Los Angeles: Netflix experienced a widespread outage across the United States on Wednesday evening, leaving millions of subscribers unable to stream just as the highly anticipated fifth and final season of Stranger Things launched globally at 3:00 AM ET (12:00 AM PT).
The disruption, which lasted approximately one hour from 3:15 AM to 4:20 AM ET, affected users on smart TVs, mobile devices, gaming consoles, and web browsers. Thousands reported errors including “Netflix is not available” and endless buffering on DownDetector and social media.
“Worst timing imaginable,” one user posted on X. “The Upside Down opened and took Netflix with it.”
Netflix acknowledged the issue on its official status page, citing “a technical issue during a high-traffic event.” Service was fully restored by 4:25 AM ET. The platform has not confirmed if the surge in concurrent viewers attempting to watch Stranger Things triggered the crash. No data breach was reported.