Cord Cutters

[Russ Smith]

Give another VPN a try. Norton is a big player and their servers are known. MGM+ is probably blocking you based on that alone. I had that issue when using PIA with the MLB's streaming to get around blackout rules. Give AdGuard VPN a shot. I've had the best luck with them for getting around geo fencing. If the trial works, hit me up before subscribing. I have a couple deals I can send you.

Won't that slow down the laptop even more than Norton does? Can you have someone else's VPN running at the same time Norton is running?

I can tell certain sites can clearly see where I am despite the VPN because things are suddenly in Filipino not English, or targeted ads are for here instead of the US.

The other wish is I wish I could tell Norton to have me located not just in the US, but in Arizona, so any games on CBS are then the default local game on Paramount Plus. I tried to do that yesterday but it doesn't let you pick where in the US the IP address is. For now I'm going to stick with dropping MGM+ i figure I can binge watch From when we we get back and save the monthly fee while here.

I had intended to use DAZN to watch the Cards here it's about 30 a month but power and internet has been so unreliable I'm hesitant to pay until I resolve that. I found someone who sells a small UPS which would power the tv, the wifi router and the sound bar but they want like 3 times as much for it as a small "jackery" would cost so I'm waiting on that. Once I get that I may revisit DAZN.

 

[Devilmaycare]

Won't that slow down the laptop even more than Norton does? Can you have someone else's VPN running at the same time Norton is running?

I can tell certain sites can clearly see where I am despite the VPN because things are suddenly in Filipino not English, or targeted ads are for here instead of the US.

The other wish is I wish I could tell Norton to have me located not just in the US, but in Arizona, so any games on CBS are then the default local game on Paramount Plus. I tried to do that yesterday but it doesn't let you pick where in the US the IP address is. For now I'm going to stick with dropping MGM+ i figure I can binge watch From when we we get back and save the monthly fee while here.

I had intended to use DAZN to watch the Cards here it's about 30 a month but power and internet has been so unreliable I'm hesitant to pay until I resolve that. I found someone who sells a small UPS which would power the tv, the wifi router and the sound bar but they want like 3 times as much for it as a small "jackery" would cost so I'm waiting on that. Once I get that I may revisit DAZN.

You'd run the other VPN in place of Norton instead of on top of it. I'd also check out your Norton install. It sounds like it's leaking which is very bad. Something is giving you away.

As for AZ vs US, does Norton not let you pick at that granularity? I've never used them but the VPNs I've had have all let me pick different cities in the US. I have Private Internet Access (PIA) and AdGuard VPN accounts right now and these are screenshots from each of them. Those are scrollable lists and there are a lot more options than what's shown.

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[Russ Smith]

You'd run the other VPN in place of Norton instead of on top of it. I'd also check out your Norton install. It sounds like it's leaking which is very bad. Something is giving you away.

As for AZ vs US, does Norton not let you pick at that granularity? I've never used them but the VPNs I've had have all let me pick different cities in the US. I have Private Internet Access (PIA) and AdGuard VPN accounts right now and these are screenshots from each of them. Those are scrollable lists and there are a lot more options than what's shown.

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No Norton only lets me pick the country or geographic region not the state.


I am suspicious that sometimes the VPN doesn't come on right away and that alone is long enough to tip off people where I am before the VPN takes over.

This is all I get. I get a list of countries from the dropdown where that arrow on the right is but not states. I can live with it so far I've been able to find feeds. The power is a much bigger issue there's a Typhoon in Luzon right now it was just absolutely pouring here, we already had one outage today we've had at least 2 a day since I got here Wed

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[Devilmaycare]

No Norton only lets me pick the country or geographic region not the state.


I am suspicious that sometimes the VPN doesn't come on right away and that alone is long enough to tip off people where I am before the VPN takes over.

This is all I get. I get a list of countries from the dropdown where that arrow on the right is but not states. I can live with it so far I've been able to find feeds. The power is a much bigger issue there's a Typhoon in Luzon right now it was just absolutely pouring here, we already had one outage today we've had at least 2 a day since I got here Wed

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I'd seriously look at switching VPNs. The VPN not coming on right away is a very bad sign. I wouldn't trust norton, for anything, never mind a VPN. Here's a deal for $15 for a year of AdGuard VPN. Use "TAKE20" for another 20% off, that code should still be working. For $12 it's worth trying an alternative that I haven't seen those issues on.

 

[Russ Smith]

I'd seriously look at switching VPNs. The VPN not coming on right away is a very bad sign. I wouldn't trust norton, for anything, never mind a VPN. Here's a deal for $15 for a year of AdGuard VPN. Use "TAKE20" for another 20% off, that code should still be working. For $12 it's worth trying an alternative that I haven't seen those issues on.

I finally got that installed and running, took awhile the installer kept failing but I think it was wifi where i was the installer download was getting corrupted.

The only bad news is I still can't get MGM+, I get a 403 error now. Before it said wasn't available where I was, now I just get the 403 error. I tried switching the DNS servers to see if that solved it but no luck,. So I think MGM must just have some unique setup that's really good at figuring out where you are?

It definitely works better than the Norton VPN did, in Dumaguete City in our hotel no matter what i did I could not get the VPN to come on with my laptop, just kept going off.

 

[Devilmaycare]

Hmm, a 403 means that you're not allowed to view it. I wonder if it could be the DNS server. I believe that by default it uses their DNS server that's ad blocking. Normally, that's a great option but for viewing MGM+ it might be blocking a resource. Try going into the VPN app settings. Scroll down to the DNS servers section and go into it. Try switching to AdGuard DNS non-filtering first and see if that fixes it for you. If it doesn't try Google DNS next. If neither of those work, I would switch back to the default to get the ad blocking.

 

[Devilmaycare]

Hmm, a 403 means that you're not allowed to view it. I wonder if it could be the DNS server. I believe that by default it uses their DNS server that's ad blocking. Normally, that's a great option but for viewing MGM+ it might be blocking a resource. Try going into the VPN app settings. Scroll down to the DNS servers section and go into it. Try switching to AdGuard DNS non-filtering first and see if that fixes it for you. If it doesn't try Google DNS next. If neither of those work, I would switch back to the default to get the ad blocking.

BTW, this was just a long shot muse in case something in the ad blocking is causing a false positive and blocking it. I get that every once in a while with my set up. I run my own ad blocking DNS though so I can whitelist as I need to. The problems most likely due to the server being known though. It sounds like you were already guessing at that by trying the other servers. Sometimes a different server will work to get around it. It's a bit of cat mouse, though.

One other thing, did you reset the app/device after each change? You want to do at a minimum is force quit and reopen the app between tries. If you're on a computer, I'll tell you to reset the DNS cache also but that's not something you can really do on the TV. I think you said you were using a fire stick I would maybe reboot the fire stick between each try just to clear out as much as you can.

 

[Yuma]

BTW, this was just a long shot muse in case something in the ad blocking is causing a false positive and blocking it. I get that every once in a while with my set up. I run my own ad blocking DNS though so I can whitelist as I need to. The problems most likely due to the server being known though. It sounds like you were already guessing at that by trying the other servers. Sometimes a different server will work to get around it. It's a bit of cat mouse, though.

One other thing, did you reset the app/device after each change? You want to do at a minimum is force quit and reopen the app between tries. If you're on a computer, I'll tell you to reset the DNS cache also but that's not something you can really do on the TV. I think you said you were using a fire stick I would maybe reboot the fire stick between each try just to clear out as much as you can.

You can reset the fire stick, which keeps your settings, but forces the memory to free up. We have to do that every so often because the apps don't always close when you close them. Some continue to run in the background.

You go the icon of a person on the far right of the screen that has the gear attached to it. Scroll down to My Fire TV, and click on that. then scroll down to Restart, Then you have to scroll off Cancel to the left onto Restart. It will power off eventually, and then restart with the memory cleared out.