Netflix Crashed After ‘Stranger Things 4’ Volume 2 Release, Users Report

Blame it on Vecna.

Netflix’s streaming service was unavailable for a brief period early Friday after the highly anticipated release of the final two episodes of “Stranger Things 4.”

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According to global uptime-monitoring site Downdetector.com, user reports of problems with Netflix spiked around 3 a.m. ET — when “Stranger Things 4” Volume 2 went live. Complaints about errors with Netflix peaked at nearly 13,000 at the top of the hour, before the situation seemed to be resolved within a half hour.

“Stranger Things 4” already has set the record as the No. 1 English-language series on the service in its first four weeks of release, as reported by Netflix based on total hours watched. The two episodes in Season 4 Volume 2 clock in at nearly four hours of runtime total: Episode 8 is 85 minutes and Episode 9 is 150 minutes.

Other streaming services have struggled to stay up during extremely high demand. For example, HBO Max suffered outages with the finale of “Euphoria” Season 2 earlier this year and with the release of the final episode of limited series “Mare of Easttown” in May 2021.

“Stranger Things” is created, written and executive produced by Matt and Ross Duffer, aka the Duffer Brothers. The supernatural horror-thriller has an ensemble cast featuring Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), David Harbour (Jim Hopper), Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Joe Keery (Steve Harrington), Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Brett Gelman (Murray), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler) and Matthew Modine (Dr. Brenner).

Early Friday, before Netflix apparently resolved the technical issues, subscribers worldwide took to social media to voice frustration — and share memes with “Stranger Things 4” ultra-villain Vecna — after being unable to access the service.

i think netflix is down ???? everyone and their moms probably crashed it trying to watch stranger things vol 2

— megan nguyễn (@megancnguyen) July 1, 2022