“Stranger Things” fans worldwide logged Netflix delays and stalled-out starts for the first 20 minutes of Season 5’s launch on Wednesday, according to user-generated reporting tool Outage.Report.
Just as millions of fans were getting ready to re-enter the Upside Down, some hit a wall when clicking through at the 5 p.m. PT start time and were met with a banner on the screen: “Something went wrong. Sorry, we’re having trouble with your request. You’ll find lots to explore on the home page.”
Netflix confirmed the momentary outage in a statement to TheWrap one hour after it was fully resolved: “Some members briefly experienced an issue streaming on TV devices, but service recovered for all accounts within five minutes.”
According to the Outage.Report site, the Netflix outage “started at approximately 5:01 PM and ended around 5:23 PM, lasting about 22 minutes.” It noted that the “Stranger Things” launch was the only outage on Netflix since July.
Response to the blocked access to Season 5 on social media was explosive, with one fan lamenting, “Of course Netflix f–king crashed. I CANT DO THIS.”
“Waited all day in excitement just for Netflix to crash,” wrote another.
Some users were even bracing themselves for disappointment: “How we’re gonna be watching ‘Stranger Things 5’ since Netflix is most certainly gonna crash,” one prescient fan predicted on Monday, sharing a glitchy clip of “Scary Movie 2” to match.
Netflix appeared to be back up and running glitch-free at pub time, however, and “Stranger Things” fans’ social media activity pivoted off complaints and onto the content of the Season 5 drop’s first four episodes.
In TheWrap’s “Stranger Things” Season 5 Vol. 1 review, critic Bob Strauss celebrated the ’80s-set sci-fi/horror series for its shocking horrors and welcome nostalgia, calling it “finely structured storytelling” with plenty of Easter eggs.
“There’s a simplicity to ‘Stranger Things’ storylines that somehow allows rich behavioral, cultural and mythically unnerving elements to make their marks without slowing things down,” Strauss wrote. “It all gets intense as ever in Season 5. So far, anyway.”
NETFLIX HAS CRASHED I REPEAT NETFLIX HAS CRASHED pic.twitter.com/arlKSCoYpJ
— WesNemo (@WesNemo) November 27, 2025
of course netflix fucking crashed I CANT DO THIS. pic.twitter.com/lgKm0aKpCl
— ang (@IIMMUNITY) November 27, 2025
Waited all day in excitement just for Netflix to crash pic.twitter.com/obGZBtv8w5
— EGY BLEEP (@bleeproni) November 27, 2025
