‘True Detective’ Finale Causes HBO Go Crash: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

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Uh, no, Marty. No we did not.

As many “True Detective” fans know by now, the HBO Go streaming service collapsed under the strain of the staggering number people who wanted to see the “True Detective” finale.

It’s gonna be a sleepless night for many fans of the show, as they wait for their service to be restored.

Here’s what you need to know about the HBO Go outage, including how to determine if the outage is affecting you and how to find out what happened on the finale.


1. High Demand Caused HBO Go to Crash

So many people wanted to see the thrilling conclusion of “True Detective” that the HBO Go servers simply overloaded.

While HBO Go is still down for some users, others can access the service just fine. To test whether HBO Go is still down in your area, visit this website to run a diagnostic.

You can still watch the “True Detective” finale on the regular HBO TV channel, if you are a subscriber. The HBO schedule says that that “True Detective” finale will re-air at 11pm Eastern time tonight.


2. When HBO Go Crashed, the Internet Went Nuts

“True Detective” has an intense fan following. Predictably, many fans took to Twitter and Facebook to freak out about missing their chance to watch the finale on their terms.

But it wasn’t just devoted fans who went into fits of hyperbolic rage. Business Insider ran an article in the wake of the outage titled “HBO Go Is Crashing For People At The Worst Possible Time.

It’s not just “True Detective” fans who can’t access HBO Go. Some people who wanted to watch HBO Go tonight were trying to watch other HBO original programming, but we also unable to get their video of choice to load.


3. ‘True Detective’ Finale Was Hotly Anticipated

Earlier this week, Mashable reported that “True Detective” star Matthew McConaughey would not be returning for the show’s second season. This news made fans extremely curious about what would happen to McConaughey’s character, Detective Rustin “Rust” Cohle, in the Season 1 finale.


4. Some Believe HBO Go Crash Was Not an Accident

TIME reports that some people believe HBO Go went down as part of a larger plan by HBO to increase the number of “legit” subscribers. TIME writes:

“While some observers speculated the problem might be an attempt by HBO to clamp down on subscribers sharing their usernames and passwords with non-paying users, HBO CEO Richard Plepler recently said he doesn’t mind customers sharing their login information.”

It does not appear that this outage was planned in any way. It also does not appear that the outage was isolated to just people who shared their HBO Go account passwords with others.


5. HBO Is Working to Resolve the Issue

HBO is aware of the issue with HBO Go and is working to restore normal service. HBO has not released an estimate for how long the outage will continue, but they are likely to make an update on their Twitter page when the issue has been resolved.

These kinds of streaming service outages are not uncommon, but they can be extremely frustrating. HBO Go isn’t the only service that has frustrated users in recent years: Netflix had a notable outage on Christmas Eve 2012 again around Christmas 2013.


On the next page, we’ve got the dirt on the outage and the best fan reactions…

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