HBO GO & NOW Are Down or Crashed: Fixes & Alternatives for ‘Westworld’

Are you trying to watch the premiere of Westworld, but HBO’s streaming services HBO NOW or HBO GO aren’t working? Are they down or did they crash? Or are they just loading endlessly without stopping? Unfortunately, this isn’t an uncommon or rare problem. It’s happened nearly every time a big surge of viewers is expected for an HBO show, such as during the finale of Big Little Lies or during almost every episode of Game of Thrones‘ final season. Here’s what to do when you’re trying to watch the Westworld premiere if this happens to you, along with alternatives you can try if they don’t work soon.

What To Do if HBO GO or HBO NOW Crash During  the ‘Watchmen’ Premiere

Sometimes the HBO servers get overloaded and the streaming services crash, especially when it’s a big premiere night for a show. This could look a number of different ways. You might see error messages, the service might just go blank, or the screen might get stuck loading while nothing happens.

If HBO GO or HBO NOW are down when the Westworld premiere is supposed to begin, here’s what you can try. First, make sure your app is updated to the most recent version. HBO might fix an issue by updating the app, but if your own app isn’t updated, you’ll miss out on the fix and still encounter problems trying to watch the show.

If that doesn’t help, try restarting the app or switch to a different device. Some viewers may report trouble with the website, for example, but find that the episode may load fine on their iPad or phone. Or maybe it won’t load on their iPad but it loads fine on their Xbox.  If it’s not loading on your Smart TV’s app, then try switching to Apple TV. For some reason, some versions of the app might work even if another one isn’t. It’s definitely worth checking out all your options.

Look up HBO GO & HBO NOW on Twitter

First, here is where you can find HBO GO troubleshooting steps:

And here is where to get sign-in help for HBO NOW:

Check for new tweets from HBOGoHelp or HBONowHelp to see if a fix was shared on one of those accounts (be sure and switch Twitter’s timeline to “latest” rather than “top”). If you don’t see anything tweeted from either account, check tweets sent to those accounts to see if others are reporting a similar issue or sharing their own fixes. Sometimes HBO will post a quick fix to a problem on the respective Twitter accounts before sharing anywhere else, so it’s a good idea to check those right away.

You can also tweet directly to either account. HBO GO may respond by asking you to direct message them with your HBO ID, email, TV Provider, Device, bandwidth, and the troubleshooting steps you already tried.

For HBO NOW users, you may be asked to DM with your HBO NOW email address.

Don’t tweet any private information to either GO or NOW, because you don’t want that information to be public. Only share it in a DM to either of the two accounts.

If all else fails, give one of these alternatives a try that are listed in the next section below. But note: HBO’s servers should be back up and running soon. So unless you really want to watch live, waiting a bit is likely all you’ll need to do and you’ll be able to watch soon on HBO GO or HBO NOW.

Alternatives if HBO GO or NOW Crash

Here are the backups, some of which can be accessed with free trials that you can use until HBO GO or HBO NOW is working for you again:

Amazon Prime’s HBO Channel: If you’re an Amazon Prime subscriber or you want to start a free 30-day trial of Amazon Prime, you can watch all live and on-demand HBO content via the HBO Amazon Channel, which comes with a seven-day free trial.

AT&T TV Now (formerly DirecTV Now) offers six different channel packages. The two cheapest bundles (“Plus” and “Max”) both come included with HBO and a free seven-day trial.

Hulu: Whether you already have Hulu or you want to sign up for a new subscription, HBO is available as an add-on to either Hulu or Hulu with Live TV.

If you don’t want to sign up for free trials, you’ll likely only need to wait a few minutes before the servers are less overloaded to watch Westworld.

Viewers Have Had Problems with Other Big Shows

Unfortunately, if you’re having trouble today you’re not alone. Viewers have reported problems with HBO Go and HBO Now when trying to watch other big shows. There were issues during the Big Little Lies finale and issues during some episodes of Euphoria too. And there were countless issues during Game of Thrones‘ final season. In fact, viewers reported problems for almost every episode of that last season.

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