The Handmaid’s Fail: Hulu Hit by Widespread Outages on Thursday

Sean Burch

Thousands of Hulu customers were unable to stream “The Handmaid’s Tale” or a classic episode of “The O.C.” on Thursday afternoon after the service went down — one day after the Disney-owned streaming service’s latest price hikes went into effect.

Hulu experienced a spike in reported issues on Downdetector.com, a website dedicated to tracking outages, on Thursday afternoon. About 26,000 people reported streaming problems between about 2 and 3 p.m. PT. Most of the reported problems appeared to stem from the West Coast, according to the site’s map.

The cause of the outage is not known, but the problem was resolved at approximately 3:36 p.m. Pacific, Hulu support said on Twitter.

Also Read: Facebook, Instagram Experience Major Outages, Force People to Go Offline on Thanksgiving

The outages come one day after Hulu’s latest fee increases hit customers on its live TV plan. Hulu now charges those customers $54.99 per month, a 22% increase from its previous $44.99 monthly fee. This was the second time Hulu had increased its subscriber fees this year.

The streaming service, when it last reported in May, had 28 million customers across its ad-supported, ad-free and live TV packages.

Also Read: Facebook and Instagram Are Down for Some Users

Hulu’s outage was one of the top trending topics on Twitter, where a few people cracked jokes about the issue:

#HuluDown? Well today’s automatic payment went through without any issues…. @hulu pic.twitter.com/sC4SYDGLF6

— Cicely C. Mitchell (@CicelyMitchell) December 19, 2019

Hulu stopped working so naturally I check Twitter to make sure I’m not alone in this ????????????‍♀️

— Ashley Sharpe (@ItsAshleySharpe) December 19, 2019

Hulu’s down and I don’t have Netflix pic.twitter.com/vlbDktZs8E

— Marilyn M (@pizzad0gg) December 19, 2019

*runs to Twitter to make sure Hulu isn’t working for everyone and not just me.

— Leah (@IamNOTleah) December 19, 2019

Read original story The Handmaid’s Fail: Hulu Hit by Widespread Outages on Thursday At TheWrap