UPDATE – Disney+ is back up and running in SA. You can carry on with your binge.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Disney+ is offline in South Africa. Just after 11:30 am this morning, users reported having issues starting media across all platforms. We were contacted by a number of readers who thought perhaps they were having account issues. However, after testing the app ourselves across Android TV, iOS and web browsers nothing was loading at all.
The error seems to push out a different experience depending on the app you are using. On Android TV, the app just spins after selecting a TV show or movie. On web browsers, the screen goes black and nothing loads at all. Some users report seeing a “BFF_Start” error on web browsers if you leave the media to try and play for a prolonged period of time.
As for iOS, I started a show and the app gave me a “PB_IOS_PL_1001” error. It says the playback URL is empty or invalid. This is currently affecting all content as nothing is playable on the platform.
This is not good for Disney at all. The service launched on 18 May and had sign-up problems. Users reportedly noticed being logged into other people’s accounts when signing in using their mobile number. Disney has also suffered from bugs when it comes to downloading media from the app. At the moment, the feature has been turned off completely meaning you can’t download your shows and movies to watch later on. Disney claims they plan on rolling this download feature out at a later time but the app already shows the icon for downloads.
This might have something to do with Disney’s system rollout for EMEA. It seems that the company used a different platform in South Africa to release the service. We noticed this morning that if users try and download the US app on any platform including PlayStation and Xbox, the app locks them out of signing in. You have to download the SA version of the app.
The official DisneyPlusZA social media accounts have yet to acknowledge the issue.
