Netflix Website Down - Update
Update: Netflix spokesperson Steve Swasey on the outtage: "It's unanticipated and our engineers are working feverishly on it. We regret the inconvenience and appreciate the patience of our members."
The Netflix website has been down for several hours this morning, with the notice: "Our site is temporarily down." The site originally reported an error around 3 hours ago.
Thanks to Amy, Troy, Tedder, Griffith, Alan, John, Kyle, Brian, Ali, Jeb, Bruce, Greg, Paul and others for sending this in.
sooooo annoying. completely unacceptable if you ask me.
Posted by: brian | March 24, 2008 at 03:36 PM
It seems the "official" Netflix blog has petered out as well. There hasn't been an entry since Feb 19 and today it happily and erroneously states "Code Green: Netflix and Community are up."
Posted by: jimofoz | March 24, 2008 at 03:38 PM
Looks like a pretty big meltdown to me. All of Netflix appears to be dead in the water, NOT just their website.
If you look at the Flickr image by linux-works, you can see where the Netflix webmasters have intentionally suppressed the earlier message "not to worry, our distribution centers are still sending and receiving DVDs." That can only mean one thing... no DVDs arriving in my mail box tomorrow and massive coronaries for their IT guys today!
You can see that Flickr photo at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works/2358073969/
Posted by: Worried In Southern Maryland | March 24, 2008 at 03:47 PM
I'm surprised a site with so many users doesn't have at least a status page or a bit more description of what's going on and what's being done to fix it.
Flickr learned from this - ignoring the users and their perceived want/need really turns us all off.
They could exert a tiny amt of effort and reap such a large reward. It's a bad sign when companies start taking their customers for granted.
Posted by: moe hong | March 24, 2008 at 03:50 PM
I'd agree with Hueristix & Ed Murrow, however today's stock price is at a 4 year high and historically speaking NF has coincided 'outages' with their stock fluxuating:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=3409417
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2007/07/24/netflix-is-out-in-more-ways-than-one.aspx
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=NFLX&a=03&b=24&c=2004&d=02&e=24&f=2008&g=m
Posted by: | March 24, 2008 at 03:56 PM
"historically speaking NF has coincided 'outages' with their stock fluxuating:"
um, yeah... multiple links reporting about one instance from July 24th, 2007. you need a bit more than that to prove a conspiracy theory.
Posted by: ed murrow hates netflix | March 24, 2008 at 04:03 PM
Give me a break, people, you are being totally pathetic...yeah, so there's trouble with the servers, it'll come back up, big deal. Do you have nothing better to do than sit here and count for how many hours the site has been down?
Posted by: illyria | March 24, 2008 at 04:07 PM
I don't understand. How could an outage help stock prices, or why would Netflix want them to drop?
Posted by: lindsay | March 24, 2008 at 04:11 PM
I will assume there will be no discount applied to our accounts, either despite the malfunction.
Posted by: idogcow | March 24, 2008 at 04:27 PM
The following is quoted from CNET blog:
March 24, 2008 11:51 AM PDT
Netflix down for at least five hours
Posted by Greg Sandoval | 2 comments UPDATE 1:01 p.m.PT: To address status of customer information.
Internet movie rental company Netflix suffered a site outage beginning at 7 a.m. PDT Monday, and the company doesn't know when it will have the problem fixed, a Netflix spokesman said.
Customer service personnel told CNET News.com that they were told the site was undergoing routine maintenance when something went wrong, information they then passed on to customers. That is incorrect, according to Steve Swasey, the company's director of corporate communications. He said he couldn't discuss the causes but that it had nothing to do with site maintenance.
"Our engineers have been feverishly working on repairing the problem all morning," Swasey said. "It was an unanticipated, unplanned outage and we apologize to our customers."
Site outages are typically no big deal as any company can suffer one. But a blackout that lasts for more than an hour is rare, and one spanning several hours is rarer still.
Netflix, which has 7 million subscribers, continued to ship DVDs after the outage, but it's unclear whether the problem had affected its entire database, Swasey said. This means it's possible that customers might see some delays in receiving movies. But he added that customers needn't worry about their stored movie picks. No customer information will be lost.
This is one of the few setbacks suffered by Netflix in the past year. Since October, the company's shares have doubled in price. In midday trading, Netflix was trading at about $38.
Posted by: Filmguy | March 24, 2008 at 04:27 PM
Lindsay,
NF wouldn't want the stock price to drop, hence them taking away the option to 'cancel membership' on your NF account page by making the site unavailable today.
Posted by: jeremyfranz | March 24, 2008 at 04:31 PM
BTW, I did receive an email this morning saying that they received my disc.
Posted by: illyria | March 24, 2008 at 04:34 PM
Hey jimofoz, the netflix community moved to Ning.
http://community.netflix.com/
Posted by: eviltimes | March 24, 2008 at 04:36 PM
wow, that is some creative thinking jeremyfranz. maybe they should keep the site down all the time, then their stock would go through the roof!
Posted by: ed murrow hates netflix | March 24, 2008 at 04:36 PM
Also from Filmguy/CNET,
"This means it's possible that customers might see some delays in receiving movies"
This only works in NF's favor because they will save huge amount money by screwing people this week out of a movie. They'll millions on postage and personal handling. There's no excuse for their servers to be down this long other than it being purposeful.
Posted by: jeremyfranz | March 24, 2008 at 04:39 PM
No Eviltimes,
They're making the site unavailable and skipping a movie ship day to retain their 4 year high stock price.
Posted by: jeremyfranz | March 24, 2008 at 04:43 PM
Why does the Netflix site go down so much??
Posted by: Dan | March 24, 2008 at 04:44 PM
Just be glad these guys aren't running the government web sites. No redundancy systems in place!
Posted by: Stefan | March 24, 2008 at 04:46 PM
How am I supposed to rate "Alf - Season 1" DVD set when their site is down! GGGRRR!!!!
Posted by: Stefan | March 24, 2008 at 04:48 PM
Why does the Netflix site go down so much??
Not too familiar with Netflix huh, Dan?
Posted by: Frank | March 24, 2008 at 04:49 PM
Excellent! My virus seems to be a complete success!! Now, on to Ebay!!! Hahahaha!!!
Posted by: Snidley Whiplash | March 24, 2008 at 04:50 PM
This is so annoying. I just returned my films Friday so they were supposed to ship my new titles out today. I need a certain film for class tomorrow. I hope they're still processing films and not delaying them because of the outage.
Posted by: Britney | March 24, 2008 at 04:53 PM
I have been a customer for years and they have never been down this long.
Always had good luck with the movies and I rent alot. I only ship to Manchester, NH no matter where I get the disc from ... as it is the closest place in my state.
I am calling the 888 number tonight with speaker phone as I am sure it will be a wait once my cell phone minutes are free.
They should give us a price break for one day .... as they failed to provide service to us ... plan amount / # of days = ??? then our bill is reduced.
Posted by: 82ninja | March 24, 2008 at 04:53 PM
Nice try, Snidley Whiplash. Theres no virus.
Posted by: Pamela | March 24, 2008 at 04:55 PM
Everyone here email the investor relations pages just ask question upon question and maybe the problem will be fixed .... hahah
Watch the page work at the end of the day in the stock market ...
Posted by: 82ninja | March 24, 2008 at 04:59 PM