SABC+ hit by outage ahead of FIFA World Cup
SABC+ has been hit by an outage in the minutes ahead of the first match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup between South Africa and Mexico in Mexico City on Thursday evening.
Users on X/Twitter reported struggles signing in to the service just before 21:00, as the World Cup opening ceremony was underway.
The website initially responded slowly, and users were unable to sign in or receive OTP codes to their email addresses during sign-up. It eventually became completely unavailable.
Some users said that they were unable to load the SABC+ mobile app and that it crashed. One user reported struggling to connect to the app since 19:30 that evening.
“Are you aware of the problems that people are experiencing???? I’ve been trying to connect since 19:30????” said X/Twitter user @_HeyApril.
“Your website and app is not working! Yoh!” said another user.
MyBroadband was unable to access the desktop version of the website, which showed that the webpage was unavailable at 21:00. Before this, the website was working, but we were unable to log in.
The website then experienced intermittent outages until it remained offline as the opening match was about to begin.
A few minutes before the outage, the official SABC+ X/Twitter account advised users to update their mobile apps to avoid technical glitches. However, this would not have affected the regular web app.
The SABC app outage was preceded by a DStv website outage, likely also related to the highly anticipated game between Bafana Bafana and Mexico at Azteca Stadium.
Attempting to access the DStv website, where people can sign up and manage their subscription, resulted in an HTTP 503 Service Unavailable server error.
Outage tracker Downdetector showed users reporting problems with DStv since before 17:45 on Thursday evening.
Existing subscribers could still access the DStv Stream services at dstv.stream, as well as the various mobile, smart TV, and media box apps.
Screenshots of SABC+ outage and user reports
Loading ...