Netflix experienced a brief disruption for some users on Wednesday evening as the series finale of «Stranger Things» was released. It marked the second technical issue linked to the show’s final season, following problems during the Season 5 premiere in late November.
The streaming service went down at about 5 pm PT, matching the scheduled release time of the finale. The outage lasted roughly a minute and was resolved after users refreshed the platform. Those affected saw an error screen featuring an image from «Nailed It!» with a message apologising for the problem and directing viewers back to the home page.
A similar incident occurred on November 26, when Netflix was unavailable for around five minutes as the first four episodes of Season 5 dropped. The platform also faced technical difficulties in July 2022 during the release of the final episodes of Season 4.
The streamer avoided problems during the Christmas Day release of the second batch of Season 5 episodes. Those episodes delivered Netflix’s highest-ever Christmas Day viewership. Season 5 became the most-watched title worldwide during that period, driven by three new episodes.
Between December 22 and 28, the final season recorded 34.5 mln views. That was its second-strongest weekly performance, behind its debut week in November, which drew 59.6 mln views and set a Netflix record for the biggest opening week for an English-language series.
The finale is also being shown in selected cinemas on New Year’s Eve. Co-creator Ross Duffer said 1.1 mln people have RSVP’d for theatrical screenings, with 3,500 showings sold out across 620 theatres.
