Why is my Smart DNS not working?

Why is Smart DNS not working with Netflix?

When I try to play the following movie on Netflix through a browser, it just doesn't load: The same is true for the website: The movie I am referring to is the series The Last Airbender.

There was an article on Ars Technica written by Daniel Eran Dilger that says: The service is intended to resolve DNS requests for .com, .org, and .net domains into their respective IP addresses, such that Netflix or any other web site can load quickly. Instead, users are getting a bunch of DNS errors. Netflix is not an exempt subdomain. All non-exempt subdomains point to the same IP address.

The article does not explain why Netflix isn't working, but this is probably my main question. ? The article you linked to is two years old. From a more recent article on Ars Technica: Smart DNS is an experimental feature that Netflix began testing in May of last year. The goal of the feature is to improve video streaming performance for users by caching DNS requests for Netflix and other sites. The service was supposed to be opt-in and automatically enabled for users, but it appears the feature broke when it was pushed out in a major update. Netflix confirmed it is aware of the issue and is working on a fix.

There have been a lot of false alarms about the implementation of this feature on Ars Technica. It's a big topic of discussion in tech and other forums but is basically a solved problem now.

Does DNS work with Netflix?

I've done a little research on this and couldn't find any concrete answers.

I can certainly test it out on my personal machine, but was wondering if anyone has any experience with a Netflix/DNS question? Thanks! The issue is that Netflix wants you to use the IP address of your home router, not the DNS hostname. If you don't have a static IP (like through your ISP) and your home router doesn't forward incoming traffic, then DNS doesn't work.

One way around that would be to set up your DNS server to redirect the request to the external IP address of your router. This could work if the only thing Netflix is trying to do is stream their content to the public internet, but if you want to use a DNS-based solution to allow users in the LAN to connect directly to the server it would not work.

We are hosting a VPS with a static IP and no external interface to our router, so I guess this is a no-go? The reason I thought it might be possible is because it says it supports TCP, UDP, etc. It's a VPS provider called Jitterbit, so I'm not sure if they're trying to imply they can handle everything or if they're just throwing that in there.

This really stinks for me. My server gets about 5-8k concurrent connections per day. I can't imagine having to support that many IPs at once. Any other DNS providers that work? I know dynect supports this. I'm also considering using dynect again since I don't want to lose all my data yet. I'll try that and see if it works and get back to you if I have any success.

You really need to think about how Netflix works with their servers. They can only handle a certain amount of simultaneous connections. When you say you have "concurrent connections" are you referring to requests that are being received from a single user? The more simultaneous requests a server is handling the more requests it can handle at once. It's not possible for a server to handle requests coming from hundreds of different IP addresses at once.

Most of Netflix's issues are caused by the public facing end of the service. The first step towards being able to handle these requests at once would be for Netflix to support static IP addresses. Most likely they won't do that.

How do I use Getflix DNS?

Once your device has a Netflix account and has your email/password you simply install the free Getflix DNS application, which then becomes the default app to get the Netflix content.

The app works by redirecting through your email/password login to get the credentials so the account can be verified (this happens every time the VPN is not open).

To do this on Windows 8/8.1 devices, use WinRAR to expand the ZIP file and right click it to view options as shown below: (In Win8) Once expanded, right-click on Getflix.PST which opens up a WinRAR options dialogue box. You will see the option there to use this file.

(In Win8). After installation completes, it will bring you to Netflix.com if its not running or already on the screen as pictured below: (In Win8). To get started with other sites that you would like to use, use the Netflix App again which has all of the settings as the last 3 images on this page. When on Netflix.com, just navigate to the link that you would like to view (and it has to be open, otherwise the website wont even load) as it seems that the link has to be loaded.

(In Win8). If using iOS or Android, the same process can be accomplished, except that the Getflix DNS website in the above image would need to change from Windows to iOS/Android. It's not working. My browser thinks that my IP address changed every time I try to connect via Netflix.

Try adding a random number and a couple spaces to the end of your DNS address. For example, instead of: If you are using WiFi: If using Ethernet, and you have not changed your IP address recently: I put in 123 45 78. If you are using a static IP or changing your IP frequently, then you may have to make more changes. For IP addresses like those above you will get a new IP every time you are using a different streaming app/website as it changes your IP temporarily, but with an address like 12345678 the IP would never change, even if you are streaming something else.