Netflix crashes in India with Stranger Things Season 5 debut

The highly anticipated release of Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 came with a shock right at the opening, but not the one audiences were prepared for. As the first four episodes of the final season went live on Netflix in India Thursday morning at 6.30 am, the sheer, overwhelming demand for the show brought down the streaming giant briefly for a significant section of viewers.

Netflix crashes under Stranger Things 5 demand

The outage, which also coincided with thousands of outage reports across the US, lasted for about five minutes before the service began to recover. But glitches persisted for some and furious fans took to X, formerly Twitter, after being greeted with a "Nailed It!" error screen reading: "Something went wrong. Sorry we're having trouble with your request."

Despite a reported 30 percent increase in bandwidth, a precautionary measure shared by co-creator Ross Duffer, Netflix could not withstand the fan traffic. "Some members briefly experienced an issue streaming on TV devices but service recovered for all accounts within five minutes," a Netflix spokesperson told a news portal.

This isn’t the first time the Duffer Brothers’ supernatural hit brought the platform to its knees: a similar ‘OTT tragedy’ happened in July 2022 when the last two episodes of Season 4 overloaded the servers.

It will be the last season set in the fictional town of Hawkins and follow Eleven, played by Millie Bobby Brown, and the gang in one final epic showdown against Vecna, played by Jamie Campbell Bower, and the Upside Down. Volume 1 is out now and includes episodes The Crawl and Sorcerer. Episodes 5 to 7 will drop on December 26, while the highly anticipated series finale will release on January 1, 2026.

The quick recovery notwithstanding, the crash underlined the global anticipation of the final chapter of the hit series, a reminder that even a multibillion-dollar streaming company can be temporarily overwhelmed by the power of fan frenzy.

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