Netflix crashes during ‘Stranger Things’ Season 5 rush due to influx of viewers

Netflix had a bit of a rough night thanks to the launch of “Stranger Things” Season 5. As soon as the first four episodes premiered at 8 p.m. ET, the streaming service crashed, leaving many users frustrated with an error message labeled “NSEZ-403.”

The message read, “Something went wrong. Sorry, we’re having trouble with your request. You’ll find lots to explore on the home page.” Interestingly, it also featured an image of a peculiar cake from the show “Nailed It!”

Despite tens of thousands of reports of outages around 7:50 p.m. ET, the issues seemed to diminish by 8:10 p.m. ET. Netflix’s own system indicated that the service was still up and running smoothly.

It was a surprising turn of events, especially since “Stranger Things” co-creator Ross Duffer had mentioned earlier that Netflix had beefed up its bandwidth by 30% to prevent such crashes. While the disruption only lasted a few minutes, it definitely caught many fans off guard.

The company later confirmed that some viewers experienced problems on TV devices but assured that service was restored for all accounts within five minutes. This isn’t the first time a major event has caused Netflix to crash, as similar issues occurred during the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match streaming and the “Love Is Blind” Season 4 reunion special.

But fear not, “Stranger Things” fans! The final season is split into three parts, with Volume 1 already out, Volume 2 coming on Dec. 25, and the series finale on Dec. 31. The first four episodes of this season have reunited Eleven and Hopper with the Hawkins crew to conclude the beloved story.