Update: The Netflix website has been up for a while now, and HackingNetflix went down earlier in an unrelated power outage in the Bay Area.
Update: Netflix has removed an estimated time that the site will be back online, and the total time the Netflix website has been offline is now more than 18 hours.
Netflix spokesperson Steve Swasey on why the Netflix website has been offline for more than 12 hours: "It's an unanticipated outage that we've been working on through the night."
I spoke with a customer service representative who confirmed that movies are shipping today.
I mailed (3) DVDs to local post office which is about 3 miles away from distribution center on Saturday (7/21/2007) morning. These returns have not shown up on my account yet. Nor has anything else been shipped (as of last visible info on Monday, 7/23/2007). Here it is almost 1:30pm EDT on Tuesday, 7/24/2007 and no info....no DVDs in today's mail.
Methinks there is a *lot* more going on than is being acknowledged. :(
Posted by: katie | July 24, 2007 at 01:23 PM
If it is daylight and the site is down, you can guarantee that it is an "unanticipated outage" and some I/T folks are sweating bullets to get it fixed. BTDT.
Posted by: Hunter McDaniel | July 24, 2007 at 01:30 PM
New estimate is 4pm (eastern). I sold my shares.
Posted by: rhoadarmer | July 24, 2007 at 01:36 PM
Edward R Murrow, From the post above, astounding, Cashing out now? Oh God, how will that look, just compounding the problem? First new subs are low then low stock price, forcing a price reduction, apparently causing the site to be down for 12 plus hours and now this. The ceo selling off shares? It must have been automatic, and bad timing. No CEO in his right mind would use an option now. Customers are already selling off their shares.. See claim in Netflix Website Down Until 2pm (ET) - Update
Nero fiddles while Rome burns:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070724/netflix_ceo_insider_transactions.html?.v=1
Posted by: opportunitycost | July 24, 2007 at 01:51 PM
@opportunitycost,
Didn't you just copy-&-paste that reply from another thread? It makes not since here as Edward R Murrow has not even replied to this thread!!!
However this one is more interesting about the outage:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/19932233
One part I noticed:
"Netflix ended June with 6.74 million subscribers, a decrease of 55,000 customers from April. It marked the first time Netflix's total subscribers have declined from one quarter to the next since the service began renting DVDs through its Web site in 1999."
Posted by: BoB | July 24, 2007 at 02:19 PM
Oops, Sorry I should have sited Murrow from the Thread "Netflix Website Down Until 2pm (ET)" That was the start of the problem.
Do you think I bought "Beta" again, after all beta was a much better format than VHS. I have been a netflix customer for 6 months now and I just checked out the bb website. But I don't want to change horses just yet.
Posted by: opportunitycost | July 24, 2007 at 02:28 PM
Gawd, I hope Netflix isn't out for good. Well, at least I'm supposed to be getting 3 DVDs today. Not sure what'll happen to them if they are out permanently.
I work in IT, and yes, you do sweat bullets when this type of stuff happens. Especially when it's your companie's livelihood. It's not "just a web site."
For it to be down this long does not bode well for their practices, however. Even if it was total chaos, they should have had a disaster recovery site they could fail over to. It costs millions, but what is the cost of DR if your business fails due to an outage?
Posted by: MacAndQueso | July 24, 2007 at 02:28 PM
I've been a Netflix customer for many years and never saw its site down for that long....
Posted by: Veruska | July 24, 2007 at 02:39 PM
Well, once they are back up, I am clearing my Queue and I am going over to BB. I have been hearing good things about Blockbuster recently. Don't get me wrong, its not JUST because of this outage that they refuse to comment on. But it's also due to past poor customer support, poor shipment times, getting wrong DVD's in correct envelopes, the list just goes on. I live less than 30 miles from my Distro center and it takes 2-3 days for my shipment to reach me. Go figure.
Posted by: RastaMan | July 24, 2007 at 02:42 PM
Don't call CS - you'll wait forever only to learn that it's "business as usual??" Not sure what that means, but BB is looking awfully tempting about now. And why can't I email them anymore? That's crazy!
Posted by: moviejunkie | July 24, 2007 at 02:47 PM
I am going through withdrawal...
Posted by: eviltimes | July 24, 2007 at 02:58 PM
Is their ability to send and receive movies also down??? I sent back two movies yesterday and am generally a next day point. As of 2 pm central time, no e-mail indicating they received either of them.
Posted by: SeaPrincess | July 24, 2007 at 02:59 PM
I never had a problem. I would not switch to BB because NF offers a huge collection which includes lots of foreign and independent movies... let's wait to see what is going on ...
Posted by: Veruska | July 24, 2007 at 03:00 PM
Why so much ugliness, People? Having put out a suggestion box ('community blog') a while ago they're obviously just trying to implement some of the changes that were requested, and making sure they all work properly before bringing them on line. Because we all know how much hell they'll catch if, God forbid, someone's 'platform' isn't properly supported! No, I don't work for Netflix, I just think that, $ for $, they tend to provide better service than most companies I do business with, so find this torrent of Schadenfreude rather undeserved.
Posted by: Pete W. | July 24, 2007 at 03:01 PM
Customer service claims DVDs ARE shipping today.
Posted by: rhoadarmer | July 24, 2007 at 03:02 PM
@opportunitycost,
oh okay.
BTW, I just dropped BBO after a 2 month trial. While they may be good for some, they were not for me. I had 3 broken discs in a 1 week period. None of my picks were available locally in-store. All of my 3 stores are franchised so no love from them. My DC is 3 days away so turnarounds sucked.
The NF site has been updated again. Same time listed but they have added the CS phone number. :)
The Netflix web site is temporarily unavailable.
It is anticipated that the site will be available again at 1:00 PM Pacific time.
We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.
Please visit us again soon.
You can contact Netflix Customer Service at 1-888-638-3549.
Posted by: BoB | July 24, 2007 at 03:20 PM
What's wrong with you people? Some of you sound worse than 2nd graders! If you can't get instant gratification, you're leaving??? That's pretty fickle if you ask me, and it's apparent that Netflix doesn't want or need that kind of fickle business.
Their site is down, something is obviously wrong. They will fix it, have it back up, and life will go on.
Posted by: Lamarr Wilson | July 24, 2007 at 03:40 PM
It is funny how fast people jump ship from a little hiccup. Netflix has been nothing but good for me. Fast turn around times, usually ship on monday and have new movie on Wednesday. Blockbuster was the exact opposite, usually took 5 days to mail and get a movie back.
This is the first time the have lost more customers than they have gained, that isn't a trend. They will be back up before you know it.
Posted by: gck105 | July 24, 2007 at 03:45 PM
Now the estimate 7pm (eastern). That's 23 hrs and counting.
Posted by: rhoadarmer | July 24, 2007 at 03:47 PM
Well, movies are still shipping as of yesterday. Though they were delayed for a day (the first time in 3 years). I mailed them on Friday morning and received e-mails of receipt and shipment yesterday afternoon (usually, that would have happened on Saturday). Just checked the mail and here are my Planet Earth DVD's. If something "bad" was going to happen, I really don't think that I would be getting my DVD's.
So they had a system crash. Sounds to me like some IT manager needs to be fired for not having a hot site ready (at least more than - We're unavailable, come back later) and not having tested some system integration fully. Assuming this is the case, I admire Netflix for not publicly hanging their IT department out to dry.
What would it look like if they came out in a press release and said something like, "We're sorry for the interruption. Joe IT Manager didn't do his/her job and now our customers are suffering." It doesn't solve any problems nor instill any confidence in upper management by the employees.
Since so many are getting spooked and selling their stock, methinks now is a good time to look at buying some :)
Posted by: Highroller152 | July 24, 2007 at 04:03 PM
I still have no e-mails about them receiving or sending DVD's. I'm really only frustrated because I saw a movie at Best Buy last night I wanted to watch and went home to add it to the top of my queue. Oh well. I do hope they got mine and are sending some out today.
I do wish they'd quit just adding two hours to their estimate every time the time rolls around. I'd be better with them being up front and saying they were going to be offline until Wednesday than checking back every two hours to see if it will be another two hours.
Overall, I'm still happy with Netflix and don't tend to leave, but I wish they would share more information on the outage.
Posted by: SeaPrincess | July 24, 2007 at 04:09 PM
I am a NetFlix fan, they do so many things right, that I have to comment on this unfortunate circumstance: They need to give themselves a LARGE window to fix the problem and then deliver service earlier than the deadline, surprising their customers happily, instead of pushing the deadline 3-4 hours every, uh, 3-4 hours, and disappointing their customers (all together now) every 3-4 hours. That is just basic salesmanship/marketing, something that is escaping NetFlix durg this "crisis".
Posted by: ffolkesfan | July 24, 2007 at 04:10 PM
Looks like they read you SeaPrincess. They just gave up on moving the times and just say, "The Netflix web site is temporarily unavailable.
We apologize for any inconvenience this causes you.
Please visit us again soon.
You can contact Netflix Customer Service at 1-888-638-3549."
Posted by: Highroller152 | July 24, 2007 at 04:15 PM
I doubt it was me they heard. :) But yay for that. That was the biggest thing driving me bonkers since last night. To come back every couple hours and see it had been moved out another couple of hours. I know you can never anticipate how long it will take to fix.... but after so long it felt like they were being deceitful.
Posted by: SeaPrincess | July 24, 2007 at 04:19 PM
I have no plans to leave Netflix (I'm too addicted!), but I checked out BBO's free trial out of curiousity with all this talk of it. Maybe I'm just not a fan of change, but the interface seems pretty crummy and the closest store that participates is 1.4 miles away. That doesn't sound like much, but I live in a big city and don't own a car. So it'd be much more convenient if any of the BlockBusters within a mile of me actually participated. I'll be cancelling at the end of this free trial!
Posted by: Brian W. | July 24, 2007 at 04:29 PM
Dang. Their servers must be SCREWED! This is the second time the site as been down since I joined last year; the first being two days ago. I'm not going to switch because of something dumb like this. Netflix is so much more convenient then Blockbuster.
Posted by: Richie | July 24, 2007 at 04:32 PM
If movies are still being shipped, are e-mails being sent out or is that down as well? Has anyone received e-mail confirmation about them receiving or sending a DVD since the site went down?
Posted by: SeaPrincess | July 24, 2007 at 04:35 PM
I think it is more than a website problem.
I returned five DVDs on Friday. Since the shipment center is only an hour away, and normally received the next day, I figured they should have them Monday morning. (Unlike someone above, my local center doesn't ship or receive on Saturday).
Yesterday, none of them were processed as being returned. And then that night, the site goes down. It is almost 24 hours now.
I'm not about to switch though. I still love Netflix.
Posted by: Moviezzz | July 24, 2007 at 04:39 PM
Thank you Lamarr Wilson.
Seriously people, you are acting like little children already. I am sure you have seen other websites go down because of some problems. Get over it! If you ask me, it's pretty sad that you revolve around your movies and one movie comes a day later, all hell breaks loose. Big whoop is the website is down, it'll go back up! You'll get your movies, so really...just knock it off.
Posted by: xoxo | July 24, 2007 at 04:43 PM
"If movies are still being shipped, are e-mails being sent out or is that down as well? Has anyone received e-mail confirmation about them receiving or sending a DVD since the site went down?"
Interesting question. As this has no affect on the USPS, discs should be picked up and delivered as usual.
The questions is; Does this also affect the system that NF employees use to scan and interact the disc status with the customer database? If discs cannot be scanned or cross-referenced, then discs cannot be re-allocated and sent back out!
Posted by: BoB | July 24, 2007 at 04:46 PM
That was basically what I was getting at BoB. :)
Anyway, I still have no e-mails, but since the site came up it is showing that they did ship out two new movies for me today. So something was at least up with their ability to e-mail. I wonder if they just have a backup manual method for processing DVD's. I assume it's all automated together in normal operations.
Man, I'd sure love to get a tour of a distribution center! I've always been curious about the process. :)
Posted by: SeaPrincess | July 24, 2007 at 10:18 PM
with all the site outages today (including hackingnetflix), I'd say the internet gremlins have been working overtime.
Posted by: | July 24, 2007 at 11:39 PM
whew! just read all the comments on the server problems. Geez, guys, everybody has tech problems. BB has a shi**y selection compared to the rich and diverse inventory available on NF.
Since 20% of the population controls 80% of the wealth, who cares about their quarterly earnings. NF rocks! Wallstreet is fickle, it is an up and down world. While the business model is based on "instant gratification,"business success is being able to go the distance, and NF has already proven themselves. They survived the first dot com fallout. In fact, how many people really know NF is ten years old?
Posted by: macmama | July 25, 2007 at 01:43 AM
You know, when both Netflix and Hacking Netflix were down, I really had some bad wierdness craziness stuff going on...
Conspiracy theories abound..
Posted by: eviltimes | July 25, 2007 at 03:52 AM
Geez, I started reading these comments and one would have thought that they had dropped into a script reading of Chicken Little Part Two. It's amazing how quickly people tend to forget that just a few months ago the Blockbuster site was so screwed up at times, you couldn't hardly make any changes in your queue.
Yeah, sell your Netlflix stocks, buy some BB stock. After all, Blockbuster has been making money hands over fist lately haven't they? Go ahead and show your confidence in them. That's what I thought, and as long as BB is forced to keep their Total Access prices down, they will continue to lose money.
Posted by: eazyguy52 | July 25, 2007 at 03:52 AM
Hmmm. The site comes back up and the comments stop. I guess people really do live in the moment.
At this point I'm not so much interested in what caused the outage as what they're going to do to make sure it doesn't happen again. Heck, with current load balancing technologies, even short outages for scheduled maintenance shouldn't really be necessary. True, 24x7 up-time isn't so crucial for DVD browsing and queue management, but WatchNow is a different story.
Posted by: gir | July 25, 2007 at 10:39 AM
...and also for those people saying "I just returned my movies and they have not been received so something must be up," I returned 4 movies over the weekend and Monday, and on Monday and Tuesday I had 4 new releases sent to me.
No complaints here! :D
Posted by: steve | July 25, 2007 at 11:17 AM
Do you think perhaps the outage might be related to this...
http://valleywag.com/tech/breakdowns/a-drunk-employee-kills-all-of-the-websites-you-care-about-282021.php
Posted by: G | July 25, 2007 at 12:03 PM
"Hmmm. The site comes back up and the comments stop. I guess people really do live in the moment."
No, HackingNetflix would not let me post without telling me I needed an account, yet I was logged in!!! So I was unable to post!!!
BTW, I still don't have the drag-n-drop queue on my main profile yet an un-used profile has had it for over a week now!!!
Posted by: BoB | July 25, 2007 at 04:56 PM