Netflix users across the United States were left frustrated after the popular streaming platform appeared to go down for hundreds on the evening of 29 May. The sudden outage led to viewers seeing a message that read: “This title is not available to watch instantly”, stopping them from enjoying their favourite shows and films.As reported by Hindustan Times, as of 9:40 p.m. EDT, outage-tracking website DownDetector recorded over 75,000 reports from viewers struggling to stream.What happened?Viewers were met with an error message the moment they tried to play anything on Netflix. Whether they were watching anime, rewatching an old favourite, or simply trying to relax with a film, the message showed up without warning.One frustrated user reported, “Getting an error message ‘This title is not available to watch instantly. Please try another title.’ This happens when selecting anything to watch.”Another added, “Netflix just crashed and burned in me watching anime…wth. Won’t work on any device.”A third said, “I’m getting ‘This title is not available to watch instantly’ for anything I play on all my devices.”What does this error mean?According to Netflix’s own website, the error message ‘Sorry, this title cannot be watched instantly at this time’ usually means there’s an issue with the data stored on the viewer’s device. This can sometimes block Netflix from playing content properly. However, in this case, the problem didn’t seem to be limited to individual devices, as users across different platforms reported the same issue.X marks the spot: Social media reactsSocial media platform X (formerly Twitter) was flooded with reactions, as viewers rushed to see if others were facing the same trouble.A person wrote, “Of course Netflix is down when I want to watch something for once”Another wrote, “What is going on @netflix I’m 5mins into Episode 5 of #DeptQ and it shuts down and disappears from Continue Watching, My List, New Shows, etc?? Explain please ….It’s been an hour and still nothing. Fix it by tomorrow Thank you”A user said, “is Netflix down or something. I’ll lose my mind if im not distracted back in two seconds.”There were even complaints from users who were at a key point in their viewing, with one commenting: “Netflix going down at the very end of my show is extremely rude.”Despite the widespread issue and growing number of complaints, Netflix has not yet made a public statement about the outage.
