The reason behind Disney+ Hotstar's outage will make you laugh
What's the story
Cricket fans were left disappointed on Friday as they were unable to catch the action between India and Australia in the second test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. It wasn't rain that ruined day one of the test. Instead, the culprit was Disney+ Hotstar, which is live streaming the match. The streaming service went down. Warning: The reason might make you laugh uncontrollably.
Blunder
Do you know why Disney+ Hotstar went down?
Disney+ Hotstar responded to the outage, saying it is experiencing technical issues across its apps and web services. However, a Twitter user revealed something very interesting. Something Disney may not have wanted us to know about. Well, enough with build-up. It's time for the reveal. Some of you did not get to watch the match because Hotstar's domain expired.
Domain
Hotstar has now renewed its domain till 2033
How can a major streaming service let its domain expire? That's what you must be wondering. It is clear that someone who was in charge of renewing the domain forgot to do so. According to the screenshot shared by @atulkarmarkar, the domain hotstar.com expired on 17-02-2023. Don't worry, it's not going to expire again anytime soon. The new expiry date is in 2033.
Twitter Post
Someone is certainly going to get an earful
LOL, no wonder the entire #Hotstar website is down - their domain expired and they've just renewed it a while ago 😂 Someone is gonna get 🔥 for this #INDvsAUS #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/keGy4UlIEb
— Atul Karmarkar (@atulkarmarkar) February 17, 2023
The match
Jio TV app came to the rescue
While many sadistically enjoyed seeing Hotstar messing up the biggest test series of the year, others were worried about the action they were missing. Although the streaming service updated its domain, many still faced the issue. That could be because of the variation in the propagation time after the renewal of an expired domain. Some users suggested heading to the Jio TV app.
Bad day
Disney+ Hotstar did not have Khawaja or Handscomb
It was a good day for team India as they bowled out the Aussies for 263 runs. If not for Usman Khawaja and Peter Handscomb's valiant knocks, the Kangaroos would have been in a lot of trouble. Unfortunately, Disney+ Hotstar did not have a Khawaja or Handscomb to save their face. Instead, they got trapped in front of the wickets with poor footwork.
Twitter Post
Will the Hotstar team recover on day 2?
It’s going to be a bad Friday for the Hotstar team
— Vignesh Kamath (@vigneshkamath2) February 17, 2023
Domain Expiration
Hotstar isn't alone in letting its domain expire
Disney+ Hotstar isn't the first big company to let its domain expire. Some other big names have committed the same blunder. The most notable name is Google.com. Yes, you heard that right. Taking advantage of that Sammy Ved, an ex-Google employee, purchased Google.com last year. He only had to pay $12 to buy the domain. In 2003, Microsoft failed to renew its Hotmail.co.uk domain.