Netflix crashes as ‘Stranger Things 5’ premieres

“Stranger Things” briefly pulled Netflix into the Upside Down.

The streamer crashed at 5 p.m. PT on Wednesday, just as the highly anticipated fifth season of the sci-fi series premiered.

The service was down for about three minutes and continues to have bugs for some users. Tens of thousands of people who logged on to watch the sci-fi series were met with an image from “Nailed It!” with the caption: “Something went wrong. Sorry, we’re having trouble with your request. You’ll find lots to explore on the home page.”

By 5:05 p.m., the site seemed to be up and running for most users. Variety reached out to the streamer for comment; according to a Netflix spokesperson, “Some members briefly experienced an issue streaming on TV devices, but service recovered for all accounts within five minutes.”

This isn’t the first time Netflix has been overloaded by “Stranger Things” traffic. In July 2022, Variety reported that the streamer was unavailable for a brief period as the final two episodes of Season 4 dropped. Users also experienced Netflix outages during the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight, which was one of the first live-streamed events on the platform.

“Stranger Things” returns with the first batch of episodes from its final season, more than three years after the finale of Season 4. The new episodes will find the Hawkins kids as they seek to find and kill the monstrous Vecna. The town is under military quarantine as Eleven hides from the authorities.

Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, “Stranger Things” stars Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Cara Buono, Priah Ferguson, Eduardo Franco, Brett Gelman, Dacre Montgomery, Matthew Modine, Paul Reiser, Jamie Campbell Bower, Grace Van Dien, Robert Englund, Tyner Rushing and Raphael Luce.

Source: Variety 

--Agencies