HBO Max Users Point out Irritating App Issue as 'Succession' Season 3 Premieres

By Michael Hein

A quirk in the HBO Max app impacted a surprising number of people on Sunday night during the Succession Season 3 premiere. Many fans simply clicked on the show's title card, assuming it would take them to the brand new episode. Because the app has undergone so many changes recently, however, it put some fans back at the beginning of the series.

It has been a big year for HBO Max, which launched in the fall of 2020. The app had difficulty getting a place on some of the most popular hardware on the market, including Amazon Fire TV sticks and Roku devices. At the same time, it was subject to internal changes as WarnerMedia did away with old apps like HBO Go and HBO Now, converting all of those users over to HBO Max. Apparently, the watch history and user settings did not migrate to HBO Max in many cases, so users who watched Succession Season 2 on HBO Now were suddenly starting the show from the beginning.

Obviously, this isn't a huge deal or a world-ending struggle, but it did leave many users confused — enough so to post on social media looking for some solidarity. Some even marveled at themselves for watching a few minutes of the Succession Season 1 pilot episode, thinking that it was the Season 3 premiere.

Fortunately, Succession did not come with that many flashbacks this year. The acclaimed drama is back for another round of episodes scheduled to air through December, and many users will need to update their watch history before then. Here's a look at what they had to say on Sunday.

Oblivious

Many users posted their experience of rewatching the beginning of Season 1 with no commentary, joking that they and/or the streaming service came off as oblivious.

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Longer

As users realized they were not the only ones to have this misunderstanding, some began to confess just how long they had watched the pilot before they realized something was wrong.

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Recap

In fairness, some users realized they were seeing older content, but they assumed it was a prolonged recap. Others thought it must be a flashback, though a few simply thought they were misremembering how far the series had come.

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Criticisms

Many people blamed HBO Max, not themselves for this mishap. They thought that it was reasonable to expect their watch history to have transfered from HBO Go or HBO Now.

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Relief

Others were relieved to know that at least they weren't the only ones to make this mistake.

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Parody

With the rush for recaps ahead of the premiere, some people revisited a viral video from 2019 when podcaster Ben Cahn posted a parody of Succession starring himself.

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Obsession

Finally, the most avid fans of the show noted that they couldn't have made this mistake because they have re-watched Succession Seasons 1 and 2 several times by now, and they would recognize the old episodes on sight. For the rest of us, we'll need to double-check our episode choice when Succession returns on Sunday, Oct. 24 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and HBO Max.

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