The long-awaited launch day for the streaming service Disney+ had more than its share of technical difficulties on Tuesday, forcing Disney to issue an apology for the preponderance of crash notifications users received on their television screens.
“Twitter users mentioned problems accessing the service or some of its features around 7:00 A.M. New York time, and Downdetector.com showed 6,900 reports of problems with the service around 7:30 A.M. ET and slightly more than 7,000 later before problem reports dropped off,” reports The Hollywood Reporter. “People mentioned problems signing up, logging in and streaming.”
Users also reported not being able to load Disney+ onto their smart TVs or PlayStation apps after paying for the service, with an error icon appearing of Mickey Mouse and Pluto in space outfits. The issues became such a headache that the hashtag #DisneyPlusFail began trending on Twitter.
“Disney spends months hyping the new #DisneyPlus streaming option and they didn’t bother to make sure it could handle the traffic on day one,” tweeted Josh Jordan.
Disney spends months hyping the new #DisneyPlus streaming option and they didn't bother to make sure it could handle the traffic on day one. 😂 #DisneyPlusFail pic.twitter.com/xmgJA1kxws
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) November 12, 2019
“Honestly not surprised about the #DisneyPlusfail. Even the best servers in the world can’t prepare for millions of Americans trying to stream Hannah Montana at once,” tweeted another user.
“Really Disney? Y’all didn’t plan for your servers to handle all these users?” said another dissatisfied customer.
“Day one failure! I am excited to watch the Mandalorian, paid $69.99 for the year … cannot watch the Mandalorian on my first use of the app, no idea when it will be available on my side. Complete fail on day one!” tweeted another.
“It was working perfectly fine when it was charging my debit card,” said another.
Other users noted that certain titles, such as “Star Wars,” were not loading properly even after successfully logging into the service. “Sorry something went wrong. Please try again later,” the message typically stated. Shows that did not succumb to an error message sometimes faced load times longer than 30 seconds or would crash entirely upon viewing.
In response to the frustration, Disney said that the technical difficulties were the result of “consumer demand.”
“The consumer demand for Disney+ has exceeded our high expectations. We are working to quickly resolve the current user issue. We appreciate your patience,” the company said.
Another gripe with the service centered around the new Disney version of the original “Star Wars,” which instituted a new edit to the famous Han Solo/Greedo standoff scene by now having both characters shoot their guns at the same time — further adding to the “Han Shot First” debate that has been raging since George Lucas altered the original scene in the 1997 special edition. Here’s how Collider described it:
In the version of Star Wars: A New Hope on Disney+, the infamous Han/Greedo scene has been changed. Again.
And now on Disney+, the scene has inexplicably been changed again. Now, Greedo has the last word before the gunblasts. It’s not subtitled, so it’s just alien gibberish, but it could give the impression that Greedo further goads Han into shooting, rather than Han just being smart enough to draw before this alien dude kills him.
George Lucas has always maintained that Greedo shot first and he only made the edits to clear up confusion about it.
“The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t,” Lucas said in 2012. “It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.”