Disney is speaking out after subscribers attempting to access Disney+ on launch day experienced technical difficulties. In a statement shared on Twitter hours after reports of issues first arose, the company suggested that the issues were partially due to the number of people accessing the service at once.
“The consumer demand for Disney+ has exceeded our high expectations,” the statement reads. “We are so pleased you’re excited to watch all your favorites and are working quickly to resolve any current issues. We appreciate your patience.”
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As Disney+ launched during the early morning hours of Tuesday, Nov. 12, thousands of reports began flooding DownDetector.com, with the site registering nearly 7,500 reports as of 7 a.m. ET of problems with the service had been made affecting those in the United States, parts of Canada, and the Netherlands.
Of those reports, 35 percent were related to log-in issues and an additional 64 percent were related to video streaming issues. Some attempting to access the streamer were met with an error icon showing Mickey Mouse and his dog, Pluto, in space outfits. Others were greeted with the so-called “wheel of death.” Many were eventually forced to exit the platform altogether.
Those who were lucky enough to access the expansive catalogue of titles were instead met with issues such as certain titles, such as under the Star Wars category, being unavailable. An error page would appear reading, “Sorry something went wrong. Please try again later.”
Titles that were available and not met with an error message had trouble loading.
“Was so excited for this today. Signed up 4 days ago. The menu finally loads but can’t watch any shows. Just says error,” one person wrote. “My internet speeds are really high too so it’s not on my end.”
“Logged in and created profiles just fine from PC. But when I go to view, for example, Star Wars items, I get past the first screen, and when I want to actually click on a show/series to view more info/play, it just gives me the wheel of death,” another reported. “I was able to play Avatar (movie) as a test. I then tried to view series and I got a “Sorry something went wrong. Try again later.” error message.”
The issues came despite a test pilot of Disney+ in The Netherlands prior to the official launch. According to Kevin Mayer, chairman of Disney’s direct-to-consumer streaming business, who spoke to The Verge, Disney had “wanted to have a sufficient number of users so that we could see how the app performed, what technology glitches might exist.”
At this time, reports of technical difficulties related to Disney+ have dropped significantly, though DownDetector.com still shows that several thousand are still encountering issues.
