I have the Netflix desktop App on my Ubuntu and it was working until about a week ago. Presently when I try to open it (Netflix) I get this error message; "Couldn't load XPCOM" Does any one have a work around handy
herakles_14

They have used m$ silverlight to avoid having to deal with piracy over linux. There is no handy work around. If there is a workaround, it would probably involve silverlight under ie in wine :-((.

Try running a Windows virtual PC in VirtualBox. You can just install it from the Ubuntu Software Center. (NOTE: I tried this in the Raring Ringtail release. I don't know if it's available in older versions. You might have to download a tarball or binary package from the Oracle website.) Or you can search Google for binaries. There may be .deb packages made by someone else that you can download. Or ask someone if there's an PPF server (or whatever those things are called that you can apt-get from) that you can download it from. Theoretically, it should "fool" the system into thinking you're running Windows instead of Linux, and it'll work as normal, whereas Wine may fail since it's only a compatibility layer to allow Windows programs to work in Linux, and it doesn't actually emulate a PC running Windows like VirtualBox does (hence the acronym Wine Is Not an Emulator.)

Then again, running IE also might be enough to fool the system (since IE is a Windows-based browser), and the protection only looks at the browser, and not what operating system you're running. Just try them both. If running IE from Wine doesn't work, I'm *almost* certain running Windows through VirtualBox will.

EDIT: A quick Google search got me these two links. Apparently, the error message "Couldn't load XPCOM" points to a missing environment variable called LD_LIBRARY_PATH. Unfortunately, I don't know where to put this (I'm a Ubuntu noob - perhaps someone else might be kind enough to tell you), but this is the line you need to add to some file.

SOURCE: http://discovolante.altervista.org/e...ad-xpcomq.html

And should you decide to reinstall the desktop app, here's something else you might want to check out:

http://www.howtogeek.com/130372/how-...x-desktop-app/

$LD_LIBRARY_PATH is a wheeze to pass some libary directory to the system. It roughly translates into English as "Look THERE, you fool". You put it on the command line, e.g.

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/somewhere/lib wine some_program, or you can store it. In bash,
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=<blah>

There are several solutions on offer for different ways xpcom becomes unstuck. One is to make sure the last version was completely uninstalled. xpcom is some cross platform glue to make the same mozilla rendering engine run on different platforms, afaict.

To Champion and business_kid hey;

I would like to try and install the Netflix App but before I try that i was wondering if I should go ahead and install "export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH;" in the bashrc file. If I do this should I add anything to it to render it more or less permanent? Also I searched a couple places to see if the XPCOM was anywhere and from a search using the terminal this came up among several others but it was the only one that was related to Firefox.
"/home/bill48/.wine-browser/drive_c/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/xpcom.dll"
I also did another search this time of the File system and this showed up:
"/usr/lib/firefox/libxpcom.so"
When I attempted to open it this popped up:
"Could not display 'usr/lib/firefox/libxpcom.so' Then there followed :
'There is no application installed for shared files. Do you want to search for an application to open this file?
There was the obligatory No or Yes. I clicked 'No'" .

I have an XPCOM with a .so suffix (is that the right word?) as well as a XPCOM with a .dll suffix. By the way what does .so signify? Do either of you know what they mean or what they do or is there a way to set thignms right to where I am able to use Netflix on my Ubuntu?

If the export command works, you can add the directory to /etc/ld.so.conf. That makes it system wide, which may be a good idea or may not be. .so is a linux lib; .dll is a windows type lib.

As long as you know Netflix have gone to lengths to exclude linux systems you are welcome to spend your time as you wish. You might crack it, and you might learn from and enjoy the effort.

The funny thing is that I had Netflix working fine up until Firefox was updated to 19.02 and that was when the 'Couldn't load XPCOM' started to pop up.

When I installed the Netflix App. I used a PPA command don't recall it off hand but since then it shows up in the Software Center and the Synaptic Manager. In both spots it (Netflix) shows up even though it's suppose to be completely removed. Is there any way to remove even those icons? I am thinking that perhaps I got a bad PPA and if I try to install it again usign that package which may or may not be corroupted then I am back where I began?

I may post a question to the two who thought up this way to watch Netflix on Linux and perhaps they'll have an answer because I don't think I am the only one this happened to?

I also believe I will use the export command and put it in; /etc/ld.so.conf. I don't have anythign to lose if it does not work and who knows??

Thanks for your trying to help it is appreciated.

I tried to do all of the above, even completely remove and reinstall netflix-desktop from the ppa.
More digging found this: www dot iheartubuntu dot com slash 2012 slash 11 slash ppa-for-netflix-desktop-app dot html
(sorry for the flakey url... did not want to do the rest of the member stuff, if you need to see my source you can figure it out)
and doing this:

Now remove the old Netflix Desktop profile:
rm -Rf ~/.wine-browser

Start up the Netflix Desktop App and you should be good to go!

Started netflix and it resetup everything including downloading some files. Now it works a treat!

I usually do not join forums, but I believe it always helps to help someone else and pay it forward.

I would like to let eveyone know that I can now get Netflix through Ubuntu on my Pc.Before arrving at this I went through several attempts and failing with each one. Then while watching yet another video on 'YouTube' This one happened to be a video of an article by a Jack Wallen. All I did was to follow what he wrote in the article he wrote for the 'Techrepublic.com' Here is the URL:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/lin...n-ubuntu-1210/
There were steps in his method which the others left out in their methods for getting netflix to work. These being to do an update and a upgrade before while still in the terminal:
Issue the command:*sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio followed by sudo apt-get update adn then sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop.
The others failed to do a update an upgrade and their method may have worked for them but not for me.
Oh yes, while netflix was 'loading', I guess thats the right word, it asked me to install 'Wine Mono Installer' then I am asked to install the 'Wine Gecko Installer'
From then on it is smooth sailing, at least so far.
Again a thanks to all who made a gallant effort to help me with my Netflix problem.
herakles_14