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YouTubeTV was a great option to watch the 2018 World Cup at work. Until Wednesday’s semifinal between England and Croatia.
The streaming service went down Wednesday afternoon midway through the match and stayed down through halftime and well into the second half, leaving soccer fans in the dark as the Croats scored an electric equalizer off the foot of Ivan Perisic to tie the game at 1-1. As England searched for a response, YouTubeTV remained down — leading to some angry customers.
And, well, let’s just say the company picked a terrible time to ask England fans how they were doing:
No because your service stopped working in the middle of the match
— Tyler Norton (@tyler_norton) July 11, 2018
I’m not. pic.twitter.com/qWRuwoPWuB
— Indifferent (@Indiffe25095131) July 11, 2018
I WOULD BE IF MY STREAM HADNT JUST STOPPED WORKING whaaaat!
— Sarah Haswell (@SarahLassx) July 11, 2018
hey youtubetv WHY DID YOUR SERVICE GO DOWN AT THE END OF THE FIRST HALF. ARE YOU OK? I'M NOT
— great bake on it (@thejoshdenk) July 11, 2018
Hey #YouTubeTV Engineers, are you guys ok? Cause we don't have service. During the #WorldCup semifinals #CROENG
— victor zambrano (@argonaut) July 11, 2018
Nice.
— notSTEAMSUPPORT (@notSteamSupport) July 11, 2018
Your stream just shut down, seems your whole service is offline. How much of a refund are we going to get for trusting you to deliver World Cup and YouTube failing?
— Devin Winterbottom (@devwinterbottom) July 11, 2018
Anyway, YouTube has acknowledged its issue, even if it didn’t have much in the way of specifics in terms of what affected the broadcast, or how long it will be before its fixed:
Hey everyone -- sincere apologies for streaming issues with YouTube TV. The timing is horrible but we're working to be up and running again ASAP!
— YouTube TV (@YouTubeTV) July 11, 2018
As of publication, YouTubeTV has been down for more than 50 minutes of game play for one of the biggest games of the World Cup. Hopefully it’ll come back in time for the shootout finish Croatia is destined to have.
UPDATE: Service came back up for the final few moments of stoppage time, and is tentatively up and running for extra time. We’ll see if it holds up.