Netflix Woes Mean a Gap In Shipments 239
Loopback writes "It appears that I'm not the only one waiting for my NetFlix movies. It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system. 'Netflix has been facing shipping delays and outages in its distribution centers for the last two days and is fumbling to find a fix. The tab is roughly $1.8 million to $3.6 million in revenue a day.'"
DVDs arrived, but no notice (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yeah, I caught one about at the beginning of the problem, now I'm waiting.
However, I got an email saying they were working on it--which I believe--and that they'll credit my account--which I believe. All in all, Netflix does a great job, and stands behind their service to the best of their ability. I don't have any complaints.
Relative Woes (Score:3, Insightful)
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Eh. The company I was working for until last week crashed into a brick wall and exploded. Basically they ran out of money to pay their employees and did an 80% layoff.
Still haven't been paid for the last few weeks of work. I'm trying to decide if the 20% left are better or worse off. At least I am collecting unemployment. They are working without pay.
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This is actually a very common phenomena.
The reality is ALL companies run like shit. They really do. People just have this weird ideal put into their head that business moves at the speed of light and everyone in the big tall building is working their ass off to get it done, until you reach the bottom of the food chain and then it's practically welfare.
This is just shit butt fuck all wrong.
Businesses often reach into their credit lines to get over the non productive periods and then pay it back when they ge
what problems starting up? (Score:3, Informative)
I see that ZDnet's Larry Zignan concluded from a 2004 Baseline article that Netflix had startup problems for their homegrown business systems, but he apparently misread the article. It says the system was reworked in 2000, 2002, etc. as customers grew to 1.5 million, but tha's not startup problems, that's keeping with massive growth you wouldn't be able to get and handle if you had startup problems.
rd
Good timing (Score:5, Insightful)
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"I haven't even watched the movies I have at home due to the Olympics."
Watching or competing? :)
Re:Good timing (Score:4, Funny)
I haven't even watched the movies I have at home due to the Olympics.
Yeah, those 13 year old gymnasts are really hot.
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Thirteen-year-olds are no longer allowed to compete in the Olympics, mainly because of pedophiles like you!
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Hey! (Score:2)
I write inventory and supply chain management software! Gives me a job!
Oblig. This never would have happened if... (Score:2)
... they were using a Beowulf Cluster.
that's definitely the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems they are being bitten in the rear by their home-grown proprietary inventory management system.
Because definitely if they had used another company's product or something open source, it could never have broken. Clearly being "home-grown" and "proprietary" is the part that caused the problem.
Re:that's definitely the problem (Score:4, Insightful)
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The fact that conslutants can't profiteer off of organization X is either a sign that something is terribly wrong with organization X --- or something is terribly right.
Having seen mosquitos in action, I would tend toward the latter explanation.
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I don't see how this is any different than using a third party product. Netflix surely has a good engineering team that is thoroughly familiar with the system. If the system was similarly broken and it was provided by a third party then you'd just have that company's engineering team working on it.
Where's the disadvantage? (if anything, the fact that the engineers work for netflix probably motivates them to fix it faster since it's their own company's ass on the line)
By the way, I got my DVDs right on sch
Is there a Netflix in Canada yet? (Score:2)
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What do you mean? (Score:3, Insightful)
Netflix charges by the month, not by the disc. Unless they're going to offer a refund, they won't lose any revenue, excepting disgruntled customers who leave.
In fact... since they aren't paying postage, they could actually be saving money, particularly if they told their employees "Too bad, don't clock in for the next few days."
They're using an Excel spreadsheet, aren't they? (Score:2)
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I don't see a problem (Score:5, Funny)
Their inventory seems fine to me - I got Roadhouse, Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot, and Battlefield Earth right on time.
They tried to warn us (Score:2)
Oh, they tried to warn us disaster would strike if they could not be rid of user queues - and now doom is upon us all! Or at least slight shipping delays! Curse the day I did tear my queue apart into multiple convenient streams!
Better than the competition (Score:2, Informative)
Bravo for their honest, upfront disclosure (Score:5, Informative)
I first learned about this an hour ago. I read a good review of Trumbo and logged on to added it to my Saved list... I hit this great big conspicuous notice saying "IMPORTANT: Your DVD Shipments Have Likely Been Delayed."
My first thought was that it was a sales pitch to upsell me to a higher-tiered plan, but no, it was a straightforward notice and apology.
I for one really appreciate this approach. Most companies' SOP would be to say nothing... wait for you to call.. make an individual apology to you without happening to mention that it was affecting thousands of others... and hope you don't read newspapers or Slashdot.
We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed (Score:5, Informative)
Dear xxxxxxxx,
Our shipping system is unexpectedly down. We received a DVD back from you and should have shipped you a DVD, but we likely have not. Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible, and we will keep you posted on the status of your DVD shipments.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. If your DVD shipment is delayed, we will be issuing a credit to your account in the next few days. You don't need to do anything. The credit will be automatically applied to your next billing statement.
Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding. If you need further assistance, please call us at 1-888-638-3549.
-The Netflix Team
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I saw this story from my phone, and the first thing I thought was "They got bit by the VMWare bug".
For some reason, that seems like a company who's done a lot, but also uses lots of whiz-bang technology, just because it's fully buzzword compliant.
I got the same email at 4:18am on Thursday. When I got home, there were two NetFlix DVD's sitting in my mailbox. At least I have something to watch while they get it back together. :) Since I'm a normal working human
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Re:We're Sorry DVD Shipments Are Delayed (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry to disappoint you, but it's a grid on a whiteboard.
A great big whiteboard.
With Expo markers - the good kind, that smell.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Funny)
Most Netflix users are mindless fat slobs who wouldn't notice a few days of delay.
Hey, some of us aren't fat!
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Funny)
I'll admit fat slob, but not mindless.
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Us nerds get on Netflix / Blockbuster Online / etc. depending on what gets us the most number of movies per dollar as we rip them to our hard drives / burn copies.
Yep! NetFlix nets me about six discs a week with their three-at-a-time plan. Thank Cthulhu for AnyDVD and CloneDVD! :)
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Funny)
Netflix has the biggest volunteer distributed backup system on the planet. If they were smart they could have planned for this outage and had their customers supply backup disks to other customers who were not getting shipments on time.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, how long before they offer a discount if you opt into a "direct handoff" network? When you return a movie, instead of shipping it back to netflix, you print out a label for the next member and slap it on the mailer.
Sure, there's a ton of problems, but it could cut their overhead by up to 60%: they spend half as much on postage and the disks are in flight for one day instead of two each transaction. The savings aren't so much in postage as in inventory reduction: for a popular movie that stays out two days at a time, you cut the postal overhead from 50% to 33%.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:4, Insightful)
And how are they going to guarantee that I'm not going to send the wrong movie (intentionally or not)?
This kind of option could turn out really bad...
Can you imagine if a sick bastard rents Madagascar 2 and sends pron instead of a kid's movie?
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By charging you for it it you do it too often.
I think this direct forwarding concept is pretty cool.
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how long before they offer a discount if you opt into a "direct handoff" network?
In my country at least, bulk mailers get substantial discounts compared to consumers, because their mail is properly and clearly addressed, and presorted before it enters the mail system. So instead of the mail company OCRing all Netflix's outgoing mail on arrival to send it to the right distribution depot, it comes prepacked by distribution depot. Less cost for the post company, less cost for Netflix.
It probably works similarly in the other direction; you put a netflix DVD in the post, it gets OCRed, and i
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Yep! NetFlix nets me about six discs a week with their three-at-a-time plan. Thank Cthulhu for AnyDVD and CloneDVD! :)
I have the 1-at-a-time plan and I get 3 discs per week. :-P
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I don't have that kind of turn around time, unfortunately. I even often times send the film back the very same day it arrives!
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You do realize that the money you're saving on not buying or using traditional rentals is going directly to fund your continual battle for more hard drive space, right?
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Nope....goes to blank DVDr's.....
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Blank DVDs aren't too expensive, really. Quality wise, most films rip and burn at 100%. Those that do not usually end up having the menus and already useless extras cut out so as to manage 100%.
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What do you mean worse quality? It is an exact copy (I use dvdbackup, then mkisofs, then growisofs)...
I'd have to guess the streamed stuff is less than dvd quality...?
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Insightful)
RTFA.
On a related note, I think it's fantastic that a company decided to 'do the right thing' though they were not obligated to do so. Pre-emptively issuing credits to subscribers whose shipments were delayed? Awesome for the customers, and a nice CR move by Netflix. There are many companies out there who would not take the same stance.
This is in addition to Netflix not getting rid of multiple profiles per account, after a vocal minority of subscribers complained.
Is it really possible that Netflix is a company that actually understands that making their customers happy and loyal is a good business strategy? I wasn't sure there were many of those around anymore.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Interesting)
They're even cooler than just that.
I've been using them a long time with the 3 disk unlimited plan. One day my girl broke a dvd. Her response: "Let's just mark it as never arrived."
Being all into personal accountability and shit I told her "no, we'll say we broke it and pay for it. We did in fact break it."
Their response: "Do you want us to send a replacement?"
No charge for disk. Nothing. I guess if you don't abuse the shit they overlook the occasional accident.
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Living in Colorado, I have more than a few discs that are broken in the mail during winter, I assume due to the cold-hot cycles.
They replace them for free, no comments asked.
It has been like that for the 5 years I have been with Netflix.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Funny)
Living in Texas, I have more than a few discs that are full of bullet holes, I assume due to the drunk-sober cycles. And also, many movies just deserve it.
It has been like that since the beginning of time.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Informative)
We've also had a few disks disappear in the mail, they either never got to us or they never arrived at Netflix after we definitely posted them. It was never a problem, you just mark the disk as missing and that's it. One or two of them actually re-appeared later, not sure if they were found in the back of a truck or if Netflix lost them. I guess they'll cancel your account if you "lose" a disk per month, but they deal well with the occasional problem.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Interesting)
One or two of them actually re-appeared later, not sure if they were found in the back of a truck or if Netflix lost them.
There have been a couple instances now where postal workers were investigated and found to have stolen hundreds of random DVDs from their routes. I also heard of one instance where kids were going through the mailboxes in a neighborhood. Since these incidents are detected, I suspect NetFlix and the post office share data about who loses DVDs and what postal worker's route they are on.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OneCode
is the newest version of the barcode to be used on all mail starting next year. It will allow for optional individual piece tracking.
Currently they can also do this with a second barcode called a PLANET code.
These extra barcodes add about 1 cent per piece. The scary part is they probably have figured it out to be cheaper to eat the loss, or let their insurance company eat the loss, than to pay an extra 1 cent per piece.
Their postage costs are actually quite high. There was also talk during the recent (may 07) rate/size changes the Post office implemented of a 17 cent surcharge:
http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2007/12/usps-considerin.html
The funny part is that anyone doing the volume netflix is can get direct discussion with the post office. Apparently they pick up at the post office. I believe blockbuster talked about having postmen scan dvd's upon pickup to save time, but I don't know if that happened.
Re:Fist Prose (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC, after you've lost a few, they start charging you for each one you "lose", but refund you if you find 'em and send 'em back later.
Probably (Score:2)
We got Netflix to save money on renting and/or buying DVDs. If Netflix can't deliver enough movies to make it worth the subscription fee then we may just cancel the service.
As someone else posted, it seems like most of the loss is from automated credits for late deliveries.
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
They've promised to credit user accounts for the interruption in service.
rj
First Post = Redundant? (Score:2)
Re:How? (Score:5, Informative)
Redundant?? Really? Check some timestamps, you foolish mod.
According to the moderator's guidelines, a question asked that is answered by TFA deserves to be modded redundant. So sayeth /. !!!
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You say tomato, I say fruit.
What? No funny?
Re:Not impressed by my trial. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I tried NetFlix mostly looking for more of a selection but have found they don't have a lot of anime and stuff that I'm interested in. Combined with the slow turn around I don't really feel the love. I used to use Greencine because they had a lot of anime but now they're interface is just horrible and they aren't what they used to be.
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Huh? You're going to get killed by late fees with RedBox then. The reason you're switching to RedBox is the very reason I'm dropping it; $1.50 sounds like a cheap rental, but it's usually at least $3.50 by the time we return it (e.g. rent on Friday, return on Monday).
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I've had Netflix for almost 2 years now and still love the service. I went without cable TV for a little over a year by substituting in Netflix and video games (it was pretty nice). I'm sorry that you are under a trial account at just the wrong time. In the 2 years I've had the service, there has been a 2 total service interruptions (this being the second). Both seem to only last a day or 2 and they refund you for that one or 2 days where you were not being provided DVDs as expected.
They have a decent s
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NetFlix seems hard to search IMO. As far as I can tell you can't easily specify to only search G and PG movies (for my kids) and to search by topic and so on. Their recommendations might be good but that is really only half the picture without good search capabilities. I run an eCom website so I know that search and recommendations are complicated to make work well but they're a must have. Good search should use the recommendation system to improve results but should still cover basic search options too.
I c
Re:Not impressed by my trial. (Score:5, Insightful)
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A good hack but sort of awkward. I still can't belief NetFlix doesn't let you filter your search results by rating.
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It is, and they know it. Remember that big brouhaha last month when they announced they were getting rid of profiles? They were getting rid of profiles because they're looking at redoing their entire front end, and working profiles into the new front end would slow development.
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It'd seem like that is overkill. All they need to do is make it easier to search and refine searches. With all their customer data and recommendations system it shouldn't be to hard to make something pretty nice.
I just run a small eCom site but we're gradually improving our recommendations system (statistics based w/ neural net refinements) and tying it to our search system (Google appliance based) to refine and enhance searches. I'm sure NetFlix has a lot more useful data about their customers and products
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If they could stream everything they have available and get more anime and other stuff I like available then I'd be a lot more interested. If they could take the box onto my account for an extra $10/mo for the next 10 months I'd probably grab it just for the heck of it and stay a member just because.
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I've had Netflix for almost 2 years now and still love the service.
I've been a member a little longer than that and still like the service. Only a couple minor peeves. The Mist was on top of my rental que for months after it was released. It was getting to be an inside joke.
They suspended my service briefly one time when they got in a snit with my bank. Both sides blamed the other for the charge not going through.
On the other side of the coin I lost two movies when the maid stashed them in with s
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You don't need this outage to be disappointed.
I did the trial membership. It takes about 3-4 business days to receive a disc (if it is not in high demand) and 3-4 business days to be registered as returned. Half of the discs I received were scratched so as to be unplayable (tested on several different players). At that rate (3-4 useful rentals per month) it is not worth the $17 per month.
Excellent concept, poorly implemented.
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DVDs are a poor concept IMO. Discs always get damaged or lost. Downloadable or streaming content is a better idea but Netflix's streamed content has several problems. Limited selection, doesn't seem to think my 15Mb connection is fast enough, doesn't work on my Linux box or my Mac, DRM sucks, watching on a computer sucks anyway, their external device doesn't seem to let you play anything but Netflix content, their external device is ugly, and their external device is $100 up front (can't charge a monthly re
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It's consumer electronics in general. They all look like crap and generally suck (my vcr's up button makes the menu go down and the down button goes up). In general I'm just sick of companies that don't even try to make their crap look or work decently.
Not that the Roku box looks much worse than most of that crap.
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Yeah, but, with streaming content...you can't "back up" a copy to keep for them.
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I could. I'm sure whatever the DRM they're using that it can be cracked. If it goes over my network it can be grabbed and stored to disk.
I was actually wondering how hard it'd be to create a fake NetFlix server to serve my own content. I wonder if the traffic to the device is completely encrypted or not.
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Maybe it depends on where you live? I have a "1 disc at a time" subscription and routinely get two movies a week. I have yet to receive a disc I can't watch and my only problems (once in three years) was getting the wrong disc ( the cartoon version of a real life movie I'd asked for)
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For me, they always get the movie the day after I mail it, and I always get the movie the day after they mail it. Also, for me, streaming video to the PC in my bedroom works flawlessly and on the 22" widescreen LCD monitor there is very little difference in quality between the streaming video and a DVD.
My sister, however, lives out in the country, so it takes a week for a disc to get to her and her Internet access is so slow that streaming video doesn't work well.
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It does depend a lot on where you live...
OK. I live in Austin Texas.
Adjust your expectations accordingly depending on the service where you live.
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I think your experience is very different from the norm. Most people seem to receive a new movie 2 business days after they send back the previous movie.
Re:Not impressed by my trial. (Score:5, Informative)
If I drop a disk in the mail on Monday, it goes into "Returned" status on Tuesday, or if I use a box at the post office before about 10 AM, it goes to Returned the same day, thanks to their special handling contract with the USPS. The next disk arrives within two days of that, often the next day. Weekends are the exception: they apparently do processing only Monday-Friday.
In the last couple of years I've received no more than two unplayable disks, not counting one that arrived broken.
rj
Re:Not impressed by my trial. (Score:4, Informative)
And I had the exact opposite experience.
My DVD arrives in one day. It returns in one day (I will grant you that I only live 50 miles from the address on the label).
I have had 2 DVDs that were scratched in the 6 months since I started. They were both replaced in a day (and with 3 disks, I had something else to watch). It was older movies that were scratched (can you believe that I finally saw Vanishing Point a couple months ago?). When dealing with DVDs and clumsy customers there is pretty much no way to avoid this. They can't play every movie after return, so yes, occasionally one can be scratched. I would accuse you of hyperbole by saying it is half unless your sample size was very small.
I have been very happy with their service so far. I canceled all my movie channels on cable and just use them. It is way better because I am the one who says what is on tonight. I'd also be curious where and when you were mailing them. I drop them off at the post office on my way to work in the morning after watching it, and up until this glitch, every time the next day they would process a new one and send it.
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This is unusual for netflix. Usually you can get 2 discs per week for each of the discs on your subscription. If your trial ends before this problem is resolved, you should think of that rate when weighing your options
I've been using netflix to dip into a lot of older movies I never got around to seeing, or want to see again. RedBox isn't going to do that for you.
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I might try a competitor to NetFlix as I haven't been to impressed by their selection. They seem to have mostly stuff of mass appeal. Either that or their search is so bad I can't find the stuff I'm looking for.
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Of course RedBox and NetFlix need to team up so I can get new releases from the local RedBox and get old or rare movies from NetFlix.
Of course criticism and suggestions make me a whiner.
Re:Netflix sucks if you use linux (Score:5, Funny)
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Total Linux newbie here, so don't kill me if this is inaccurate, but can't you run IE6 under wine? If so, shouldn't you be able to view the streaming movies?
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Using Parallels on OS X works fine with Instant Viewing for me, even without any sort of fancy video/3d acceleration turned on.
I've got a 1.66GHz Mac Mini Core Duo. By my standards, it's a pretty nice machine, but also certainly not a powerhouse. On the other hand, if you've got something older, it might be possible that it's not powerful enough to decode the video, even without the performance hit of the VM.
I'm sure that if you have a decent enough machine (ie. good enough to use the feature natively wi
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The roku player works just fine no matter what OS you use.
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I thought that netflix took your money every month and then occasionally mailed you a CD as it is able.
Well there's the problem. They're supposed to be sending DVDs!
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They're giving credits to people with delayed movies. They don't say exactly what that credit is (a full month? 1 day's worth per day of delay?) This won't push people to a more expensive plan. The discs aren't shipping, it doesn't matter if you have 2 or 6 in your plan.
The Watch Now service is still available and always usable even when you have discs at home (as long as you have a high enough subscription, 2 discs is enough for that)
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that site has never rendered quite right with FF... I simply installed the IE Tab add-on for FF and set it to always render Netflix with IE(still shows up in FF). I also found that the interactive map on weather.com requires me to do the same thing....
hope this helps!
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I recently cancelled because of the TV season starting (well, early with the Olympics), but I used Netflix on Firefox all the time and didn't have any problems except Instant Viewing. Had to switch to IE for that.
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About two months ago, I had this problem for a couple/few weeks with Ubuntu & FF 3.0, but it seems to have been resolved.
Re:Off-topic: anyone have trouble with Netflix on (Score:2)
After a few days of normal use, I suddenly found myself unable to use the Netflix site with Firefox. Basically anything with a bitmap that you click on, like the tabs for Your Queue, etc., is now messed up. Anyone got a workaround?
I've never had a problem using Safari (if you're on Windows or OS X). The one exception is that their streaming movies are Windows+IE only. You'd think after all the other companies started streaming movies and television for free, Netflix would have been able to fix their crap by now. Last I heard they were working on a Silverlight version, ick.
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