Update: Sling TV said this afternoon that the issue had been fixed. Subscribers still having problems are advised to reinstall the Sling TV app and login again.
Sling TV last night experienced widespread technical problems with thousands of users posting complaints at social media sites such as Twitter.
The Dish-owned live streaming service, which suffered numerous technical problems in its first few years, (launched in 2015), has performed better of late with fewer subscribers complaining of issues such as buffering, login difficulty and picture freezing.
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But last night was a different story as Sling users took to social media to voice their anger. Many subscribers said they were unable to login to their Sling TV apps while some said they received error messages when they tried to watch any channel.
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“Day 1 and already regretting switching to Sling,” tweeted @bella_italiana6.
“This is ridiculous. I’m sorry I cut the cord with cable. Have had nothing but problems with sling tv. They don’t have a problem taking money though,” wrote @jrock09202757.
“Sling, you guys realize that your service isn’t working, right? Why not give everyone an update? Seems like a simple (and courteous) thing to do,” tweeted @amitplease.
Sling actually did offer several updates during the prime time hours at its Twitter customer service page, @slinganswers, acknowledging the issue and promising a quick solution.
However, judging from the complaints, it appears the problems lasted from around 8 p.m. ET until the early morning hours today.
“The Command Center is aware of an issue with general latency in the app, the inability to load streams. They’re currently working to fix this problem,” @slinganswers tweeted at 11 p.m. ET.
As of 6 a.m. ET today, the Sling Twitter customer service team hasn’t said the problem has been fixed yet, but the complaints began to decline sharply after midnight.
DownDetector.com, the site that tracks online outages, reports that 1,685 people were complaining simultaneously about Sling at the height of the problem, which was sometime between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET. The complaints continued throughout prime time, suggesting it affected a significant portion of the Sling audience, which Dish said topped 2.2 million at the end of 2017.
As a whole, the live streaming industry, which also includes services such as DIRECTV Now, Hulu Live, PlayStation Vue and YouTube TV, has experienced recurring technical issues as the companies struggle to master the relatively new technology.
— Phillip Swann
I would hope that these people that Cut Cords from expensive providers for Streaming service realize that everything has technical issues just just a matter of how much a month you want to pay for them. Sling will fix it’s problem and anything missed will most likely be On Demand to watch later anyway. Many people don’t realize this but there are various network apps the will allow use with Sling TV as the provider. Those were available to those that don’t know how to read a book during down time.
Sling TV is not perfect and I’ve had minimal annoyances but for the cost per month, all the on demand content and the ability to pause and rewind on some of the networks, It’s Great!
So, while SlingTV was down for the night I got caught up on several of my subscribed programing on YouTube.
Preach! Thanks for your post.
Sling TV is a joke!!!!!
CNBC stock channel is OUT and costing me tons since the Dow fell 450 points and I can’t get the info I need!!!! B
Go bot elsewhere. Or if you’re that ignorant (stupid), it’s not Sling’s fault. If you have “tons” to lose, invest in a different source to monitor your tons. Putin would applaud your efforts comrade.
I hope Sling offer some type of compensation for the long outage. Like $10.00 off of the bill for the month. Why should I pay the while price for the month if I can’t even watch anything while there is technically issue
directv has always been fair, so knowing how charlie values every penny, i always think twice or more before considering a switch
I agree with you on them give subscribers a break on the bill only fair
Nothing wrong with watching on demand content while they fix their problems, but how many people want to watch a recording of a live sporting event days later???
Sling still hasn’t fixed the buffering issue. It does it thru out the day and night especially when I am trying to watch my program that I have been looking forward to all week. Why should I inconvenience myself and watch it at a later time. I am tired of this being a daily issue of buffering especially when my favorite shows are on.