For past 2-3 weeks, CBS All Access won’t play anything in my web browsers

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I can’t watch anything in any web browser when logged into CBS All Access. This started nearly two weeks ago. Computers are Windows 7 which are fully updated through November. All I get, when trying to watch any show, is the constantly spinning disk and no error message whatsoever. I did try uninstalling the November Windows Security Only Update and the IE Update, to no avail, so I reinstalled them. I did not try uninstalling the November .NET 4.8 update. Perhaps the November .NET 4.8 update is the source of my woes?

 

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What browser are you using?  Have you cleared out the cache files?  I’ve had a situation one time where I had to log out and log back in fully.  Have you tried that?

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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I tried in both Firefox and in Chrome on two different computers. On one computer, I freshly installed Chrome. I suspect the issue is in my router. I will do a full reset of the router over the weekend.

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Did you ever figure out what is wrong, im having the same issue, and i even reinstalled windows completly and it still doesnt work, even swithing to my tmobile network via hotspot doesnt work (the video plays on my tmobile phone, but not on my pc)

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I haven’t yet. I am planning on performing a factory hard reset of my Arris router (provided by cable company) this weekend since it is possible that the router has been hacked.

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Man that sounds extreme.  Have you contacted your ISP to make sure that it’s them not you?

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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It is definitely not my ISP since I also tried, in the router, using opendns IPs for DNS resolution.

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Can you try downloading a totally different browser and make sure no privacy settings are in place?  https://www.technobezz.com/cbs-all-access-not-working-how-to-fix-it/

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

1 user thanked author for this post.

GoneToPlaid

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I tried that on another computer.

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GoneToPlaid: Before you start doing all those tricky things: have you tried getting in touch with CBS? Maybe there is a way there to get someone to help you, or a phone number to call, either way to find out more about this problem and also, perhaps, its solution. It is possible this issue has been affecting other subscribers to All Access and they know about it. I take it you are a subscriber, so it is conceivable (who knows?) that, as they keep taking your money, they might also give you a way to resolve your problems with their service. Which might very well be where the cause of your problem resides.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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CBS is notorious for lack of customer support.

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I signed up for CBS all access to see NCIS seasons 15 to the current season and had the same trouble. I contacted CBS support and they said All Access will not work with Windows 7 and they do not know when they will have the issue fixed, so I had to cancel the service. 🙁

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I’d expect you would have visited CBS All Access troubleshooting to rule it out for this thread.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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I did.

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Was having the same problem. Contacted support several times.

Was finally told yesterday that they have discontinued supporting Windows 7.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Erik, GoneToPlaid

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I just installed the User-Agent Switcher and Manager add-on for Firefox. I then switched the user agent string to indicate Firefox on Windows 10. That fixed it instantly. Thank you for the tip that CBS discontinued support for Windows 7.

2 users thanked author for this post.

Jfmax2000, JohnW

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Okay that needs to go in the newsletter.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

3 users thanked author for this post.

Pim, OscarCP, GoneToPlaid

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I installed the User-Agent Switcher and Manager plugin in both Firefox and Chrome on my computers. Then I edited the default (actual) user agent string to indicate that my latest web browser version is running on Windows 10 instead of Windows 7, as in changing “Windows NT 6.1″ in the user agent string to Windows NT 10.0”. In this way, CBS All Access sees my web browser as running the latest version of either Chrome or Firefox on Windows 10 for all browser windows. This then satisfies the the web browser queries which are made by CBS All Access. The plugin which I installed in both Chrome and Firefox is this one, which has the icon shown within the orange box. This verified add-on is available for both Chrome and Firefox.

3 users thanked author for this post.

romiha, Jfmax2000, Erik

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I want to thank you, i just installed this app for my firefox and now i am able to watch cbs again, thank you very much

1 user thanked author for this post.

GoneToPlaid

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You are mighty welcome. It would be really nice to have you become a member of AskWoody. I promise that the signup process is completely painless!

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How do you use this extension? Any help would be awesome. trying to get CBS all access to work on windows 7 in Chrome. TIA

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[GoneToPlaid]

See my post about how to use it:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/windows-7-users-sites-start-to-impact/#post-2323090

Scroll on down to #2323090

 

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by GoneToPlaid.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by GoneToPlaid.

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Post the link direct by highlighting it and copying, then paste in your post.

#2323090

cheers, Paul

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Not entirely surprising. After all, it has been almost 5 1/2 years since the first Win10 release. With the Win7 base shrinking, CBS probably decided they did not want to expend the resources coding and testing for that audience. Only CBS knows how many of those Win7 users are CBS subscribers. It is just easier for them to disable access for Win7.

--Joe

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Actually not necessary, since it is simply the web browser capabilities and the capabilities of the installed graphics drivers which matter. For Windows, the underlying version of Windows, whether or not it is Windows 7 0r above, appears to not matter at all.

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There could easily be OS specific code in the browser. Drivers, especially graphics drivers, are almost always updated for each OS. It is another point of failure to analyze and protect. Otherwise, why have any support limits on browsers as both Microsoft and Google have?

--Joe

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I’m having the same problem with getting CBS All Access to work with Windows 7 on my PC.  I’ve installed the “User-Agent Switcher and Manager” Extension on my Chrome Browser, but do not understand or are able to find how to use i t. Your help would be much appreciated.

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This post shows what to change in User Agent Switcher.
#2319275

cheers, Paul

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[JohnW]

GoneToPlaid wrote:

I can’t watch anything in any web browser when logged into CBS All Access. This started nearly two weeks ago.

Q. What type of media are you using to connect your monitor? Is it HDCP compliant? When I recently tried to stream Peacock TV on my computer for the first time, it was a no-go as I was also using a 2nd monitor connected via analog VGA cable. So I disabled that VGA port, and ran with just my HDMI port (HDCP enabled), and then streaming worked fine. So be aware of possible copy protection that might be getting in the way.

Edit: never mind. Just saw your last post. Glad you solved your issue. But I will leave this tidbit here in case anyone else encounters something similar. Copy protection is something we all need to be aware of.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by JohnW.

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GoneToPlaid

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Thank you for your post. You are correct in that copy protection settings are important.

1 user thanked author for this post.

JohnW

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I use a DVI-D cable to connect my computer to my monitor. I am surprised that you had issues with your second monitor which was connected with a VGA cable. I might suggest that a graphics driver update might be the solution. By the way, one of the unsuccesful solutions which I tried was updating my GTX 650 graphics drivers. Even though this didn’t resolve the issue, it is important to keep your computer’s graphics drivers updated (straight from the OEM vendor) since Microsoft has been updating both the kernel and GDI in terms of security issues. This now will become the first thing which I check before installing any new Windows security updates.

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@GoneToPlaid –

Great to hear that a simple user agent string change worked for you. Susan’s right…this needs to be put into the newsletter and, maybe, even made a blog post in its own right.

For all their coding prowess for their streaming site, you’d think that CBS would send a notice out to all of their subscribers letting them know that as of a certain date in the near future they won’t support browsers on a given operating system any more, rather than just pull the plug with no notice at all to anyone. At the very least they should’ve done something such as a screen that could come up after logging into the site telling you that browsers on Windows 7 are no longer supported for streaming their content.

 

1 user thanked author for this post.

GoneToPlaid

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GoneToPlaid wrote:

I am surprised that you had issues with your second monitor which was connected with a VGA cable. I might suggest that a graphics driver update might be the solution.

I was using the latest driver for my Intel HD Graphics on-board video. Gen 3. Years past end-of-life, of course. They technically ended support at Win 7, but it still worked mostly, LOL.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Bob99 wrote:

@GoneToPlaid –

Great to hear that a simple user agent string change worked for you. Susan’s right…this needs to be put into the newsletter and, maybe, even made a blog post in its own right.

For all their coding prowess for their streaming site, you’d think that CBS would send a notice out to all of their subscribers letting them know that as of a certain date in the near future they won’t support browsers on a given operating system any more, rather than just pull the plug with no notice at all to anyone. At the very least they should’ve done something such as a screen that could come up after logging into the site telling you that browsers on Windows 7 are no longer supported for streaming their content.

 

Bob99 wrote:

For all their coding prowess for their streaming site, you’d think that CBS would send a notice out to all of their subscribers letting them know that as of a certain date in the near future they won’t support browsers on a given operating system any more, rather than just pull the plug with no notice at all to anyone.

Actually, one would think that (correctly), the CBS programmers would honor what is shown on the CBS website in terms of what versions of browsers are supported under Windows, since there is no mention of Windows 7 being depreciated.

Here is a rather obscure web page which CBS has with regards to streaming issues. Look at the following link. Do you see any mention of the version of Windows which a consumer is running?

https://help.cbs.com/s/article/How-can-I-fix-streaming-issues-on-my-device

I don’t.

 

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I didn’t see a thing on that page regarding specific OS support.

However, I did see mention of both browser version and OS version support on other pages liked to from the one you posted above. And in every case, Windows 7 was mentioned as supported for Firefox and Chrome. EVERY TIME.

The only mention I found relating to any kind of lack of support for Windows 7 was for IE. They only support IE for Windows 8.1 and above. Listed here.

Looks like CBS has a little work ahead of them to either reinstate support for those on Win 7 or change the supported OS versions on their support pages.

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In case this is relevant to this discussion: IE 11 for Windows 7 is not streaming anymore from most places, or maybe from any place at all, because it does not have a HTML5 receiver. It could be used to stream video with the MS addon Silverlight, that has recently gone out of support. IE 11 for 8.1, on the other hand, supports the use of HTML5 streaming, same as all the other browsers currently in use.

I believe MS, years ago, developed IE 11 for Win 7 to be eventually unable to receive streaming content, now days delivered in HTML5, but made it capable of doing this in Win 8.1, to push people to move from 7 to 8.1.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

1 user thanked author for this post.

GoneToPlaid

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IE should have been dumped years ago. Use a proper browser that supports modern web standards, like HTML5.

cheers, Paul

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Windows 7 is very flaky with certain streaming services.  I still have my television running a cable card tuner with Microsoft Media Center as I don’t want to pay for a cable box.  I watch a lot of live streaming Euro soccer using the PC and some services such as ESPN+ work just fine.  About six weeks ago, CBS All Access suddenly stopped working for live programing.  It would still work for anything that was pre-recorded when I began to trouble shoot things.   I later found out that it was something with Windows 7.  I tried three different browsers under Win7 and none would stream live content.  I ended up getting a $20 Amazon Fire stick and that just plugs into the spare HDMI port and works just fine.  If I didn’t need the cable card support that PC would be on Win10.

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GoneToPlaid wrote:

I just installed the User-Agent Switcher and Manager add-on for Firefox. I then switched the user agent string to indicate Firefox on Windows 10.

I just found the same problem with Chrome and CBS using Windows 7.

Any idea how to do the same setup with User-Agent in Chrome? I tried a couple of extensions in the latest Chrome version, but couldn’t get the settings to work.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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After installing the User-Agent Switcher and Manager plugin, simply edit the displayed default user agent string shown for your Chrome web browser by changing the part of the user agent string to say Windows NT 10.0 instead of Windows NT 6.1, and then apply it for all windows.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Jfmax2000

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GoneToPlaid wrote:

Even though this didn’t resolve the issue, it is important to keep your computer’s graphics drivers updated (straight from the OEM vendor) since Microsoft has been updating both the kernel and GDI in terms of security issues.

And yet I often see the advice that if it is not broke don’t fix it. Of course with security issues when you find it is broke may be too late. I just checked my Radeon drivers and they are 3 versions behind 17.xx vs 20.xx. Maybe time for another image and give the new ones a whirl.

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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GoneToPlaid wrote:

After installing the User-Agent Switcher and Manager plugin, simply edit the displayed default user agent string shown for your Chrome web browser by changing the part of the user agent string to say Windows NT 10.0 instead of Windows NT 6.1, and then apply it for all windows.

I got it working in Firefox, but no matter what I do with Chrome still can’t make it work there. I tried two different user agent switchers for Chrome. But no biggie, I will use Firefox. Cheers!

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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When using User-Agent Switcher and Manager in Chrome, you have to apply the change to all windows. That worked for me. This might work best if you first open a new tab before clicking on a link for a particular website. Nevertheless, using User-Agent Switcher and Manager in Firefox has also been working like a champ for me as well.

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OscarCP wrote:

In case this is relevant to this discussion: IE 11 for Windows 7 is not streaming anymore from most places, or maybe from any place at all, because it does not have a HTML5 receiver. It could be used to stream video with the MS addon Silverlight, that has recently gone out of support.

OscarCP mentions interesting aspects of IE support under various Windows OSs, and browser feature support in general under other OSs. I suggest a fork of this thread, pointing to a new thread which tracks the levels of web browser support for various web browser standards, in terms of how those web browsers are able to support those web browser standards within various OSs. Just a thought for what it is worth.

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GoneToPlaid wrote:

When using User-Agent Switcher and Manager in Chrome, you have to apply the change to all windows. That worked for me.

Just wanted to say thanks again! I finally tried the extension that you suggested earlier which was the one I got working in Firefox already.

It didn’t show up in the list of Chrome extensions offered within the browser settings. So I had already tried 2 others that did not work, and almost gave up.

I had to use google search to locate the Chrome version of that extension, which works great by the way. It also has a nice built-in list of user agent strings, and a big button to apply to all windows, as well as a test button.

Me thinks Google may be playing a little cat and mouse with that extension in their store… 😉

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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I’m late to this party, but am so glad I found this thread!

I was very disappointed after signing up for CBS All Access in discovering that I could only access it via my Chromebook (which I honestly hate) and a Chromecast dongle on my (not smart) TV but NOT via my Windows 7 desktop where I can access everything else just fine.

Installed the User Agent Switcher addon for Firefox and voila!

Thank you thank you thank you!!

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