Troubleshooting Netfilx Streaming Issues

A friend was asking if anyone else was having Netflix issues in the evenings. Here is a summary of some of the things I discovered: Be a squeaky wheel, I often Tweet when things are not working which generally gets multiple responses from TWC. Ping a server as a quick check, I've noticed even cable TV issues often clear up when running a test on speedtest.net which seems a bit suspicious. Worst case it gives you an indication of the line quality. Check the modem, if you have a TWC Arris modem you can check the line levels directly by pointing your browser to http://192.168.100.1/cgi-bin/status_cgi It also might be at 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1. Even if you are not having issues, find your modem's web interface, there is lots of good info there. Also good to know what the levels are when things are working to compare to when they are not. Run Netflix tests, view http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70136810?trkid=439131 which is a Netflix test video. Upper left tells you the speed they are sending to you at. Should ramp up to 3000 kbps @ 1280 x 720 if things are OK. Assuming you have at least 3 mb service of course. Better yet if you are in a browser press Ctrl + Alt + Shift + D to see line diag info. See chart of Nextflix speeds for US ISPs at http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa Check your settings, check Netflix your account is set to stream at HD to get HD. When I checked mine I found was set for HD but to get Ultra HD or stream more than 2 shows at once I'd need to pay $4 more per month. I also found you should have 40 mb of available bandwidth to stream Ultra HD. Yikes! Try a diff device, I have the 300 mb service and I never saw 1280 x 720 in the above tests so I tried House of Cards as well. According to Netflix diag info I had 40 MB of through put but still only saw 720p. So I tried the test video via my TiVo and got the expected 5800 kbps @ 1920 x 1080. No apparent reason as to why. Sure would be nice if there was some easy to find guide or explanation why or at least what to do to get 1080p without having to experiment. On a side note if you have a Time Warner DVR and are seeing issues, the DVR has a web interface as well. Looking at http://192.168.1.202/Authorizations-Package_or_Tier for example. 192.168.1.202 is the address of mine of course. If you don't know yours get a tool like advanced-ip-scanner to locate it on your network.