Does IE9 RC Break Netflix in Media Center?

Looks like it might. Hard on the heals of my excellent first impressions of IE9 RC I had a little bit of a jarring return to earth in the matter of installing Beta/RC versions of products. I started Windows Media Center and activated Netflix so I could watch another espisode of my current obsession, “Rescue Me” with Denis Leary, and this is what happened after I clicked “Play” and the familiar red screen appeared:

If I had to guess I would say that IE9 RC updated the javascript engine or otherwise changed the way javascript is handled in a page. I’ll try to find a workaround and post it here.

[Update] No work-around, but some additional information. I spoke to Netflix customer support, and they hadn’t heard anything about this issue. The woman on the other end of the call stressed that they are not compatible with IE9 yet, and I guess this proves the point. I uninstalled the IE9 RC Windows Update and after a restart Netflix streaming functionality was restored. So this is a heads-up for people who use Netflix in  Media Center, and would like to try IE9 RC.

[Update] The problem was confirmed by poster “Dark Shroud” on the Anandtech forums. The same poster did note that he was able to get Netflix working in the browser, so that will have to be the fallback option for WMC users who want to run the latest Microsoft browser, at least until Netflix releases an update to their player script for Media Center.

[Update 2-24] Poster Marc W. sent a link to a Microsoft KB that supposedly fixed the issue, but didn’t due to a typo. Marc commented again today that it has been updated with the correct registry value, and that it now works. I haven’t had time to test this myself, but give it a go if you’re yearning to use IE9RC and watch Netflix in Media Center: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2512239.

8 thoughts on “Does IE9 RC Break Netflix in Media Center?

  1. I was having the same problem. Go into IE Select Tools->Compatibility View and either add the NetFlix website (NetFlix.com) to the “Websites you’ve added to Compatibility View:” box or check “Display all websites in “Compatibilty View” This worked for me. Now I can go to the NetFlix website and NetFlix works in Windows Media Center where neither worked before.

    This not definitely a problem with IE 9 but rather a compatibility problem with JavaScript or HTML. I have not looked into the specifics of the issue whether is is a javascript DOM issue or HTML but it is one or the other.

    Good Luck,

    Len

  2. That’s great news if it works, Len. I’ll give it a try and post back. Thanks for taking the time to report the fix here. Btw, I agree with your analysis of where the problem is.

  3. I could not get it to work. In addition, after adding the netflix.com url to the compatibility list, IE9 tends to loose it after restarting IE9.

  4. After trying to add netflix.com to Compatibility Mode as Len suggested above, streaming in WMC still does not work. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one having this issue, though, unfortunate as it may be. I’m also glad to know I can still watch everything through the browser. Just sucks that I can’t use my remote to control playback.

  5. They have updated the above link and it now works. I think they had the wrong Dword value in the initial posting.

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