Roku Netflix problem on Merlin Firmware

[st3v3n]

Tekneek is correct, the router will see/pickup and arbitrarily assign an address to the Roku in DHCP but you can change that to another. more convenient/friendly name or address The wiki has specific addressing requirements if you have many devices through OpenVPN tunnels; above a certain range can confuse OpenVPN; the wiki says it best. Roku unfortunately allows no adjustments internally; sadly they're a closed system; a shame but Roku/Netflix doesn't want anyone tweaking; thank goodness for the router capabilities. Whether you have any DNS listed on the router, if the Roku routes to a streaming IP, after all of that the Roku will still find and mate up with whatever Roku/Netflix has programmed into it, automatically. If that's what you mean hope that's helpful. G'day and good luck.

 

[sfx2000]

I have an AC3200 and after installing Merlin about a week ago and updating to the latest build 384.6, I could no longer access Netflix on my Roku devices in the house (this was the same on both builds).

All were reporting NW-2-5 errors which pointed to network connectivity. I followed the troubleshooter on Netflix's site and called and went through the same process on the phone.

Reset Netflix - didn't work
Reset Roku and restarted hot and cold - didn't work
Connected Roku by wire to router - didn't work
Connected Roku directly to Modem - worked, but not going to give up my network to watch on one TV and didn't want to replace the router

Other things that I tried:
- using google DNS vs. ISP DNS - didn't work
- blocking google DNS as it was set up in Netflix app as alternates - didn't work
- assigning static IPs to my roku's in the network - didn't work
- factory reset the router - didn't work

At this point had a discussion with Netflix, and went through all the same steps. They told me to call ISP (cox) and that it had something to do with DNS and that would do it. Had a pointless discussion with the tech about how that didn't make sense given I could connect the service from computers, other apps worked fine on the Roku, and I could have the Netflix app work by connecting directly to the modem. The tech read the same script to me with a layman's understanding of DNS which I have (but not much more). I asked what to do when that didn't work and the tech told me to call in and ask for a supervisor.

Let's try to get the topic back on track - @Tom P is not running a VPN, so he's not trying to geo-unlock content.

The steps so far are reasonable - he's not impacted by DNS, WiFi or Ethernet - it works with stock AsusWRT...

Next steps - with AsusWRT-RMerlin - is it only the Roku's that are seeing the connectivity issue, or are other platforms also impacted? SmartPhone, Desktop, etc... please confirm

On the Asus Router - are you running any of the value added stuff (AI Protection, AI Cloud, DDNS, etc?)

 

[elorimer]

Can you see the Rokus on the network map of the router?

Because you said it worked when you connected directly to the modem, I'm assuming you have wired connections for the Rokus?

For wireless I recall sometimes you had to connect first with open security, then move to secure the wireless.

 

[Deleted member 22229]

For wireless I recall sometimes you had to connect first with open security, then move to secure the wireless.

Not needed ever. I have three Roku devices and all of them work wireless with no issues. They all connect by them selves with no issues on stock or Merlin. So the OP has something else going on that is making the issue.

 

[Tekneek]

Not needed ever. I have three Roku devices and all of them work wireless with no issues. They all connect by them selves with no issues on stock or Merlin. So the OP has something else going on that is making the issue.

I have four Roku devices on my network that are actively used for Netflix and other services every single day, w/ an RT-AC3200 running 384.6. They never have any trouble. Further, I run a pi-hole (blocks ads, telemetry, and other various things via domain blacklists), backed by a private OpenNIC recursive DNS. If none of that is causing a Roku problem, I doubt that the problem is in the firmware itself.

The only time I ever really had strange issues was when I blocked Google DNS at the router (using Skynet - the Rokus began insisting they had no Internet connection and would not let me access the channel store, but everything else still worked fine). Using the DNSFilter to redirect those to the pi-hole on the LAN causes no problems (the Roku obviously thinks it is talking to Google DNS).

 

[sfx2000]

Can you see the Rokus on the network map of the router?

Because you said it worked when you connected directly to the modem, I'm assuming you have wired connections for the Rokus?

For wireless I recall sometimes you had to connect first with open security, then move to secure the wireless.

Read his description of the problem - wireless or wired, behind the Asus with AsusWRT-RMerlin, it did not work

When he connected the roku directly to the modem - it works, when he's wireless/wired behind stock firmware, it works.

 

[sfx2000]

If none of that is causing a Roku problem, I doubt that the problem is in the firmware itself.

At the same time - stock firmware, according to @Tom P - works - directly connected to the modem it works.

CoxHSI isn't that exotic, and he's not running OpenVPN...

 

[Tekneek]

At the same time - stock firmware, according to @Tom P - works - directly connected to the modem it works.

CoxHSI isn't that exotic, and he's not running OpenVPN...

If it were the firmware, could we not expect to see it happening across the board? Perhaps there is some configuration option that is causing the problem. I don't know the stock firmware enough to know what the differences are in defaults and other options. If it really is something so esoteric that only presents itself in his specific use case, it may prove impossible to narrow down without being able to replicate the same setup (same provider, same hardware, etc).

 

[sfx2000]

f it were the firmware, could we not expect to see it happening across the board? Perhaps there is some configuration option that is causing the problem.

That's my question back to OP - @Tom P

Is this limited to Roku, or do other client platforms have the same issue?

Odd that it works on factory firmware...

 

[Skinah]

FYI I am also getting the same error.

No I do NOT use a vpn, and I have tried using google DNS and the ISP's dns as well.
It occurs with my Sony Andriod OS TV with the native Netflix app from the playstore (note it comes from the android tv version of the playstore and is not the same app from the normal playstore tablets use)
Using Netflix on a DELL laptop works via a win10 app.
I was using RT-AC68U_384.6_0.zip firmware on my router and I tried Firmware Version:3.0.0.4.384_21140 which is the ASUS firmware and the problem still occured. Note I did not do a factory reset when I went back to Asus firmware, but I did do one when I went to Merlin 384.6 last week and only just got the router set back up with my custom settings. Sadly I did not have Netflix setup until 1 day ago so I do not know when it broke as the last time it was working was 6 months+ ago.

Using VDSL modem in bridge mode to router, the Netgear DM200.

EDIT:
I am also getting problems with my Google home mini which talks to my smarthome via a tunnel. Not sure they are connected but both issues were not around 6 months ago and are occurring now.

 

[elorimer]

Not needed ever.

I'm misdisremembering from the early days. Rokus are certainly more robust than when my first one was behind sunglasses and Bush was president.

 

[Skinah]

Both of my issues were solved when I changed the MTU and MRU to a value of 1440 which is found under the WAN menu.

 

[Tekneek]

Both of my issues were solved when I changed the MTU and MRU to a value of 1440 which is found under the WAN menu.

That is interesting. Wouldn't that mean the issue is related to your ISP's infrastructure? Unless you are doing some tunneling/IPsec/VPN/etc routing, you would not typically need to reduce your MTU below 1500 (that is the standard). As an end user of an ISP, having to do that might mean the ISP is doing something unusual at layer 2.

 

[ColinTaylor]

you would not typically need to reduce your MTU below 1500 (that is the standard).

I think the key thing here is that he's using a VDSL modem.

 

[Tekneek]

I reviewed Netflix's "troubleshooting" materials online for this error (https://help.netflix.com/en/node/14424) and they're really too vague to mean much. A bunch of restart this, restart that, plug this into that, etc. I submitted a request that they actually offer detailed information about what needs to be reachable (domains/servers) and any specific ports that might need to be open. A whole lot of trouble to not ever reveal what actually needs to be happening to avoid the error.

Identifying that the problem is at the router level doesn't really solve anything. Telling people the recipe for success would be far more helpful, even if it were unlocked behind an "Advanced information" button for those who understand that level of detail.

 

[sfx2000]

That is interesting. Wouldn't that mean the issue is related to your ISP's infrastructure? Unless you are doing some tunneling/IPsec/VPN/etc routing, you would not typically need to reduce your MTU below 1500 (that is the standard). As an end user of an ISP, having to do that might mean the ISP is doing something unusual at layer 2.

I'm also on CoxHSI, just like OP (@Tom P ) - they're not doing anything odd/exotic on IPv4... tweaking MTU shouldn't be anything of interest.

I've had issues with CoxHSI on IPv6, so I've disabled that (long story, but basically with BSD oriented platforms, they have some issues there, off topic here since the AsusWRT is known to be good, and the specific issue I have is BSD specific)

 

[sfx2000]

I reviewed Netflix's "troubleshooting" materials online for this error (https://help.netflix.com/en/node/14424) and they're really too vague to mean much. A bunch of restart this, restart that, plug this into that, etc. I submitted a request that they actually offer detailed information about what needs to be reachable (domains/servers) and any specific ports that might need to be open. A whole lot of trouble to not ever reveal what actually needs to be happening to avoid the error.

The error is less than helpful - what it means is that the ROKU cannot connect with the Netflix client application (the app error "NW-2-5")

Identifying that the problem is at the router level doesn't really solve anything. Telling people the recipe for success would be far more helpful, even if it were unlocked behind an "Advanced information" button for those who understand that level of detail.

But it's telling that it works fine with Factory Firmware...

Again, OP isn't doing VPN, he's doing nothing exotic, he's on a mainstream ISP, with a known-good platform and a known good app - the only thing that's changed is the Router firmware, and there, the factory firmware works fine.

Something changed - @RMerlin - any thoughts here?

 

[Tekneek]

But it's telling that it works fine with Factory Firmware...

Not really telling, because I run the current Merlin firmware on an RT-AC3200 with four Roku devices on the network, without any problems. If it were the firmware itself, we should expect to see the same problems with everyone.

Comcast is my ISP, if that is a factor. IPv6 won't matter, because the Roku devices are IPv4 only.

 

[sfx2000]

If it were the firmware itself, we should expect to see the same problems with everyone.

If it were the firmware - it would exhibit symptoms itself. Factory works fine according to OP.

Ask yourself that question - he didn't change the Roku firmware

 

[dave14305]

Without more information from OP, it’s hard to proceed. But I don’t see anywhere where he reboots the modem after switching firmware. Having just switched from ASUSWRT to John’s fork, my cable modem is unhappy until it gets rebooted. Maybe some MAC address confusion.

Are there any defaults in Merlin that don’t exist in stock?