Two months in Disney+ still has major problems in South Africa

[sdrawk]

Still waiting for the VIDAA U app that was promised lol

 

[Gravedigger]

Well, the app crashed on me, a few times, and it was memory leaking like bad, 500mb+ just before the crash.
Either someone forgot to turn off debugging, or their decoding protocol is shct, causing to memory leak terribly.
For what it is worth, would rather sail the high seas. I've tried, House of Mouse. Really.
I'd rather spend my money on some food/snacks.

 

[SubtleBeast]

Oh my. Look at all these third-worlders expecting first-world service.

 

[Nephew_]

Ok, welcome to the club.
We've been having it, with DSTV (Now)

 

[Tsepz_GP]

It is a really poor user experience, shocking that it is Disney, they look like rookies in this right now, I’ve been waiting for the PS4 app in the meantime I use my iPhone abs iPad Pro to watch and the experience has been quite poor there to:
- streaming quality is kaak despite my +200Mbps (up and down) fibre connection, Netflix plays at 4K HDR consistently on the same connection without a single buffer.
- There is no landscape orientation
- App tends to be buggy
- that download option is literally just there for vibes

Glad to see I am not the only one with issues with it

I think I may cancel my subscription, I love the shows on it but it’s just not worth the poor quality experience.

 

[Jan]

there was a file/report/talk about Hotstar actually streaming their streaming service into South Africa via their servers in India

Disney told us they push to South Africa via Akamai NetStorage.

I don't think it's a connectivity issue. We have an older Apple TV and have very few of the issues listed here. No buffering, regardless of when we stream.

The biggest issues I've had were UX-related. The app would keep playing the audio of a show after backing out to the home screen, then when I play something else it plays the audio of both things - i.e. it doesn't then figure out it needs to kill the previous stream before starting the next.

Also had an issue where the app would exit instead of going back to the Disney+ homescreen when I pressed the back button while a show was playing. Then when you relaunch the app it just keeps playing the thing you were watching before. When you try and press back you just get dumped back to the Apple TV main screen every time.

Only solution in both cases was to reboot the Apple TV.

Both these bugs seem to have been fixed in one of the recent updates.

So on Apple TV, streaming at 1080p, we seem to be doing fine.

On other platforms, folks don't seem to be so lucky.

 

[fanuster]

Disney+ is dropping the ball badly in South Africa

Numerous South African Disney+ users have cried foul over the plethora of glitches and technical issues plaguing the service since its local launch in May 2022.

Despite the wave of complaints and pleas for Walt Disney Africa to rectify the issues, many of the bugs have persisted for over two months.

Hi there, thank you for the article on My Broadband. I was wondering if Disney+ has local servers in SA or does it stream from India or elsewhere, if so, it might prohibit me from subscribing at all until they have local servers. If they do have local servers and the service is that bad, just WOW!

 

[AfricanTech]

Disney+ is dropping the ball badly in South Africa

Numerous South African Disney+ users have cried foul over the plethora of glitches and technical issues plaguing the service since its local launch in May 2022.

Despite the wave of complaints and pleas for Walt Disney Africa to rectify the issues, many of the bugs have persisted for over two months.

Thanks for doing the article.

Have you had any further responses from Disney?

I love the content library but the technical glitches (buffering is my main issue - LG TV D+ app) really spoils the whole experience.

It's unacceptable that a paid for service performs so poorly.

 

[_TrXtR_]

I remember how netflix innovated a whole bunch of things to keep their system in good running state.
Now all these companies all over the world think they can start their own streaming service xD

 

[Praemon]

Some nights it's impossible to watch due to buffering on a 200Mbit line (using Nvidia Shield Pro). Another annoying issue is that the app often fails to track what's been watched, and you have to manually locate the last watched show.

 

[Gravedigger]

I remember how netflix innovated a whole bunch of things to keep their system in good running state.
Now all these companies all over the world think they can start their own streaming service xD

Thing is, Netflix was early into the game, so had much time to iron out these bugs...

 

[Nuro]

It works for us, mostly, but it's all the little paper cuts that make it a mission.
Weird UI bugs, occasional buffering (200Mbps line, no other traffic). Fast forwarding or rewind often breaks the stream (need to quit and retry) etc...

 

[Nike7]

I get no buffering. The UI needs work, the Korean shows have no Korean audio (wtf), and everything streams at sub 1080p.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

SA probably isnt a big enough market for them, so they honestly dont care enough to put us on a decent server.

look how long it took to get to us in the 1st place.

 

[ubercal]

Disney told us they push to South Africa via Akamai NetStorage.

I don't think it's a connectivity issue. We have an older Apple TV and have very few of the issues listed here. No buffering, regardless of when we stream.

The biggest issues I've had were UX-related. The app would keep playing the audio of a show after backing out to the home screen, then when I play something else it plays the audio of both things - i.e. it doesn't then figure out it needs to kill the previous stream before starting the next.

Also had an issue where the app would exit instead of going back to the Disney+ homescreen when I pressed the back button while a show was playing. Then when you relaunch the app it just keeps playing the thing you were watching before. When you try and press back you just get dumped back to the Apple TV main screen every time.

Only solution in both cases was to reboot the Apple TV.

Both these bugs seem to have been fixed in one of the recent updates.

So on Apple TV, streaming at 1080p, we seem to be doing fine.

On other platforms, folks don't seem to be so lucky.

Thats what you get when you outsource your development to India

 

[Th3C0t0nB4ll]

I havent had issues with the streaming, and the qaulity is okay.

But watching on my phone, it very rapidly has the cache going up past 60GB, I dunno wtf they are doing.
So need to clear my cache weekly, and relogin, I dunno if im gonna keep my sub

 

[Devon101]

Shows don't continue where you stopped so you had to scroll until you got there. Offline downloads just stopped working or some episodes didn't want to download. I opted to cancel last month. I might sign up again if they can fix the problems.

 

[Sup3rc]

Only issue I have is the forced portrait mode for my tablet and very sluggish on the tablet after last update, but if a video starts playing there's no issues.
No issues on PC and laptops, Mi boxes and Chromecast with google TV for us.

 

[Jan]

Hi there, thank you for the article on My Broadband. I was wondering if Disney+ has local servers in SA or does it stream from India or elsewhere, if so, it might prohibit me from subscribing at all until they have local servers. If they do have local servers and the service is that bad, just WOW!

You're welcome.

Disney told us they push to South Africa via Akamai NetStorage. Effectively they do have local servers.

Thanks for doing the article.

Have you had any further responses from Disney?

You're welcome.

They have reached out this morning. We'll see what they say. Hopefully there'll be good news to report soon.

 

[SilverCode]

Every time I get annoyed at the poor Disney+ UX, I open up ShowMax, mess around there for a bit, then go back to Disney+. Showmax UX makes Disney+ UX seem amazing.

But yeah .. overall the Disney+ experience feels like the lowest bidder won the software development contract

I stopped my subscription because of bad experience plus no real new shows.

You mean you don't like watching <new marvel series #102> or <new star wars series #55>?

Disney really need to give those franchises a rest. They now feel like cheap gimmicks instead of shows/movies people actually want to watch.