Curious. Something must be different in the configurations. I was surprised to see the behavior in the Web GUI where it tried to contact fonts.googleapis.com. Perhaps in the Chrome situation, there's something else somewhere that wants something from the Internet, but works if whatever it wants happens to be still cached locally. Maybe I'll get a Chrome stick to try. Of course at any point some software update may change what works and what doesn't. Or maybe a "stick" cobbled together using a Raspberry Pi and software to use DLNA, VLC, etc. to play local content on the LAN out to the HDMI port.
Does anyone know if there is a list anywhere of Channels functions (on server and apps/clients) that indicates what does, and does not, require Internet access?