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HBO Max restores service after video playback outages

Parts of HBO Max were down because of a product update, but the service manages to right itself.

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Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
Expertise Streaming video, film, television and music; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; deep fakes and synthetic media; content moderation and misinformation online Credentials
  • Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)
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Joan E. Solsman
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HBO Max's video playback was disrupted for a few hours Tuesday, but the problems have been resolved. During the outages, the service and app itself were functioning, but users reported they couldn't watch videos and were getting repeated error messages to "please try again." The disruptions came with little more than a day before HBO Max's highly anticipated Friends reunion special is scheduled to land. 

"We experienced a temporary disruption in service due to an HBO Max product update. The issue has now been resolved and service has been restored," a spokesman said Tuesday. 

Error messages on the service said, "Can't Play Title. We're having trouble playing that video. Please try again." These error messages seemed to appear across the HBO Max library. 

HBO Max's Friends reunion was supposed to be the service's marquee original program at launch a year ago. But after its filming was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, HBO Max eventually scheduled its release for Thursday, which marks the one-year anniversary of Max's launch. The special is slated to be released on the service very early Thursday morning, at 12:01 a.m. PT. 

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