Netflix crashes briefly as Stranger Things finale draws global rush

CALIFORNIA: On the night of January 1, 2026, all hell broke loose in Hawkins and the Upside Down (parallel dimension in Stranger Things) when Vecna rose from the ashes. In the real world, Netflix faced its own moment of disruption as viewers across the world rushed to stream the finale of Stranger Things, the platform’s flagship sci-fi drama that has defined its ‘Netflix Originals’ era, causing the servers to crash. The series features an ensemble cast led by Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard and Sadie Sink.

Some users reported difficulty logging in around the time the final episode dropped, with the service displaying an error message accompanied by imagery from Nailed It!. The disruption lasted roughly a minute and was resolved after a few refreshes, according to news reports.

The incident echoed a similar outage during the season five premiere on November 26, when Netflix was unavailable for about five minutes as the first four episodes were released.

Despite the hiccup, Stranger Things continued its blockbuster run. Between December 22 and 28, the final season clocked 34.5 million views globally, its second-best weekly performance. The season debuted in November with 59.6 million views, marking Netflix’s biggest-ever opening week for an English-language title.

Created by Matt and Ross Duffer, Stranger Things debuted in 2016 and became a cultural phenomenon, blending 1980s nostalgia with supernatural horror. The series follows a group of teenagers in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, as they confront forces unleashed from the Upside Down.

Ahead of the finale, Ross Duffer reflected on the decade-long journey in a social media post, calling the ending “emotional and cathartic” and thanking audiences for enabling the creators to conclude the story on their own terms.

The finale cements Stranger Things as one of Netflix’s most valuable franchises, even as the streamer grapples with the growing technical pressures of appointment viewing at global scale.