BBC iPlayer down for thousands of users - causing people to miss England v Iran in the Qatar World Cup

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At the start of 2022, shows on the BBC iPlayer were streamed over one billion times

Users are reporting the BBC iPlayer is currently down. This comes as England’s 2022 World Cup opener is currently underway, as they face Iran in group B. Over 10,000 iPlayer outages have been reported, with people highlighting issues with the streaming service on the Down Detector website.

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A major streaming service, BBC iPlayer allows viewers to watch in real time or catch up on shows broadcast across all of its services. It also stores boxsets of shows from across the years such as Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps.

Data from Down Detector says 40 percent of those who reported a problem said it was to do with video streaming. A further 39 percent reported problems with server connection and another 22 percent saying the app was not working properly.

Current iPlayer issues could be down to a surge in traffic with England kicking off against Iran at 1pm. This may have lead to a large number of people accessing the streaming service at work, in their home offices or from a mobile device.

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Football fans took to Twitter to complain with one user saying: "First match I’m so excited!!! And vpn iplayer has failed me so I can only watch with Korean commentary."  Another user also expressed their disappointment saying: "Anyone’s BBC iPlayer down? Mine is. Having to watch the match on an illegal stream. A new low for BBC really, poor service."

People also took to Down Detector to share their problems. One user said “BBC live updates are working but I can’t watch the stream as it won’t let me log in. I get the following error: Sorry, it looks like something’s not working right now. Please try again in a few minutes.”

The BBC has yet to comment on the iPlayer outage at the time of publication.

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