Sunday, May 12, 2019

'ERROR 500' ... AGAIN. Furious DStv subscribers slam MultiChoice after its DStv Now streaming service crashes again on Sunday impacting the English Premier League final on SuperSport, The Voice SA on M-Net and other shows.


Furious DStv subscribers are slamming MultiChoice after its untrustworthy DStv Now streaming service once again crashed on Sunday afternoon making it impossible for DStv customers to watch the English Premier League League final on SuperSport, The Voice SA on M-Net (DStv 101), the Formula One Spanish Grand Prix and other shows and sport.

The new DStv Now blackout comes three days after Thursday's DStv Now crash that lasted for hours and that MultiChoice blamed on a "systems upgrade" that failed when it went live.

It's not yet clear whether the latest DStv Now crash is related to the same botched systems upgrade tried earlier this week.


ALSO READ: 'ERROR 500'. Latest DStv Now streaming crash and its failure to properly communicate is inflicting huge damage and distrust under consumers over MultiChoice's plans to launch a similar stand-alone, pay-for DStv streaming version in late-2019.


On Friday Richard Boorman, MultiChoice Connected Video head of communications, in response to a media enquiry said that MultiChoice is "working flat out to ensure these type of incidents don't happen" and also that MultiChoice would "incorporate the lessons learned from these incidents when developing new services to avoid any kind of recurrence".

 Three days later there was a recurrence.

MultiChoice on Sunday evening in response to a media enquiry didn't have immediate answers on what happened, whether the crash is related to Thursday's system "upgrade" and what trust DStv subscribers should continue to have in its streaming service.

On social media on Sunday DStv said in its stock-response that it mindlessly kept repeating and that it also used on Thursday that "we're aware of the performance issues on the DStv Now service. Our technical team is working round the clock to resolve the issue. Apologies for the inconvenience caused".

On Sunday night at 21:30 MultiChoice in a statement said that the "MultiChoice Group would like to apologise for the technical problems that have resulted in DStv Now not being operational for a number of hours".

"Our technicians are hard a work to ensure that the app is up and running as soon as possible so that  our customers are once again able to enjoy their favourite shows. We apologise to everyone that has been affected."

MultiChoice was asked on Sunday afternoon if it can please say what led to the Sunday problem. MultiChoice didn't answer this question.

MultiChoice was also asked if the issue is the same as what led to Thursday's DStv Now crash, and if it was, why the same thing happened, and if it was different, what steps were taken to prevent another Error 500 from happening.

MultiChoice also didn't answer this question.

MultiChoice was also asked on Sunday what exactly the system upgrades are that MultiChoice has been doing to DStv Now and specifically why these upgrades caused the crash - if it did - as well as what MultiChoice did differently since Thursday to prevent something similar from happening.

MultiChoice also didn't respond with an answer to this question.

The ongoing DStv Now blackouts impacts on the trust that DStv subscribers have in this MultiChoice service and MultiChoice was asked what its message is to customers who might from now on plan on no longer using it or no longer will trust that it might work when they plan their viewing, for instance out of home.

MultiChoice had no message for these DStv subscribers.

Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group CEO, in 2018 said that the pay-TV company plans to launch a "dishless" DStv streaming-only service offering - similar to DStv Now - in the latter part of 2019.

This stand-alone and commercial DStv streaming version is MultiChoice's next attack beyond the launch of its own subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) service Showmax in the growing video streaming wars in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa where MultiChoice now competes against the likes of primarily Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, as well as a few other smaller players.


Angry DStv viewers: 'DStv as reliable as Eskom'
DStv subscribers in an ongoing flood of complaints on Sunday afternoon and stretching into Sunday evening, slammed MultiChoice on social media for its terrible customer service and streaming service implosion.

DStv subscribers wanted to know why MultiChoice's IT-division and Connected Video's development team division is deploying major system changes during peak TV viewing hours.

DStv subscribers were fuming about missing live so-called "appointment television" ranging from the final of the English Premier League season closer, UEFA League semi-finals, the cricket league IPL final, the ATP tennis final to The Voice South Africa and Carte Blanche on M-Net, Date My Family on Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) and others.

"I am sure that Netflix is having a good laugh at you right now. I can well imagine they will avoid any developer who has you as their previous employer," remarked a DStv subscriber.

"You guys are becoming as reliable as Eskom! Where do you go to from here South Africa for a reliable cost-affordable viewing alternative?" asked Graeme Borrill.

"DStv, if you guys can't ensure stable live streaming, maybe you shouldn't offer it until you can. So much for the final game of the season for me," said Stalliano.

"DStv what a joke, no wonder you are losing subscribers!" said Nakkiran Sunassee. "DStv thanks for once again providing the worst service beating places like Eskom and Telkom. All I want to do is watch the Premier League title race," complained Ruan Vlok.

Raen Reddy said "DStv what is up with your bloody app? Every time something important is on TV it says service unavailable. Sort this out."

"DStv is useless. Just spoilt my viewing today," said Christopher.

MultiChoice also blocked DStv subscribers on Twitter who complained, like Craig who said "DStv why did you block me???? You have NO reason!!! Childish behaviour. YOUR service is down and now you show How Much You Care when we complain".

Karl Reed said "DStv Now has been down since 4pm, it's now 6:41pm. 2 hours 41 minutes and still nothing. Ridiculous. I will be cancelling my subscription when my paid-up service comes to an end - you now loose 2 subscriptions. Hello Netflix, Amazon Prime and ESPN".

Steven Erasmus said "I am travelling, believing I can watch the IPL final and M-Net movie. But NO! DStv Now decide it will give me Error 500 for the 4th time since Thursday. You have done the impossible "UPGRADING" a site to be completely useless. Go Netflix."

"How bloody long is this still going to take?" asked Arno on Sunday night at 19:45 after hours of the DStv Now still not working with no communication from MultiChoice about what happened and when the service would be restored. "Why the hell have you not made a public statement about your inability to fix a problem for 4 days? Or are you just hoping for the problem to go away? Typical behaviour of a monopoly."

Kane Mason gave MultiChoice advice by referring them to read the book, Chaos Engineering.

"DStv here is a book, written by members of the Netflix team, explaining how to prevent your site from going down a million times a day, highly recommend you read."

Craig asked MultiChoice: "You didn't by any chance inadvertently allow Steve Hofmeyr in to do some technical work, did you?"

"I can understand that streaming to thousands of users is a hard technical problem to solve but surely keeping the TV guide going should be doable DStv?" said Ruan Viljoen.
















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