate message here to alert others to potential problems re upgrading their Firefox install.

Arch Linux

#1 2013-08-11 01:58:14

Netflix Linux Installation Crippled ?

#2 2013-08-11 02:04:21

Re: Netflix Linux Installation Crippled ?

#3 2013-08-11 20:28:57

Re: Netflix Linux Installation Crippled ?

#4 2013-08-12 00:45:26

Re: Netflix Linux Installation Crippled ?

#5 2013-08-12 01:18:09

Re: Netflix Linux Installation Crippled ?

#6 2013-08-12 01:58:30

Re: Netflix Linux Installation Crippled ?

#7 2013-08-12 18:33:30

Re: Netflix Linux Installation Crippled ?

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