Disney+ Hotstar is experiencing an outage for some users in India during a popular cricket match, drawing criticism from customers at a time when the Disney crown jewel is already facing several setbacks in the South Asian market.
It’s unclear what caused the outage, which Hotstar acknowledged as “unforeseen technical issues” in its apps and internet. Records from the domain registrar show that Hotstar renewed the domain name, Hotstar.com, on February 17. If Disney had momentarily lost ownership of the domain, it would take some time for the new change to be visible to all users.
DownDetector, a web reliability monitoring service, reported a sudden spike in complaints about Hotstar on Friday. Countless social media users also commented that they were unable to use the app on their phone and desktop.
A Hotstar spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The outage comes amid the ongoing high-profile cricket tournament between India and Australia. Hotstar, one of the most popular video streaming services in India, recently lost the streaming rights to the popular IPL cricket tournament, which analysts say could topple its customer base in the country.
According to Deadline, the company is also reportedly losing the rights to stream HBO shows in the country.