Sorry for the wall of text here, but I'm frustrated and I need to vent.

I made the switch to Android TV about two years ago. Having just lost a job, we decided it wasn't worthwhile to struggle to keep our cable subscription when we only watched a handful of channels anyhow. We dabbled in some of the over the top products like Playstation Vue, but ultimately settled for a mix of Netflix, Hulu, CBS All Access, and Plex.

When we cut the cord, I really wanted to pick up the Nvidia Shield. We were doing our best to spend as little as possible until my employment situation could get worked out, so when I found out about the MiBox, I was pretty excited. I knew it wasn't as powerful, but I really didn't intend on playing games on the device, just using it for Android TV. So I hit up Walmart, set it up, and for a while I was pretty happy with it.

The MiBox did everything I needed it to do, and stuff I didn't know I wanted it to do. It worked with my Google Music subscription, gave me access to my media, all in a small device that didn't dominate my entertainment center. I didn't need the 4K perks yet, as I was still on a 1080p TV. Not the newest, but certainly not old either, and plenty good for my needs.

Netflix worked just fine for a long while too, but then one day I started getting the fabled tvq-pm-100 (5.2.5) error on Netflix. I did some troubleshooting on my own, but could never get it working. I live-chatted with Netflix, and they were able to push an update to my device that seemed to fix the issue, but shortly after that Xiaomi updated the MiBox and broke it again. One afternoon, I gave Netflix a call. I spoke with a very helpful person who spent over an hour on the phone troubleshooting with me. We tried every HDMI cable I had in the house. We tried every television I had in the house. We tried reboots, reinstalls, and factory resets.

We never got it working.

In the end, he gave me a credit to my account and added me to an open ticket, and I never heard an update again.

In the meantime, I used my Xbox or Playstation to access Netflix. Inconvenient, but serviceable.

I kept searching for help, and finally I found a lengthy thread on the Xiaomi forums with people crying about the same issue. There was a user who insisted it was an issue with the television itself, NOT the MiBox, and that replacing the TV was the only option.

Well, I wasn't about to replace my TV for a $70 box just to watch Netflix, so I filed the info in the back of my mind and continued using the service as I had been - with other devices.

Eventually we moved to a new house, with a larger living room. Once the dust settled, we agreed it's time to buy a new TV - a 4K TV with all the bells and whistles. We saved up some cash, found a great deal, and picked up a mid-tier Samsung TV (65" NU8000).

I hooked everything up, fired up the MiBox, and hit Netflix. Holy shit, it works. That forum post was right!

I was very excited to see that everything was working again. Despite the TV having a smart interface, there were some apps that I had gotten used to on Android that the TV just didn't have. I tried using the SmartHub on it's own for a while, but went back to Android after about a week. And despite the Oreo update, everything with the MiBox was right again.

Until this week, when Netflix stopped working for the second time.

No errors this time. It just crashes. Sometimes it'll load to the menu, sometimes it won't. Just kicks me back to the home screen. I've tried uninstalling (well, reverting to factory version) and I've tried clearing the cache. The only thing I haven't done yet is a factory reset of the device.

I know the MiBox is a budget device in most aspects, but most of what it does, it does well (or well enough). I'm at my wits end with Netflix though. I've basically given up at this point.

This post was mostly for venting my frustrations. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears. Otherwise, thanks for reading.

UPDATE 10/16/18: I finally had an opportunity to do another factory reset, and for now, Netflix seems to be working again. I think it's pretty ludicrous that I've done factory resets on this box so many times, but here we are.