I can get onto All 4 with no issues, but for the last 48 hours whenever I’ve tried to play something on iPlayer I get blocked.
I managed to make it work briefly last night by totally restarting my laptop, then connecting through the VPN (scrolling about halfway down the server list instead of using whatever default choice the app tends to pick); then clearing all cookies, history, site settings, etc from my browser, before signing into iPlayer. Only after that was I able to play the video.
This evening I repeated the process - but it doesn’t work. A locator site indicated my IP address to be in Glasgow, but iPlayer insists that I am outside the UK.
I tried to contact support, but couldn’t get through.
Look, I’m just trying to watch the old 80s TV series about Oppenheimer that BBC made available on iPlayer last week. It’s not sport or anything that I assume will be available on streaming services outside the UK in the future. I can’t find it on any torrenting sites, either.
Can anyone illuminate this situation? Is BBC cracking down on NordVPN servers in the UK?
Last I tried it about one month back and it worked. Tried it again today, and no matter what I do it’s not working.
Cleared cache/cookies, used normal UK servers and then obfuscated UK servers, tried incognito mode on Chrome(main browser), tried a different browser and still the same. And no luck
Have not tried to reboot the machine as yet though. Will give that a shot. If it still doesn’t work, then maybe I’ll try messaging nord and see what they say and if they can help. Maybe you can try that too - I know I did that a long while back & they did help out.
It sucks, because one of the main reasons I stuck with Nord was because of iplayer working seamlessly.
I contacted their support about an hour ago, but couldn’t go through with the DNS tests to troubleshoot because I’m in North America, it’s afternoon here, and I was still working.
I’ve had this happen a few times in the past couple of years, but usually was still able to get through by picking one of the lesser-used servers (like you, that’s the reason why I use Nord, because the sheer number of servers usually guaranteed that there were too many IP addresses for BBC to block). That didn’t work this time.
One of the things I’ve noticed, however, about these incidents is that they tend to happen during major sporting events - after all, I suspect that about 99.999% of VPN users have it to watch sport (I plead guilty to that on occasion myself). With the World Cup going on in Aus/NZ this week, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the reason why this is happening.
I’d be interested to know if you can get it to work after rebooting the machine. It works for me if I start up the VPN immediately after rebooting, before I open the browser (I still clear out the cookies, etc before trying to access iPlayer). I usually use Chrome myself, and tick the site settings box in the “Clear browsing data” dialogue as well as the cache and cookies.
If you have the time, I’d appreciate it if you could provide a follow-up here on what the support guys tell you.
I have a preset for Manchester that used to be my regular UK “go-to”, but over the last few months the servers there have tended to be overloaded.
Lately I deliberately choose Glasgow or Edinburgh. Even then, I rarely just take the default server assigned, but scroll through the server list and choose one further down that’s still located in the desired location.
This month I’ve usually avoided Edinburgh because those servers are getting more traffic than usual because of the festival.
As I mentioned in the post, I don’t just go with the default “UK” server, I deliberately choose one outside of London.
I’ve been using NordVPN for years. In the past, when iPlayer has blocked me, it has usually been on whatever default server the VPN has assigned - that’s why I deliberately choose one further down the list, in hopes that I’m picking one that isn’t used as often. I can’t believe that BBC could have managed to flag all of NordVPN’s servers.
