Updated on 7-31-2016 by Lulu Chang: Around 11:30 p.m. ET Saturday, Netflix service appeared to be restored for most users, though some still reported problems.
Netflix went down on Saturday.
Proving just how easy it is to throw much of the human race into a total and complete tailspin, the internet collectively freaked out over its inability to access the video streaming service. Because seriously, what else are we supposed to do on a Saturday night? Go out? Please.
During prime binge-watching hours, Netflix suddenly went black, greeting hordes of dismayed television fans everywhere with a message that read suggested that they were “having technical difficulties,” or “unable to process your request.” Neither one of these explanations, of course, have been sufficient to quell the growing complaints from Netflix users.
The issues appeared to be localized to Netflix users using the web player — Apple TV customers seem unaffected by this travesty. But it’s an international issue — Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Switzerland, and New Zealand are all experiencing problems, as per Twitter. And Down Detector suggests that Argentina, Brazil, Norway, New Caledonia, and Nicaragua are also having problems.
In a statement issued via Twitter, the Netflix acknowledged, “We are aware that some customers are seeing errors when visiting Netflix’s website and we are working to solve this as quickly as possible.”
Netflix also tweeted, “We’ve confirmed the errors are limited to web browsers and will affect sign-ups. We’re working to fix this asap and will keep folks posted.”
And after three grueling hours, the problem was finally solved.
We're back! The issues on our website reported earlier have been fixed. We appreciate your patience and apologies for any inconvenience.
— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) July 31, 2016
To be fair, this certainly isn’t a common occurrence for Netflix. The last time an outage made headlines was back in November 2015. Of course, if this did happen any more frequently, we’d probably be dealing with a lot more distressed and disheveled denizens of the internet.
