[Original Thread] "My NetFlix" Plugin with Watch Now Support (2 Viewers)

[Aval0n]

My Netflix bugs

Hello,

I really like the my netflix plugin when it works correctly. I am having a few bugs that I'm hoping a few of you have already overcome and can help me out with. The major one is that afterI launch and instant watch movie when I hit STOP on my remote it shutdowns the browser and I'm left with my desktop background and the windows logo ORB on the taskbar (taskbar being invisible). I can continue to hit STOP and I hear the mediaportal clicking sound but nothing happens. So I have to double click the media potal icon to bring it back to focus and I'm back at the instant queue. This happens about 40% of the time for me but it's very annoying and when I have to grab the mouse to fix it.. it becomes frusterating.

The other thing that happens is, my wife will watch a movie and either pause it and forget about it.. or it will finish and she'll leave it there. So the netflix session times out and mediaportal comes back into focus. From this point trying to launch another instant watch film will do nothing. You just hear a clicking sound and it stays at the instant queue. If I again grab the mouse and keyboard, I find that there's a browser session open witha timed out netflix sessions. I can close it and then launch another instant watch item.

My biggest concern is the first because it's really a show stopper and something that my wife is going to struggle to fix on her own while I'm at work. The second problem has not happens since I installed 1.0.1a but it's only been on a day.

I am running Vista x64 (mediaportal dev recommendation from the IRC channel) MP 1.0.2 and My netflix 1.0.1a - using logitech harmony emulating MCE rc6 remote.

HELP!!!

 

[WileECoyote]

Hello,

I really like the my netflix plugin when it works correctly. I am having a few bugs that I'm hoping a few of you have already overcome and can help me out with. The major one is that afterI launch and instant watch movie when I hit STOP on my remote it shutdowns the browser and I'm left with my desktop background and the windows logo ORB on the taskbar (taskbar being invisible). I can continue to hit STOP and I hear the mediaportal clicking sound but nothing happens. So I have to double click the media potal icon to bring it back to focus and I'm back at the instant queue. This happens about 40% of the time for me but it's very annoying and when I have to grab the mouse to fix it.. it becomes frusterating.

The other thing that happens is, my wife will watch a movie and either pause it and forget about it.. or it will finish and she'll leave it there. So the netflix session times out and mediaportal comes back into focus. From this point trying to launch another instant watch film will do nothing. You just hear a clicking sound and it stays at the instant queue. If I again grab the mouse and keyboard, I find that there's a browser session open witha timed out netflix sessions. I can close it and then launch another instant watch item.

My biggest concern is the first because it's really a show stopper and something that my wife is going to struggle to fix on her own while I'm at work. The second problem has not happens since I installed 1.0.1a but it's only been on a day.

I am running Vista x64 (mediaportal dev recommendation from the IRC channel) MP 1.0.2 and My netflix 1.0.1a - using logitech harmony emulating MCE rc6 remote.

HELP!!!

Hey Aval0n,
Your first issue has usually been when users set MP to be on top all the time. If you have that set, try to uncheck the box and see if it fixes your issue. (This has been a known bug for a while, and so far I have not been able to find a way around it.)

Your second issue can be resolved simply by pressing the stop button. Even if the browser is in the background, if you press stop MP knows the browser session is still open and kills the process. (Note, this is also ususally caused by the "Always On Top" checkbox being checked.)

Try those tips and let me know if it doesnt work for you...

Wile E.

 

[Aval0n]

Thanks WileE,

I did try the stop buttons about 20 times.. each press with a little more english lol but I am re-install my whole mediaportal system and I will try your suggestion.

Thanks!

 

[userjan]

Netflix is very peticular about how their API's are used, so an integration of the two would break that legal agreement. I have been fortunate enough recently to work with a NetFlix API Developer to get this plugin approved for the NetFlix App Gallery. It has been approved and should show up there in the next few days, I wouldn't want to do anything to break that approval.

As far as the trailers are concerned, Netflix is working that into their API, but I cannot say when it will be available. Netflix can be a little slow implimenting features... As in other additions like true Instant Movie searches are being developed, but have yet to make it into the public API's.

Good job WileECoyote....

I'm happy to hear that the plugin will be approved by Netflix, makes me confident the Netflix plugin is gonna rock and be around for a long time, so just signed me up for a Netflix account, so far so good

 

[WileECoyote]

Good job WileECoyote....

I'm happy to hear that the plugin will be approved by Netflix, makes me confident the Netflix plugin is gonna rock and be around for a long time, so just signed me up for a Netflix account, so far so good

Thanks userjan,
Im wondering, are you now in the US? I was to the understanding that NetFlix was a US only company. It would be great if they have expanded out...

 

[userjan]

Good job WileECoyote....

I'm happy to hear that the plugin will be approved by Netflix, makes me confident the Netflix plugin is gonna rock and be around for a long time, so just signed me up for a Netflix account, so far so good

Thanks userjan,
Im wondering, are you now in the US? I was to the understanding that NetFlix was a US only company. It would be great if they have expanded out...

I'm from the Netherlands but living in the US now, as far as i know it still does not work outside the US.

 

[Valdemar]

Should the plugin work on 0.2.3.0? I was able to get to my queues but cannot play any of the movies. I cannot run 1.x because of hardware restrictions.

 

[WTBHelp]

Hey Wile,

I'm finally back. Spent the whole weekend formatting my PC and getting setup. Its been a long road to get here ROFL. I just want to say that sincerely, your app is amazing. A job well done, kudos.

A couple of comments from the first time user perspective:

1) The first time I logged in, it took about 10min to get the data I needed to load my queues. I've got top tier high speed internet. I think the bandwidth limit is on Netflix's side, but regardless, it may be worth mentioning it in your setup notes. My queue had some 40 odd movies, instant had about 25. I used task manager to close MP about 4 times cause I thought it had frozen/crashed, was hanging etc. Also, took me a bit to figure out you needed to click on a queue to start the load (maybe make the instant queue default load as part of setup). No big deal but probably worth mentioning to make it easier for others.

2) Is there anyway to disable the other menus? I will only ever use NF for streaming, and use the web to manage my queues and order DVDs in the mail etc. Some people may need the functionality so not saying remove it, but if it may speed up load times to remove everything and just have "instant queue", "new instant releases" and "instant recommendations", that would be nice (if it made load times faster).

3) Took me about 10 restarts to finally get MP to load up without asking me for my login details each time. Dont know what happened. Firewall popped up quite a few times, needed to be configged etc. Just stuck to it and the popup window eventually went away.

4) Anyway to set the NF page resolution to 1920X1080 for the wallpapers and fanart to look better on my 32"?

5) Havent tried to dual monitor testing yet but will post shortly. Original install file still has the conflicting shortcut keys so will try your other .dll shortly. I anticipate issues with the max screen Silverlight issue (I may need to key F11 into my remote for Chrome window maximizer, may need a focus key to grab the Chrome window again if focus switches to display #1 etc.

7) The little tray icons (remote/control) dont disappear when I log out of netflix. Not sure if they are active, but they dont go away. If I scroll over them, the go away.

All in all this is one sexy app. You are a legend. Thank you sir.



______________________________________________________

UPDATE: Testing results. Hey Wile - So I ran the NF app on my TV screen.

1) First prob = the screen doesnt "run in full screen" properly. I can still see my Chrome browser heading at the top of the page, and the the movie fills the top 50% of the total screen. The scroll bar and other buttons at the bottom can be seen. If I try running it normally outside of MP, it runs fine (like when I drag and drop the Chrome window to my TV and hit "run in full screen"). It works fine. If I run MP + NF on my PC screen only, then it works fine too. With the duel screen setup, the window doesnt maximize properly on the TV screen. Could you please advise. Thanks.

UpdatE: Possible solution? = is the anyway to start the window in regular mode (not popped out and not maximized) and them automate a F11 screen maximization function in Chrome? If the screen is maximized using F11 on the TV, then this solves the problem of losing window focus when using my PC for work while wife watches a movie (it doesnt go back to a half screen window when I use my PC if I do it this way). Only prob I can anticipate if we use this method is having to give focus back to the Netflix window when your movie is done. Does this make sense? (sry its really late here). Thanks man.

 

[WileECoyote]

Should the plugin work on 0.2.3.0? I was able to get to my queues but cannot play any of the movies. I cannot run 1.x because of hardware restrictions.

Hey Valdemar,
To be honest Im not sure. I have never installed the 0.2.3 version If you could copy your logs (after an error occurs) and I can take a look to see if I can resolve...

Hey WTBHelp,
1. This sounds like the authorization issue from #3. It should never take 10 minutes to load, even on the slowest connections.

2. No one else has asked for this feature, but I will put it on a list. If more folks want this feature I will impliment..

3. This is an authorization issue. Something went wrong when you first configured the plugin.

4. Most of the skins are 1280 x 720 which should scale well to 1080p. Which skin are you using?

5. Dual monitor has not changed. The last test build was specifically to remove the scripting so you can run dual screen without it taking over the keyboard.

7. This is an issue with Windows itself. As you saw, when you hover over them the icons dissapear which means the programs were unloaded.

As I mentioned earlier, the change to the test version was not to fix the dual screen issue, it was to add an option to disable scripting.

Have you tried to add the chrome browser to the config (instead of using the default custom browser?) I know IE has a switch (-k) that will start the browser in Kiosk mode (F11 equivalent), Im not sure if Chrome has a similar option.

 

[WTBHelp]

Hey Wilie,

1) I tried to use IE instead of my default browser but adding "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe - k" to the setup. It didnt work, got the error "cannot find webbrowser.exe". Running IE in kiosk mode sounds like the best solution to this problem. I ran a test and it works nicely, although I would just need to key Alt-F4 to a button on my remote at some point. Any ideas to get kiosk mode working properly?

2) I'm using Streamed MP. All my wallpapers are 1920X1080 @ high DPIs so they look very nice. Was just curious if we could select the res (like in Moving Pictures, only pulls certain fanart).

3) Will test the new .dll later today. Keep you posted. Thanks again man. Great app!!

4) Will it still be possible to use the remote to control Netflix in the kiosk window? Hardly need any functionality, although a pause, FF and rewind button may be nice. Also would need to close the window when I'm done. With the new .dll, will I still be able to use the remote? Thanks man.