Netflix bombs during big Mike Tyson v Jake Paul fight

Netflix subscribers around the world are complaining that the platform’s live stream for its highly anticipated boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul is not working.
The event began at 03:00 South African time, with several preliminary bouts taking place before the main match between Tyson and Paul.
Problems with the stream started early on, with reports stating that Netflix had been freezing, losing sound, and reloading slowly.
Although the stream was watchable initially, many viewers are reporting online that it crashed for them entirely when the main event started just before 07:00.
“Netflix has encountered an error. Retrying in 14 seconds. Code: tvq-rnd-101,” an error message in the streaming service’s app stated.
Downdetector also indicates that subscribers worldwide are experiencing problems with the live stream.
Other Netflix content remains available. Only the Paul v Tyson live stream appears to be affected.
“Is Paul v Tyson fight worse than Fyre Fest?” one user said on Twitter/X.
“This is like watching the fight on dial-up…” said another.
Many users are reporting that the stream appears to be stuck on buffering at 25%.
The Netflix app then loops through several self checks to ensure the device is connected to the Internet before giving users the option to try relaunching the stream.
“I am too old for buffering nonsense. And yet they wanted EPL rights?” one user said.
“I’ve missed half of this fight because of you, Netflix,” said another.
This is not the first time Netflix has experienced problems like these.
In October 2016, the streaming service crashed completely after launching the first season of Luke Cage.
More recently, a live-streamed reunion episode of dating reality show Love Is Blind brought the whole platform to its knees last year.
Netflix apologised after users reported that they could not use the streaming service at all on the day.

Netflix has begun to experiment with live programming, starting with a comedy special from Chris Rock earlier in 2023.
The reunion episode for its dating show was set to be the biggest test for Netflix’s ability to expand beyond its on-demand video roots.
Netflix had also promised that the live reunion would be the first time that viewers would be able to help pick out the questions asked of participants.
Unfortunately, the crash made this impossible. Netflix apologised and said it would film the episode and upload it for viewers to see as soon as possible.
“We’re filming it now and we’ll have it on Netflix as soon as humanly possible,” the streaming site said in a tweet more than an hour after the live show was initially scheduled.
Netflix has yet to issue a statement on the widespread outages reported during the Mike Tyson v Jake Paul fight.