Netflix Watch Instantly was down for some users on Saturday night, and Thomas Hawk writes about his experience with customer support.
Having their service go out for much of last night (and a Saturday night at that) is a huge fail though. If Netflix wants people to seriously consider their service as an alternative to cable/satellite (and the market for Netflix is huge if you think about them that way), then they need to do a better job both with their main streaming service as well as their customer service when their service fails. Particularly being 20 minutes into a TV show and at a very tense point of the show, to have Netflix hang for two hours and fail (finally giving up in frustration) doesn't score any points with trying to convince the wife on why this service is better than cable/satellite service.
Yea I did. Sucked as I was in the middle of a movie. Oh well, restarted it last night from where I left off.
I suppose some grownig pains is neccessary.
Posted by: Jedi | January 14, 2009 at 07:33 AM
Yes, I was trying to start in on the old Hitchhikers Guide series and it jumped around horribly. Another movie I started worked fine though.
Interestingly, I had a problem with "The Signal" a week or so ago and couldn't get it to play. The next day I got one of those survey emails asking how the experience was. Of course I gave it the lowest score. 2 days later I tried the movie agian and it played perfectly in HD. I think they are actively monitoring usage to ferret out the problems.
Posted by: Tom | January 14, 2009 at 08:18 AM
"If Netflix wants people to seriously consider their service as an alternative to cable/satellite (and the market for Netflix is huge if you think about them that way)..."
Apples vs. Oranges for people who like other video content besides movies/tv shows.
Posted by: dAVe | January 14, 2009 at 10:35 AM
Mr. Hawk needs to get a life if he really expects anything delivered over the internet to work at 100%, 100% of the time. Even sat/cable screws up sometimes so it seem the Watch Instantly is pretty equal.
Posted by: C | January 14, 2009 at 12:55 PM
"and at a very tense point of the show,". I heard they waited until you were at that very tense point of the show to let it crash. Yep, everyone at Netflix was sitting around just waiting on you! Congrats!
YOUR NOT SPECIAL!
Posted by: sdoug | January 14, 2009 at 01:51 PM
well well so we see netflix isn't perfect just as if cable isn't. The cable goes out every now and then and so will netflix Instant Watching. Nothing is fool proof but I swear I have less isues with streaming mocies and tc shows then I do with Comcast's VOD service. So I wouldn't start knocking netflix's Instant Watching just yet. I love it myself, it's a great addition to my monthly membership.
Posted by: Christopher | January 14, 2009 at 02:01 PM
You complained about the Netflix customer service. Can you explain your complaint?
Anyone who called would have noticed that Netflix Technical Support was no longer an option....... What are your thoughts about no Technical Support?
Posted by: hebby | January 14, 2009 at 05:24 PM
One advantage WatchNow has over cable, glitch-wise. If WatchNow glitches, you can always resume the movie at a later date.
Posted by: Gir | January 14, 2009 at 06:36 PM
Reality check. Cable and especially satellite goes out.
Netflix goes out for a few hours once a year? Seems their ahead of the curve if you ask me.
Posted by: Anthony | January 15, 2009 at 12:10 AM
Watched a couple of movies Saturday night and did not experience any glitches.
Posted by: Gran | January 15, 2009 at 12:17 AM
Ever since I received the 1.5 firmware update, my streaming has been disconnected more frequently than before. And once it re-buffers, it takes forever and a day to resume.
If I get out of the movie altogether and get back in from 'resume from playing', then it's faster to re-buffer.
But the question is, why am I getting so many frequent disconnects when my internet is a solid 10 Meg down? Anyone else experiencing this?
Posted by: Tom Nguyen | January 15, 2009 at 10:43 AM
I started using my Roku box last weekend. Constant rebuffering problems, as well as streams with poor audio sync. I was able to watch using the "secret" Roku menu to go to an alternate feed, but overall it seems that there is some sort of problem. The Roku forum is full of people complaining (I know, it's a forum, there's always people complaining) that problems have arisen because of the 1.5 update of the Roku box.
Posted by: Nick | January 15, 2009 at 06:30 PM
We did have trouble saturday night as well. Good to know we weren't the only ones. My grandma is totally addicted to the Roku I got for her, and wasn't very patient about the problems.
Posted by: Isaac Church | January 16, 2009 at 05:35 PM
It's Saturday night again, Jan. 17, and Netflix Watch Now isn't working on my Samsung Blu-ray player. Hmmm. Perhaps their servers are getting overloaded?
Posted by: Nathan Alderman | January 17, 2009 at 10:03 PM
We are having the same problem.
Posted by: Eric Larson | January 17, 2009 at 10:13 PM
nice to hear that Nathan, my Samsung BD P2550 isn't working either. It freezes up trying to load the queue, forcing me to reboot.
Posted by: kellygeorge | January 17, 2009 at 10:14 PM
I am also having trouble with Watch Instantly (on a Mac). I can't get past the "checking device activation" screen. I've tried several different titles with the same result.
Posted by: krism | January 17, 2009 at 10:18 PM
I guess this makes two weekends in a row.
Its funny, because we are all having the same issue and trying to google for some confirmation, and we all end up here, on a post about last weekend.
Oh, what sad lives we lead.
Posted by: kellygeorge | January 17, 2009 at 10:21 PM
I'm down too on an Xbox 360.
Posted by: Melissa | January 17, 2009 at 10:49 PM
I watched Meet the Robinsons early in the evening (between 7:00 and 9:00 Central). I had no issues.
Posted by: Gir | January 18, 2009 at 06:13 AM
I was watching a movie-"Proud" -1/17-& paused for about 2 hrs,tried to go back & Netflix was down--thought it was about pausing a movie for so long a period, now I know most of system having pbs
Posted by: PK | January 18, 2009 at 12:27 PM
Yep, problems here too and I invited company over to watch it. That really stinks, my company was really disappointed.
Posted by: TC | January 18, 2009 at 02:20 PM
My Roku box was down too last night (Jan 17) around 10pm. I received this message: "Connection to Netflix.com lost," or something to that effect. During the afternoon, around 4pm, it was working fine. I too assume it has to do with peak demand.
Posted by: Greg_D | January 18, 2009 at 02:33 PM
Same problem here yesterday on the Tivo. Lots of other users on tivocommunity all having troubles around 10pm EST yesterday (Jan 17th).
I guess you just can't use Netflix Streaming on a Saturday night...
Posted by: John G. | January 18, 2009 at 02:45 PM
Who called Netflix support and what did they have to say?
Posted by: hebby | January 18, 2009 at 05:26 PM