Hacking NetFlix

Netflix Suffering Another Streaming Outage on New Years Eve

Update: TechCrunch reports that the outage only impacted the DVD website:

“We are experiencing some technical difficulty with the Netflix DVD Web site, which as a result may not be available for all members. Our engineers are working to address this issue. Netflix streaming is not impacted.”

Readers (and Down Right Now) are reporting troubles with Netflix streaming. Netflix also suffered a major streaming disruption on Christmas Eve. 

Is Netflix streaming working for you? I am able to stream movies, and I'm located on the East Coast. 

Serious Netflix Streaming Outage on Christmas Eve

Update: Netflix on Facebook reports that Netflix streaming should be online again after a serious outage that lasted more than 12 hours. 

NewTeeVee reports that Amazon Prime was still available last night while Netflix Streaming was down, but we're on the East Coast and had trouble accessing Amazon Prime last night to view a movie. I agree with NewTeeVee that there are now alternatives to Amazon Web Services, and after an outage like this Netflix must at least be thinking about service providers that don't compete directly with them. 

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Netflix Streaming was down most of Christmas Eve for many customers, and the first official acknowledgment came from the NetflixHelps Twitter feed at 1pm PST. 

TechCrunch reports that the outage is due to problems with Amazon Web Services, as noted on Twitter by Netflix Cloud Architect Adrian Cockcroft. 

Did you experience a Netflix streaming outage on Christmas Eve? 

Netflix Adds Wi-Fi Only Streaming Option to Android App

Roma De, director of product management at Netflix, announced that they have added a  Wi-Fi only option to the Android app.

We know many of you love to watch Netflix on your Android smartphones and tablets. We just launched a new feature where you can select to playback on Wi-Fi networks only. This means that while you can search, browse and enjoy all aspects of the Netflix app on a mobile data connection or Wi-Fi, you can choose (via a "Settings" feature) to playback on Wi-Fi networks only.

Has anyone streamed a Netflix movie using their data plan? 

Having Trouble Logging into Netflix or Streaming?

Netflix is making changes to the website and some customers are having trouble logging in or accessing their account. If you're having trouble make sure you are using http://www.netflix.com (and not a shortcut), and if you're still having trouble clear your Netflix cookies using the following link:

     http://www.netflix.com/clearcookies

If you're still having trouble with your Netflix account support is available 24 hours a day at 866-716-0414.

Have you had trouble accessing your Netflix account?

Thanks to Bob, Adam and everyone else for sending this in.

If You See Ads When Streaming Netflix You Probably Have Malware

Netflix Helps on Twitter is responding to customers about ads that appear during streaming, and Netflix has posted a support page about how to remove the virus or malware.

Netflix: Ads and Pop-ups when streaming to your PC or Mac

Netflix does not push advertisements to members using our service. If you are experiencing advertisements or pop-ups when streaming video from Netflix to your computer, your computer or browser has most likely been compromised by malware.

To resolve this issue, use the anti-malware, anti-adware or anti-virus software recommended by your computer manufacturer or a trusted IT professional.

While Netflix as a company does not endorse or advocate specific vendors, our Support Engineers have successfully used Malware Bytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org/) to clean up these types of infections.  Keep in mind that malware can evolve, or other malicious programs may cause similar problems.  Here is list of reputable software vendors that sell or provide free tools to help combat these types of attacks on your PC or Mac:

• Ad-Aware: http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php
• Sophos: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/virus-removal-tool.aspx
• Trend Micro: http://www.trendmicro.com
• F-Secure: http://www.f-secure.com
• Symantec: http://www.norton.com

Has anyone seen this type of infection?

Small Number of Netflix DVD Customers Experiencing Mail Delivery Delays

A few readers have written to Netflix's Joris Evers told HackingNetflix:

What may be causing some of the noise around delivery is recent changes within the USPS which have caused some members to move form 1 day mail service to 2 day mail service. This not only impacts Netflix, but all mail in general being processed in those service areas. This is only affecting a small group of our members and we are making changes to our transportation network to minimize the impact of these USPS changes.

Evers also said that Netflix has not closed any shipping centers, and that they have about 55 in service.

Are you seeing a delay in DVD shipments?

Interesting Warning Message When Traveling with Netflix

Due to the complexities of international license agreements, not all movies and TV shows are available in all of the countries Netflix supports. Flickr user Jason Clark posted the following dialog from the Netflix app that warns about content differences, and that your queue and star ratings may not be available in all countries (the U.S. is the only country that has a queue). 

Image posted with permission.

Anyone Experiencing Netflix Queue Problems?

Reader Joe writes, "My Netflix Instant Queue is stuck at 14 items.  If I add any more than that, within minutes the additional items disappear from my queue.  Netflix support says they're aware of the issue and they're working on it.  I've been experiencing this issue since yesterday.  Is anyone else having trouble keeping newly added items in their Netflix queue?"

Netflix Explains Friday Night Service Outage

Netflix's Greg Orzell & Ariel Tseitlin posted an explanation about the outage Friday night and how Netflix & Amazon are working together to prevent another outage. 

On Friday, June 29th, we experienced one of the most significant outages in over a year. It started at about 8 PM Pacific Time and lasted for about three hours, affecting Netflix members in the Americas. We’ve written frequently about our resiliency efforts and our experience with the Amazon cloud. In the past, we’ve been able to withstand Amazon Web Services (AWS) availability zone outages with minimal impact. We wanted to take this opportunity to share our findings about why this particular zone outage had such an impact.

For background, you can read about Amazon’s root-cause analysis of their outage here:http://aws.amazon.com/message/67457/.  The short version is that one of Amazon’s Availability Zones (AZs) failed on Friday evening due to a power outage that was caused by a severe storm.  Power was restored 20 minutes later. However, the Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) service suffered from capacity problems and an API backlog, which slowed recovery.

Our own root-cause analysis uncovered some interesting findings, including an edge-case in our internal mid-tier load-balancing service. This caused unhealthy instances to fail to deregister from the load-balancer which black-holed a large amount of traffic into the unavailable zone. In addition, the network calls to the instances in the unavailable zone were hanging, rather than returning no route to host.

As part of this outage we have identified a number of things that both we and Amazon can do better, and we are working with them on improvements.

The Netflix Tech Blog is an interesting read if you're interested in how Netflix works behind the scenes. Recent articles include Netflix Recommendations, Behind the 5 Stars, Asgard: Web-based Cloud Management and Deployment, and Annoucing Archaius: Dynamic Properties in the Cloud. 

East Coast Storm Caused Multi-Hour Netflix Outage Friday Night

A serious East Coast storm took out Amazon customers including Netflix, Pinterest, Instagram on Friday night, and services should be restored to Netflix customers.

If you're still having trouble with a Netflix-ready device Netflix on Twitter has some advice:

If you still can't connect this morning, find your device here: http://bit.ly/LHNOhB , then remove and reinstall the app. ‪#dcstorm‬.

via TechCrunch and Deadline.