Max Not Working? Some Users Report Log-In Errors, Crashes as HBO Max Converts to New Streaming Platform

Todd Spangler
·3 min read

UPDATED: It’s the big launch day for Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max — and the newly revamped streaming service encountered some technical problems right off the bat. The company said the issues have been “minor” and were swiftly fixed.

On Tuesday morning, subscribers took to social media to complain that they were having problems logging in to Max, which is replacing the three-year-old HBO Max service. As reported by users, the issues spanned the Max.com website as well as mobile apps including iOS and connected-TV apps on Roku and Samsung TV.

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Of course, there are bound to be some problems in migrating millions of customers over to a new streaming platform. The May 23 conversion from HBO Max to Max covers only the U.S.

“You must always anticipate issues on a tech rollout of this scale,” a Warner Bros. Discovery spokesperson said in a statement to Variety. “We can share that only minor ones have emerged and were quickly remedied.”

SEE ALSO: Max Launch: All the TV Shows, Movies Coming to Expanded Streaming Service

For the Max launch, Warner Bros. Discovery is actively monitoring customer reports of technical problems from “war rooms” in multiple locations including in Bellevue, Wash., New York and London. “The entire team is on standby,” Warner Bros. Discovery CTO Avi Saxena told Variety in an interview Monday.

According to outage-monitoring service Downdetector, user problem reports about Max were above a normal range on Tuesday morning (compared with HBO Max’s historical average) but were still relatively small: At their peak, there were 447 user outage reports to the site at 9:06 a.m. ET, which is comparatively low for a major service.

SEE ALSO: What’s New in Max: 10 Key Changes as HBO Max Relaunches With Discovery Content, Enhanced Features

Some subscribers said they attempted to log in to Max.com — only to remain stuck on the screen after clicking on the “Start Streaming” button. Another user tweeted that on Roku, they were able to watch a show but that the Max service froze if they skipped the recap.

“Though to its credit the Max app is much faster as it crashes more quickly than ever before,” Marc Istook, a morning news anchor at WFAA in Dallas, tweeted.

According to the company, a “large portion” of HBO Max subscribers will have their apps automatically updated to Max while in some cases, users will be prompted to download an updated Max app. The plan was that HBO Max subscribers would be able to log in with their existing username and password and have all their preferences migrated over to the new Max.

According to the company, Max is available on the same platforms as HBO Max, including: iOS (iPhone and iPad), Android, Amazon Fire TV and Fire Tablet, Android TV, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, LG Smart TV, Roku, Samsung TV, Vizio SmartCast TV, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, and web browsers (including Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge for Windows and Apple Safari).

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