Besides unreleased and disappearing content, there have been plenty of complaints about the HBO Max streaming apps since they launched. Still, they’ve generally held up well under the stress of premieres for content like Tenet, Wonder Woman, The Matrix, or Westworld, but for HBO there may not be anything like a Game of Thrones premiere.
Tonight’s debut of the show’s spinoff, House of the Dragon, is the first taste of a new GOT experience inside HBO Max, and while many people trying to stream the premiere episode are watching without a problem, others said the app crashed on them, or froze up once it got past the pre-show teaser trailer.
Based on reports seen on Twitter, Reddit, and elsewhere, it appears that most of the people having problems are using an Amazon Fire TV platform, or a Fire Stick. It’s unclear why that app, in particular, would have problems, but if you’re using it and you can’t watch, you may want to try switching if you can’t wait to see all the Targarayens going at it. If it’s your main streaming device, one other piece of advice people have reported success with is to create a new profile.
In a statement emailed to The Verge, HBO’s Chris Willard said, “House of the Dragon is being successfully viewed by millions of HBO Max subscribers this evening. We’re aware of a small portion of users attempting to connect via Fire TV devices that are having issues and are in the process of resolving for those impacted users.”
Whatever the issue is, don’t expect to see this repeat in future seasons — by next year, they’ll have a new app anyway.
Update August 21st, 10:40PM ET: Updated with statement from HBO.
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