A while ago we started having playback problems with Netflix streams on our Vero V, as described in this GH issue. Basically, videos don’t play and Kodi is in a perpetual loading state. It turned out to be a combination of changes in Netflix DRM and how Inputstream Adaptive (ISA) handles it. I don’t see any other posts here mentioning this. Does anyone experience similar issues?
A fix is available in the latest release, but as far as I can see it’s not an easy addon update, because as ISA is mainly C++ it needs to be compiled with the right libc6 version. I ran into this while trying to use the LibreELEC build of ISA. It crashed saying /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6: version GLIBC_2.33’ not found. Current OSMC (Bullseye) has 2.31 (as shown by apt-cache policy libc6).
Long story short, to install this version I had to build ISA for myself using these instructions (on the Vero itself). The only differences were the git clone commands: git clone --branch Omega --depth=1 https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc.git and git clone --branch Omega --depth=1 https://github.com/xbmc/inputstream.adaptive.git . After zipping the build and using “Install from zip” the addon updated and, presto!, Netflix streams worked flawlessly again.
My question about package updates is this: from dpkg -S /usr/share/kodi/addons/inputstream.adaptive/addon.xml it showed that ISA is managed by vero5-mediacenter-osmc. The version I had installed was 21.2 (from July 23), but the repo lists 21.3 (November 11) as well. Why isn’t the newer version installed after running apt update && apt dist-upgrade?
As the one that has been “struggling” with keeping Netflix-addon and OSMC talking, I pretty much gave up when the addon maintainer said he had enough. As he says in the thread, lack of dev. environment and low on time, plus being the single dev. dealing with the constant changes NF implemented to keep unauthorized products from playing NF. Then I also put it to rest, looks like there has been some progress lately in ISA, but it’s based on on a patched version of a newer Kodi.
Even if it seems working, with in a few months of it getting known, Netflix will “notice” the change and again do something with their protocols, mitigating hard work of all involved. It’s like pushing a big bolder uphill.
That explains it, thanks. I couldn’t find any reference to staging in the deb, but that’s probably lack of knowledge from my part.
It works fine with the current libc. Only ISA needs an update for this fix, but I’m sure that will happen soon enough.
@joakim_s I understand your concern and it has me worried as well. I don’t follow all the NF plugin developments, so I may have the wrong picture, but from this particular issue I felt that multiple people were on top of it, including the NF plugin maintainer, so that gives me hope. It’s sad that NF (the company) doesn’t support the project, because I do like the Kodi experience over Android. I wouldn’t blame the maintainers if they threw in the towel, but I’m thankful that they didn’t give in yet.
To get staging (I’ll do an update really soon though), you can adjust:
Run the following command to add the staging repository:
echo 'deb http://apt.osmc.tv bullseye-devel main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/osmc-devel.list
Please note that we will automatically disable this update channel after 14 days on your device in case you forget to do so to ensure that your system reverts to the stable update channel.
If you want it persistent just change the osmc line from bullseye to bullseye-devel in /etc/apt/sources.list. But I don’t recommend this.
Can you try updating via this repo (v21.3 is very stable) with minor changes?
It will overwrite your ISA implementation but will give you the latest and greatest ISA that Team Kodi have tagged for v21. If there’s a regression, then we just need to bump the version of ISA we are building. I do appreciate you testing and confirming that libc does not need patching.
Thanks for your instructions, I enabled the staging channel, although I already had updated to 21.3 before I started this topic with dpkg -i …. A bit dangerous and I don’t recommend it to anyone, but I’m somewhat running the staging version for a few days now without problems (except for the NF stream one, see below). After running your command the dist-upgrade ran fine.
I can confirm that ISA 21.5.17 works well with the current libc so I suspect no patch needed.
Good to know that the ISA version from Kodi as provided by OSMC staging is currently not the latest version and does not fix my problem. Staging ships 21.5.16 and 21.5.17 has the fix. This is confusing because both releases state that they “Fix no picture on MP4 videos with mixed encrypted/unencrypted contents”. However, after .16 it needed a follow-up, as detailed in the PR.
So all things considered I still need the manually compiled version of ISA for NF streams to work properly. But since .17 is installed in ~/.kodi/addons instead of /usr/share/kodi/addons I presume it is chosen over the package provide one. All is well on my Vero . But for anyone else running into this problem I think they need ISA bumped to 21.5.17 in vero5-mediacenter-osmc.
Run the following command to add the staging repository: echo 'deb http://apt.osmc.tv bullseye-devel main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/osmc-devel.list
Go to My OSMC → Updater → Manual Controls → and select Check for Updates now. When prompted to do so on screen, please choose to install the update.
Your system should have have received the update.
Please see if the issue is resolved.
I also recommend you remove /etc/apt/sources.list.d/osmc-devel.list after updating.
This will deactivate the staging repository. You can do so with the following command: sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/osmc-devel.list.
Please note that we will automatically disable this update channel after 14 days on your device in case you forget to do so to ensure that your system reverts to the stable update channel.
Thanks for your update. I watched some more Netflix today and ran into a crash around the 2 minute mark, which is iirc the moment that it may switch encryption. It happened twice with the same video so it’s most likely reproducible. I’ll try to produce a log tomorrow and see if it gives any useful info, but looking at this GH thread it’s probably already tracked upstream.
Kodi version 21.3 is running on a Linux system with arm architecture.
InputStream Helper is at version 0.8.4
InputStream Adaptive is at version 21.5.17
Widevine CDM is at version 4.10.2662.3 and was installed on 2025-10-29 20:54
It was extracted from Chrome OS image HANA with version 15633.69.0
It was last checked for updates on 2025-10-29 20:44
It is installed at /home/osmc/.kodi/cdm/
Please report issues to: https://git.io/JfKJb
I removed my own ISA build and it shows the same version, so it’s properly updated from staging.
I played another NF video and it also crashed Kodi at 2min, sometimes showing the sad face screen, sometimes freezing the video frame. I enabled debug logging, but it doesn’t seem to indicate anything useful and stops logging a minute before the crash. I can upload it if you want, just need to clean it up a bit. In the meantime I’m trying to create a debug build for ISA to see if it will show anything.
Ok, I was mistaken. After inspecting the debug logs it appeared it still loaded my own built ISA (renaming the dir doesn’t prevent it from loading). So after moving it away it loaded the one from vero5-mediacenter-osmc 21.3 and the video doesn’t crash anymore . Not sure what the difference is that made it crash, but good news anyway.
. But for anyone else running into this problem I think they need ISA bumped to 21.5.17 in 
. Not sure what the difference is that made it crash, but good news anyway.