D23.com Site Crashes After Disney+ Crazy Cheap Deal Goes Live

Disney+ has been riding a surge of momentum ever since details began trickling out over the past year about its cost, what original content it will have and what type of packages would be offered. At some point, a slight hiccup had to come about, right?

The streaming service dealt with its first road bump as it found its sign-up form hosted on D23.com crash on Tuesday after launching a deal so sweet that none of its D23 members wanted to let it slip past. The offer was originally only good for those who attended the D23 Expo this weekend and to anyone with a D23 Gold or Gold Family members. The company decided to open it up to any of its members, meaning anyone who simply creates a D23 account for free can scoop up the promotion.

This led to quite a boost to the D23.com servers and ultimately resulted in the site going down to the dismay of many fans who had eagerly sought to take advantage of the program. There was an overwhelming spike in traffic as result of the Disney+ Founders Circle pre-sale offer.

One user remarked on Twitter, "This is great, but the site has crashed or something. Please help, trying to take advantage of this great offer, would be awesome if it could be bundled with Hulu as well."

Probably weren't prepared for millions of people to create accounts.

— Keith Storm (Alfred) (@KeithAStorm) August 27, 2019

I found a glitch and can’t access anything on the site. I hope this kind of stuff is fixed once Disney+ goes live!

— David K. (@BoSoxFn64) August 27, 2019

If anyone is questioning whether or not #DisneyPlus is going to be a success, consider that @DisneyD23 has been down for at least the last hour for people trying to gain early deals for the service.

— jared mcgrath (@JaredMcGrath) August 27, 2019

Your website keeps crashing with a "Error establishing a database connection" message. Maybe update your post for "US Only" if that's the case to get rid of the international traffic? I've been trying to sign up for this deal for HOURS. #Help

— Kenny H (@kujo_h4x) August 27, 2019

For those concerned about what this D23.com crash could mean for server stability on Disney+, have no fear. We're told that the two sites run on totally separate services, so this crash is not in any way a sign of things to come for Disney+.

Disney has actually been preparing for the streaming site's launch in November, fully understanding that a huge spike will occur on their servers. Avoiding a crash is their ultimate goal, according to Michael Paull, the president of Disney+.

In an interview with The Verge, he explained how his previous company, BamTech, which supported HBO Now and all of the hooplah that came with streaming Game of Thrones, has taught him the importance of being prepared for launches of their nature.

"We're thinking very much about [overload]," Paull said in his interview with The Verge. "Fortunately, we've had the experience with Game of Thrones, we've had the experience of ESPN+ with the big pay-per-view events that we're doing with UFC exclusively on our platform. We're getting big bursts. We've built capabilities to sustain that, both in terms of processing the transactions that all come in — in a very, very short period of time — as well as the streams."