Now that you (@AnotherElk) reproduced the issue we know, that the problem must be a combination 3 things:
Fairphone 2
LineageOS
Netflix 5.x.
Because Netflix 5.x runs fine on the standard/stock Fairphone OS. And Netflix 5.x also runs fine on my “Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini” with LineageOS-14.1 (with addon-su). And any other apps I tested (including Netflix 4.x and other stuff like Spotify and many more) seem to have a problem.
I only thought about that phone-encryption thing, because I tried to find an explanation why it’s working for @StevenHachel, but not for me. Be the real explanation was, that @StevenHachel runs Netflix 4.x and not 5.x. (see @StevenHachel last message). So I guess we can forget about that phone-encryption thing.
I had a chat with @StevenHachel, he installed Netflix 5.x and got the same error on LineageOS.
(Steven’s device isn’t encrypted, so that’s definitely not the reason for this problem)
Rooted or uncertified Android mobile devices are unable to download the Netflix app from the Play Store. Rooted or uncertified mobile devices are not blocked from accessing Netflix, but, depending on configuration, may not function properly.
This means, rooted devices with LineageOS can run Netflix 5.x!
(like my Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini running LineageOS with addonsu)
As long as you don’t install addonsu (LineageOS Downloads) you can even download Netflix from PlayStore (I’ve tested).
That’s because without addonsu you don’t have root access (/system/bin/su), which is what the PlayStore is checking for.
But because of this is may be hard to get help from Netflix.
Rooted or uncertified mobile devices […] depending on configuration, may not function properly.
Luckily we know, that Netflix 5.x runs on the Fairphone 2, because it works fine on the Fairphone 2 stock OS (even on the FP Open OS). So it’s not a hardware problem.
And we know, that Netflix 5.x runs on LineageOS.
My current guess is, that this problem is something about:
a driver being different from the ones in the Fairphone 2 stock OS,
or a compilation setting being different from the ones used for other LineageOS build like the one for the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini (serranoltexx).
Unfortunately I do not much about building LineageOS ROMs. So maybe someone can help who knows more about that.
So this must be something about an Android ability/feature introduced in Android 5.0. But this ability/feature may still be disabled somehow in Android >= 5.0. And exactly that might be the case here.
The trick is to find out what possible relevant feature was added between Android 4.4 and Android 5.0!
I guess it’s maybe some DRM or safe storage stuff, so Netflix can safely store movies without allowing the user to copy them.
My bad, the Netflix app from Play Store installs on recent LOS 14.1 nightly but I didn’t bother starting it (I don’t have an account). It actually doesn’t work as it doesn’t start up. They suggest to download an APK instead of version 4.x. I started that version and it starts up, but I didn’t verify it works beyond that (again, no account).
So yeah, just to clarify: I can start up 4.16.1 build 200147 (didn’t play videos etc obviously).
My take is: I assume they don’t blacklist anything; instead they default to blacklist and whitelist platforms (device + OS) based on whether they are guaranteed not rooted. FPOS (@ FP2) is guaranteed not rooted, so Netflix whitelist that. LOS @ FP2 might be rooted so it won’t work. That an earlier, probably unmaintained version still works is by God’s grace.
Perhaps a community member who feels like leading could contact Netflix but without any given authority from the community (it not being an official port) I am not sure how far that will go.
Ah right, that feature explains a lot actually. So what probably happens is in offline usage mode is it stores the DRM keys to decrypt the content in a secure enclave.
Remember, I have an Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini, running LineageOS. And Netflix 5.x works fine on it. So it’s probably not a device or os/rom blacklist/whitelist thing.
@JeroenH did a little testing and found out the following:
Uninstall and reinstall the app, or stop it an clear it’s data.
End all network connections (e.g. WiFi and mobile data).
Start Netflix 5.x and you’ll get the following error instead: “Sorry, we could not reach the Netflix service. Please try again later. (-14)”
That doesn’t have to necessarily mean anything for our problem. But maybe Netflix somehow needs a connection to it’s server when doing the compatibility check. But it could also be unrelated to the compatibility check.
