UPDATE: Disney+ bounces back after short glitch

Disney+ is back after a glitch left it down for about an hour. Picture by Thibault Penin/UnSplash

Disney+ is back after a glitch left it down for about an hour. Picture by Thibault Penin/UnSplash

Published May 19, 2022

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Johannesburg - Disney+ has managed to resolve issues plaguing its streaming service, a day after its launch.

Disney+’s launch was tainted by a glitch plaguing scores of users on Thursday for about an hour before the service bounced back online.

The long-anticipated Disney+ launched in South Africa on 18 May and promised scores of new content for local viewers. The excitement was short-lived after numerous subscribers reported the issue on social networks.

The glitch rendered videos unplayable by users, while many took to Twitter to vent and comment on the issue.

One user @Aspirin_Amy tweeted: “Less than 24 hr on the Disney plus app on my iphone and it's showing a playback error and not working.”

Another user, @Nakie3110 tweeted to Disney: “I can't stream anything, I'm getting something went wrong message on my screen. What's going on??? #DisneyPlusZA”.

Disney+ is the latest of South Africa’s four major streaming services behind Showmax, US-based Netflix and Amazon Prime.

It aimed to bring back on-demand streaming of highly-rated movies and series to local audiences after a brief scarcity, thanks to content rights.

After the launch of Disney+ globally on November 19, 2019, content owned by the Walt Disney Company slowly began disappearing from platforms like Netflix and Showmax.

Since its global launch, Disney+ has been highly anticipated by locals. Run by the Walt Disney Company, Disney+ features content from its production houses, which umbrellas the likes of Marvel and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Star Wars franchise, Pixar and National Geographic.

The introduction of Disney+ means that South Africans will now have access to new and older content from the company’s production houses, which are currently unavailable on streaming platforms for locals.

The service costs R119 per month in South Africa.