This browser is no longer supported.
Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
A couple of weeks ago there was an update to the Netflix application and ever since then all 3 of my media center Netflix applications no longer allow me to search. First error says "APPLICATION ERROR There is a problem with the application at this time. Try again later." and the second says "SERVICE UNAVAILABLE This web service is currently unavailable. Try again later. I verified that the service IS available because it works fine in IE and I contacted Netflix to confirm status. The update to the WMC Netflix application seems to be broken. Does anyone out there know of a fix or are we at the mercy of having to wait for this to eventually get resolved by Microsoft. (I run media center daily it is our primary source/interface for TV and Movies).
I am a Network/Systems Admin... do NOT ask me if I have rebooted my computer or re-installed the application
Thanks for any help on this!
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
If you downloaded it from the github link, it should be safe. False positive from 360.
But if it makes you uncomfortable, you can always download the source and build it for yourself. (You'll need to install the .NET 4 framework to build it, as the solution file (MCENFLX.sln) file is not compatible with the .NET 2.0 version of MSBuild.)
It's failing on both of my Win 7 computers. Does the Install need to be run from the command line? I also don't see the Install.log file it mentions.
Edit: Never mind! Read another thread that mentioned it had to be run from a local directory rather then a network drive, worked like a charm! Thank you!!
Good news! I have a fix!!!
After further investigation I discovered that the web service that is failing is not actually responsible for the search itself. All it does is provide Media Center with a bit of meta information (the "search taxonomy") about what its Internet TV search providers are, and what sort of filters they support. Most of those were for the old Internet TV channels that are all gone anyway. All that really remains is Netflix.
It turns out you can override the search taxonomy URL with a registry entry. So I created a simple Windows Service that acts as a local substitute for Microsoft's broken server, and serves up a dirt-simple SearchTaxonomy document with the minimum necessary information to allow Windows Media Center to initialize the Netflix search.
You can download it here. Extract the files to a local directory (not on a network drive!), and run Install.bat with the "Run As Administrator" command.
Once installed, the netflix search should just work.
The code is hosted on GitHub, if you're curious about the technical details.
Enjoy!
Binaries: https://github.com/revengineering/MceNflx/releases/download/v1.0-beta/MceNflx.zip
Not that this will help much, but I can confirm that the problem definitely seems to be on Microsoft's end, not Netflix's.
Though the MCE Netflix plug-in mostly makes calls directly to the Netflix API (which all still works fine), the Search function seems to call a Microsoft-hosted web service instead. The domain it's trying to reach is https://ehome.vo.msecnd.net/, which is currently responding with a "504 - Gateway Timeout" error.
No idea why the search function must be routed through Microsoft's server instead of calling the Netflix API directly - perhaps it was so they could combine the search results from Netflix with their other (now discontinued) Internet TV offerings. Anyway, that's where the problem lies. Not with Netflix itself, and not with anything on our computers.
Hopefully someone at MS will take a look and fix it... someday...
Same issue. I built my entire entertainment system around Media Center. I actually purchased a quad tuner with Cablecard slot so I could have full HD digital cable and pay channels in mine. Every bedroom is equipped with an xbox to act as the extender so I have HD TV in every room. Netflix has been a staple for us since it first became available in media center. I'm so sad to see Microsoft treating one of it's finest crafted options like a **** stepchild. for those of us who have stuck by it and especially since they are still selling and charging people for it, they should have a dedicated if small staff to address issues like this.
