Netflix ‘Watch Instantly’ Not Working with Your iPad? Here’s How to Fix It
by
Anne P. Mitchell, Esq. - 57 Comments, Last updated
05/05/2012
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If you’ve been enjoying watching Netflix on your iPad, and your Netflix app has suddently stopped working, read on. The excellent - and free - Netflix app for the iPad allows you to instantly stream and watch both movies and television shows to your iPad, for nothing more than the cost of an $8.99/month Netflix membership. But some users are finding that after enjoying the Netflix iPad ‘Watch Instantly’ experience for a while, suddenly the ‘watch instantly’ option stops working. After selecting a show to watch, the Netflix application just hangs and hangs. After a great deal of testing, we have determined that a problem with Netflix ‘watch instantly’ is almost always caused by the same thing. Here’s how to fix it. (Bonus: We also explain what the Netflix “6 digit phone service code” is.)
The way that the problem will most likely manifest is that you will run the Netflix app, and all will seem fine:
Netflix iPad Application Loading Screen:
In fact, you will even be taken into your Netflix account, further suggesting that there is no problem, and that all is fine and dandy with Netflix and your iPad.
Netflix Account Home Screen:
Than you go into the “Watch Instantly” area (where, again, everything seems fine), and you select something to watch. Here we have selected the awesome movie, Julie & Julia.
After selecting a movie or television show to watch instantly, you see this screen, and this is were the trouble starts, because instead of loading your movie or tv show, your iPad just hangs at this screen:
Or, it may then go to a black screen which may or may not indicate “authorizing”, which lulls you into thinking that it is actually doing something:
In reality, however, your show never starts, and eventually you end up back at this screen again, if you ever left it:
The problem is that while your iPad is hanging at one of those two screens, while it seems as if your iPad is connected to Netflix, in reality it is desparately trying - and unable - to connect to the actual movie server itself.
Nobody actually knows why iPads may suddenly experience this problem - you may have used your iPad for weeks, watching Netflix movies and tv shows with the Netflix iPad application, having nary a hiccup with the “watch instantly” option, and suddenly - nada.
But we know how to fix it.
Here is what you have to do:
First, go into the ’settings’ area of your iPad, by clicking on the “Settings” badge from your home screen:
Next, way down at the bottom, select “Reset”:
Next click on “Reset Network Settings”:
This will bring up a confirm window, and you will confirm by hitting “Reset” - Note: You will have to re-enter your wifi settings after this, but it’s a small price to pay to get your Netflix app working again!:
There - all better!
Here is a bonus screenshot of one of our favorite television shows, being watched on the iPad with the Netflix ‘watch instantly’ option - bonus points to readers who can identify this show!
And finally, we told you that we’d explain Netflix’ “six digit phone service code” to you. When you call Netflix customer service, the recorded message tells you that for faster service, please enter your 6 digit phone service code. But if you haven’t dialed Netflix as a result of going through their customer help area on their website, you will have no idea what that is, or what it means.
When you seek help on the Netflix site, in the help area, there is a link for “contact us”, which takes you to the Netflix customer support contact page. On that page is a customer service telephone number, and under the number is a six-digit code that is the phone service code that they want you to key into the telephone when you call their customer service number. We didn’t have a code, and we still were assisted within a minute by the excellent Netflix customer service representative, Jason.
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None of this worked. Deleting from dock, delete and reinstall, and resetting. I keep getting the unable to connect message or the frozen screen. It is the app and it is obvious Netflix has no desire to fix it. So it is no more movies on my iPad, I’m limited to my computer.
Comment by Georgia Berry — 5/5/2012 @ 10:07 pm
Great tip, worked like a charm. Was having lots of issues with stuttering, and quality, sometimes my shows would look like an 8-bit video game, as well as the sound cutting in and out, now its like I am watching it on a dvd. great tip.
Comment by Corby — 2/28/2012 @ 2:35 pm
ANOTHER FIX:
Resetting the network didn’t work for me. I had to DELETE the app, resinstall it from the AppStore, start it up and sign in again.
Only then did I get it to work again. Hope this helps someone.
Comment by Brent — 2/19/2012 @ 12:42 pm
Worked perfectly. Weeks of frozen screens fixed in seconds. Tks
Comment by June — 12/27/2011 @ 5:14 pm
Your fixed worked,.. Thanks
Comment by kala — 12/11/2011 @ 2:27 pm
Netflix ipad app keeps asking me to log in, despite never asking me before - I watched streaming movies fine just last night. Now it wo ‘t accept the correct password, even though the Netflix web site does.
Comment by Karen — 11/27/2011 @ 8:04 pm
I had a slightly different problem- Netflix would crash when loading lists of videos. This fixed it- thanks!!!!
Comment by Annoyed by iPad — 11/17/2011 @ 8:08 pm
@ #14. BINGO!!!! After over an hour of trying the other stuff, deleting and reinstalling the app worked for me on ipad2. Sweet!
Comment by Adam — 11/3/2011 @ 4:01 pm
Thank you to Tara 7/18/2011. That worked perfectly. We have an iPad2.
Comment by Mike — 10/29/2011 @ 7:59 pm
You are amazing! I got my iPad 2 less than a month ago and was really looking forward to Netflix then it never worked. It would only load about a minute of the movie then freeze. This worked perfectly and only took a few seconds.
Comment by Laura — 10/27/2011 @ 2:21 am
Tara’s suggestion (#11) worked for me . Very simple. Thank you Tara.
Comment by Steve — 10/18/2011 @ 4:05 am
Thanks, worked for my old original iPad.
Comment by Leslie — 10/5/2011 @ 7:54 pm
It worked on my iPad2!!!!!!
Comment by Kandic — 10/2/2011 @ 7:53 pm
Didn’t work for me. Now the Netflix app on the Ipad2 forces me to login to Facebook. I thought the Netflix app was hacked, so I reinstalled. Still doesn’t work.
Comment by Greg — 9/30/2011 @ 9:10 pm
This same issue occurred and we reset the network settings. Then a new issue came up. We can watch instantly, but the movies freeze after 1-2 minutes. After touching the timer dot, it will restart but freeze again.
Any ideas on this? Thank you and we look forward to using your site in the future for these situations.
Comment by Chris — 9/20/2011 @ 2:13 pm
#4 worked for my iPad 2. Thanks!
Comment by Mandy — 9/12/2011 @ 6:55 pm
This was magical.
Comment by victoria — 9/12/2011 @ 3:19 am
Worked for both iPad and iPad 2 in our house! Thanks.
Comment by jeff — 9/11/2011 @ 6:26 pm
Thanks! It worked!!!
Comment by ZooBoing — 9/7/2011 @ 5:26 pm
it totally worked! thanks
Comment by paris — 9/2/2011 @ 8:19 am
Yes! It worked!
Comment by Jenirator — 8/19/2011 @ 9:10 pm
When all else fails (such as in my case): Double click the “home” button, scroll through the list of applications that appear until you find Netflix, hold down the Netflix icon until everything begins to vibrate and “x”s appear in the top right hand corner of each one, close the Netflix icon (press the “x” and remove it from the list). This does not delete the application it just removes it from this list which is a cache of sorts that the Ipad references back to in order to connect quickly. Once you’ve removed it from the list try opening Netflix again as usual, that worked for me.
Comment by Tara — 7/18/2011 @ 10:33 am
Change your dns to google (8.8.8.8). It worked for me first time. think there’s cached entries in the iPad IP stack.
Comment by Jeff — 7/17/2011 @ 10:00 pm
Thanks…worked right away
Comment by Dennis — 7/15/2011 @ 9:32 am
Hopefully someone at Apple is reading this stuff and can figure out the root cause..
Comment by ML — 7/14/2011 @ 11:37 am
I can start the movie, and can hear the audio, but the screen is black..resetting network settings, rebooting, uninstalling/reinstalling the app didn’t do anything, and it’s the latest version of the app, so no other updates available.. any other ideas?
Comment by ML — 7/14/2011 @ 11:35 am
I reset the network settings on my iPad 2 as instructed, but this did not fix the issue of movie selections not playing.
I am going to delete and re-install the App to see if that works.
Netflix works OK on my Mac, so the issue is with the iPad App.
Comment by Kirk — 7/7/2011 @ 9:28 pm
I tried your solution which did not work. I’m embarrassed to say that what did work was updating my Netflix app, which I hadn’t realized was waiting for me to do!
Comment by Joelle — 7/5/2011 @ 7:27 pm
Fixed it right away! Hasn’t worked in months. Thx so much!
Comment by Stephanie — 7/5/2011 @ 1:59 pm
It didnt work for my ipad mabe its diferent for the ipad2! thanks for the tip hope you update the tip!(:
Comment by idontknow — 7/5/2011 @ 11:59 am
Wow! Thanks. Netflix was useless. I followed exactly and my Netflix instantly works again.
Comment by Alicia — 7/2/2011 @ 3:28 pm
THANK YOU!!! I can now get back to watching my Bones!
Comment by Kendell — 6/30/2011 @ 8:05 pm
Thank you. I tried installing and reinstalling the app,restarting the iPad, turning the network onn and off. . . Your fix did the trick. Brilliant!
Comment by Elaine — 6/20/2011 @ 4:19 am
Just worked for me! Very pleased. Thank you!
Comment by Tom — 6/16/2011 @ 3:43 pm
Turning on the reset button in the Netflix preferences and rebooting fixed it for me. Thanks to those who took the time to share… like me frinstance.
Comment by David Clarke — 6/12/2011 @ 8:18 pm
This did not work, neither did any of the other options in the comments
Comment by t walker — 6/8/2011 @ 8:59 pm
Great,. Works for me
Comment by Charlie — 6/2/2011 @ 3:41 am
This article is just random dumb luck… this is not the necessary steps to fix the problem, it just happened to work for some people, so quit posting articles like this as if it is a defiant resolution… very annoying.
{Ed. note: Actually these are the directions straight from Netflix - so while it is not a “defiant resolution” (sic), it is a definite solution.}
Comment by Jonathan — 6/1/2011 @ 7:35 pm
THANK YOU IT WORKED :D
Comment by Alex — 5/30/2011 @ 6:41 pm
This fix didn’t help, and the google DNS didn’t either. Finally fixed it with OpenDNS-
208.67.222.222- and a reset on the Netflix App
Comment by JLR — 5/28/2011 @ 8:10 pm
Thank you….worked great
Comment by Sman — 5/26/2011 @ 4:27 pm
I tried all of the methods listed so far. None of them seem to work for me. I get the “could not reach the Netflix service” message.
Comment by RW — 5/21/2011 @ 3:06 am
worked for me! THANK YOU!!!!
Comment by pp — 5/17/2011 @ 9:57 pm
worked like a charm (had an issue with netflix not loading and just returning to the home screen).
Comment by Nina — 5/13/2011 @ 9:41 am
This worked great for me!
Comment by Carrie — 5/8/2011 @ 8:46 pm
Reseting the network settings worked for me. My iPad would bring up the Netflix app and slowly load the main screen then Netflix would close and I would return to my iPad home screen. Now it works like a charm
Comment by Billybam — 3/7/2011 @ 9:22 am
None of these tips helped me out. Ive tried tweaking the router, changing the dns on the ipad, reset, clearing cookies, caches, everything suggested on several websites.
What worked was using CioneTap Lite, a free app on itunes, as the portal for Netflix. You still need thie netflix app on the ipad but it seems to “work around” the netflix app problems.
Im back streaming on netflix!
Comment by Jcmcdowell — 2/3/2011 @ 7:55 am
Thank you! This worked for my iPod!! Yay!
Comment by Kimberly — 1/2/2011 @ 7:33 pm
#7 Worked here as well… Makes sense too
Comment by Blastfemur — 12/18/2010 @ 4:02 am
# 7 above worked for me. Thanks
Comment by Frankyvee — 12/6/2010 @ 2:52 pm
This didn’t work for me. what DID work, was changing my DNS on my ipad to googles DNS (8.8.8.8) servers. This is because my router uses DNS-Masq w/ dns-rebind prevention code. manually supply a dns, rather than using your router for DNS will fix this issue.
Comment by Kenn — 10/1/2010 @ 10:49 am
DHGFJHKCGN HG BNBM BNMB
Comment by Manoj — 9/6/2010 @ 11:40 pm
Was actually watching Coupling when I started having this problem and googled for a resolution. Thanks!! :D
Comment by rachel — 9/6/2010 @ 7:46 pm
The screenshot is of the show Coupling.
Comment by thill — 8/27/2010 @ 11:16 am
Almost worked. There’s a reset in the Netfix settings too. That made it work. I suspect a cookie problem.
Comment by Steve — 8/7/2010 @ 4:54 am
Didn’t work
Comment by Heather — 7/31/2010 @ 7:45 pm
This didn’t work for our iPad.
Comment by Adrian — 7/26/2010 @ 12:30 pm