Why does Netflix want me to have no internet connection?

April 10, 2008 11:05 AM

Why do flickr and Netflix kill my internet connection?

It happens just about 100% of the time, and has gotten to the point where it's really annoying. I go to the page, it might load just the text, and then my connection goes down, necessitating a loooong trip to the other side of the apartment to reset the router.

I should also note that flickr never gave me this problem until they did the recent video upgrade. Myspace is always good to kill the connection too, but I don't go there at all, really. Though checking my wife's page would be fun.

What could it be? Resetting the router and staying away from the page work fine.

Mac 10.4.11, Firefox 2.0.0.13 (altho it happens on Safari as well), Netgear WGR614 v3, with current firmware.

posted by nevercalm to computers & internet (12 comments total)

Try reinstalling Flash.
posted by birdherder at 11:16 AM on April 10

Better yet, reinstall flash and install flashblock.
posted by tehloki at 11:23 AM on April 10

Have you changed the pipeline requests in about.config? Flickr stopped loading photos for me after I changed the value of network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
posted by tapeguy at 11:26 AM on April 10

Having re-read the OP, I'm guessing it's not my suggestion given that it happens in Safari too. Sorry.
posted by tapeguy at 11:27 AM on April 10

You guys are the best. Really.

OK, re-installing Flash seems to have done the trick for flickr, and Flashblock got me into Netflix. But really busy myspace pages are still knocking me off.
posted by nevercalm at 11:36 AM on April 10

that is simple, stay away from myspace. it is a breeding ground for nasty banner adds. maybe not so much a problem with a mac, but i wouldn't take a production machine there.
posted by Amby72 at 12:32 PM on April 10

Oh my God. I think the pipeline requests thing, if it has bearing on this, might explain why MySpace kills my connection at home. I have an network optimizing plugin installed in Firefox, now that I think about it. Must test when I get a chance. Thanks, tapeguy.
posted by limeonaire at 1:01 PM on April 10

that is simple, stay away from myspace.

I don't do the Myspace thing, pretty much as a rule. But surely you can sympathize with my pressing need to understand what that shit sandbox of a website crashes my connection, can't you? It's pretty much a vendetta, at this point.
posted by nevercalm at 1:06 PM on April 10

Yeah... I'd avoid MySpace, too, but I have to visit it for work. Damn their appeal to budget-conscious new music artists.
posted by limeonaire at 1:31 PM on April 10

I am hard pressed to come up with any real answers at the moment. If you really want to pursue it, please reply back and I'll help when I can.

In the meantime, NO WEBSITE should EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER kill a connection to a point that you have to reset a router. No no no no no nonon no.

And upon further inspection: NO! ;-)

When this happens, do you still have an IP address? Can you ping the router? Do you have any other computers with which you can test? Are you wireless? Wired? I'm on the same Mac OS X build and Firefox. So, it _can_ work. ;-)
posted by tcv at 1:39 PM on April 10

I'm with tcv, I can't imagine a website shutting down your connection point...
An ISP? Yes, webpage? No.

As mentioned above, after "the event", do you still have an IP address? What happens when you restart your browser?

As for MySpace... Although some may disagree, try using Adblock Plus.
After a restart it will ask you to subscribe to a ad-filter.
I guess I recommend EasyElement+EasyList.

Another thing that seems to help would be OpenDNS.
Very simple to set-up, a few clicks and enter two addresses.
There is a good Wikipedia article if you want more info on OpenDNS.
posted by FBXRD at 2:04 PM on April 10

A search on Google for "website crash router" yielded this thread about someone who indicated MySpace was crashing his router. His symptoms seem identical to yours.

I'll also share with you that my first wireless router was a Netgear, and I found it to be a buggy and unpleasant piece of crud. I replaced it with a Linksys that performed much, much better and lasted much, much longer.
posted by WCityMike at 2:12 PM on April 10