Netflix does not allow DNS Filtering on router

January 12, 2017 16:26

Reposting as someone hijacked this previously...

I have an ASUS Router that has the option to use DNS filtering in the Parental Controls. This has proved to be a great way to lock down my young daughter's devices by adding them to the DNS filtering and using OpenDNS Family. The rest of my devices do not need such filtering. However, recently she has been unable to play any Netflix titles and I was able to determine that this was due to the DNS Filtering using OpenDNS Family (or any DNS Filtering). I appreciate that this is an issue for Netflix but their customer support is terribly wanting and I am unable to make any headway with them.

Now, I am left with either not letting my daughter watch Netflix or if I turn off OpenDNS family filter for her devices, she is exposed to the entirety of the Internet.

Would love to know if anyone has a workable workaround (other than using DNS filtering in reverse) for this issue.

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11 comments

Official comment

Mash Sarband January 16, 2017 16:58

Hi,

I am going to open a Ticket and help you through there shortly.

Regards,

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paddypdx January 16, 2017 17:22

Thanks Mash, I made comments in the ticket. I don't think there is anything OpenDNS can do about it but they should know that Netflix is going rogue and may be skirting with legality.

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veliva February 03, 2017 19:20

Mash,

I have Young kids myself, and the only was I was able to filter Netflix was via their own Parental control by seting up a password for the levels that suit your need.

regards

Veliva

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paddypdx February 03, 2017 19:32

Netflix updated their app in late January and the DNS Filtering started working as expected again. Let's see if they continue to allow it to work.

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lan12 March 14, 2017 14:42
I had this problem for the past few weeks...Netflix seems to have randomly stopped working on all of my devices (Nexus Player, FireTV Stick, Wii). This fix worked for me: Some of these steps might not be necessary...but this is exactly what I did to get Netflix to work again.
1. I uninstalled Netflix from my device.
2. I added services.wmdrm.windowsmedia.com (apparently to allow silverlight to work?) and Netflix.com to my "never block" sites in Open DNS. (https://login.opendns.com/?return_to=https%3A%2F%2Fdashboard.opendns.com%2Fsettings%2F42278486%2Fcontent_filtering)
3. I turned off Open DNS completely (on my router there is a toggle switch for this).
4. I reinstalled and opened Netflix on my device...and waited until it worked.
5. I turned on Open DNS again.
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rotblitz March 14, 2017 14:49 (Edited March 14, 2017 14:50)

"I added services.wmdrm.windowsmedia.com (apparently to allow silverlight to work?) and Netflix.com to my "never block" sites in Open DNS."

Were these two domains or subdomains of them actually being blocked?
https://dashboard.opendns.com/stats/all/blockeddomains
If not, then this point was not needed at all and just eats up your 25 slots for whitelist entries unnecessarily.

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paddypdx March 14, 2017 14:59

I think the last two comments are not related to this thread. This was about how Netflix were forcing the use of particular DNS servers and if your router supported DNS filtering which allows for forcing devices on your network to use a DNS server of your choice (in my case OpenDNS Family) then Netflix will not play.

Netflix have since updated their iOS apps and no longer force the use of DNS servers of their choice. So now my DNS filtering works again. They may still be forcing DNS server choice but possibly have added OpenDNS Family servers to their list of allowed DNS servers.

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rotblitz March 14, 2017 15:13 (Edited March 14, 2017 21:15)

It was related.

"I reinstalled and opened Netflix on my device...and waited until it worked."

This was the (only one) action which solved the problem faced by you also for lan12, because the latest app versions with the fixes were picked. The other measures were useless.

Thanks for the feedback. This enlightens us about what your original problem really was.

"They may still be forcing DNS server choice but possibly have added OpenDNS Family servers to their list of allowed DNS servers."

Most likely not. If one had to use their DNS service before, then there have been private DNS entries not to be queried with every other recursive DNS service. They just would have made these private entries public in DNS, so that every recursive DNS service can be used now. It could be that this required an update of their app, not to use their own DNS service anymore but the one configured on the system.

Just having "added OpenDNS Family servers to their list of allowed DNS servers" would be highly inefficient, because this can be dynamic, and there are so many other DNS services with their list not being maintainable this way by Netflix.

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kc7vlu November 28, 2018 19:42

Im having this issue if i have opendns on even with nothing being filters the netflix and hulu will not work online or on apps.

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kc7vlu November 28, 2018 19:43

Im having this issue if i have opendns on even with nothing being filters the netflix and hulu will not work online or on apps.

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rotblitz November 28, 2018 20:20
Thanks for the duplicate information.

So, does this mean that https://dashboard.opendns.com/stats/all/blockeddomains is empty for you all the time?

If this is the case, copy & paste the complete plain text output of the following diagnostic commands to here:
```
nslookup -type=txt debug.opendns.com.
nslookup whoami.akamai.net.
nslookup www.netflix.com.
nslookup www.hulu.com.
```
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