- They have the first four seasons of The Office on "Watch now," which is great. I've seen a couple of episodes, and I think I'm going to try to watch a few more.
I booted the ole computer up, and tried to watch them. First off, I tried Google Chrome, which is what I use for everything else I do. No luck- its unsupported. Not only is it unsupported, but they don't let you even try to run it, just in case it works (a pet peeve of mine).
Second, I try firefox. Almost everything works in firefox (even the archaic and crusty Deltek timecard system). Doesnt work- it give me an error about how my browser is unsupported, and I should upgrade to IE or Firefox 2 or newer. I'm currently using Firefox 3.0.8, so I just assume that my version of Firefox is too new.
Third attempt, I use an add-on to firefox that lets IE render a single tab within firefox. Its supposed to resolve these kinds of issues. This time, Firefox took a dump. Crashed. Windows caught it, and recommended that I update flash player to resolve the issue (The old netflix player was based on flash). I did that, and nothing changed- Firefox took a dump again, windows recommending updating my freshly updated flash player.
So I broke down and tried IE. At this point, I'm getting tired of typing http://www.netflix.com, the office, and clicking on season 1. IE fails, and tells me that my browser is unsupported, and I should upgrade to firefox or IE 6 (again). Whee...
After some googling, I find that IE 64 bit is unsupported on Netflix (but this isn't documented on the Netflix site). I try IE32 bit (which comes on 64 bit machines). After another failed attempt, I find out (again by googling) that 32 bit Internet explorer uses 64 bit flash on 64 bit machines, which is, you guessed it, not supported. At this point, I can't think of anything more to do with my desktop short of trying to run it in a 32 bit VM, and so I start with option 2.
I run some more CAT-5 cable to my bedroom in the hopes that I can get my laptop working. Its a 32 bit machine, running XP, so I anticipate this being not bad. After booting up the machine, I find that it can't stream either. I get the player installed (after solving a compatibility issue with a previous version of the netflix player installed on my system), and finally get to a page that looks like its loading up a player. I let it install Silverlight after it asks. Silverlight installs really quickly- I hope its actually doing something in the installer other than uploading my personal data to microsoft!
The player doesn't work. "Error 1001." It's so non-descriptive, its like going back to the Mac OS 7 days- "An error has occurred." No clue to the source. I continue troubleshooting, including an uninstall and reinstall of Silverlight. After a few minutes, I find some hints that suggest adding netflix.com (both http and https protocols) as Trusted Sites in Internet options may fix the problem. This doesn't change anything (for me).
So at this point, I remember clicking something once asking me to opt in to Netflix's new player. Apparently, this one replaces Flash with Silverlight. Apparently, this one doesn't work for a whole bunch of people. Apparently, they don't want to you to opt out (see here).
So, I'm about to call Netflix, and I'm not expecting much. From what I've read, they blame the problem on Microsoft and tell you to call them to fix it. Maybe I'll have them cancel my subscription.
:-(
Update- I'm on hold with Netflix support. The guy seems to know what he's talking about, and I run him through my experiences:
- No Chrome
- Firefox doesn't work either
- After IE doesn't work, I identify this as a 64 bit issue
- Laptop doesn't work initially
- Updating silverlight doesn't fix it
- Updating netflix player doesn't fix it
He wants me to try watching Heroes Season 1- it dies again.
He gives me the phone number for MS Silverlight support- (866-234-6020, 5am-9pm weekdays). I tell him that I've heard that they aren't very helpful, and he agrees.
He does direct me back to the desktop machine, and says that in Vista 64, you can get the netflix silverlight player to work in 32 bit IE. Strangely, this works this time. :-/
Happy ending I guess. However, the laptop still doesn't work (??).
0 comments:
Post a Comment