HBO Max was down for a while Warner Media execs probably didn't want to spend another summer Friday afternoon with yet another headache Meanwhile, service seems to have been restored

Not only did multiple Tom's Guide staffers find the error, but they also received a message that read, "Unable to connect: we are currently having problems connecting to HBO Max Please try again - not only found the error, but DownDetector and other Tweeters around the world have joined in on the conversation

DownDetector's chart shows a spike in outage reports between 2:00 and 2:30 pm EST, with up to 5,947 complaints; HBO Max itself acknowledges the issue, stating, "We are aware that some customers are experiencing problems streaming #HBOMax We recognize that you are experiencing issues with #HBOMax streaming and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this as quickly as possible"

The company also tweeted, "We appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this issue as quickly as possible

At 3:25 PM ET, 57 minutes after the previous tweet, @HBOMaxHelp announced that the issue had been resolved and that "full service has now been restored, you may need to restart the HBO Max app"

The company declared

The outage occurred less than a month after HBO Max crashed when the finale of "The Mere Old Man of East Town" began on May 30 But it was only the beginning of a bad time for HBO Max users; the Hollywood Reporter reported that the problem was fixed within 30 minutes and "primarily affected viewers on the East Coast due to connection issues with the HBO Max system"

Then in early June, the HBO Max tvOS app for Apple TV became incredibly buggy and difficult to use for many customers Reportedly, basic functions such as fast forward, pause, and rewind were almost unusable It was quickly discovered that this was due to the release of a very buggy update

Andy Forsell, EVP and General Manager of HBO Max (who is probably having a hard time right now), called the problem with the release of this update a "zillion dollar question" The problem was fixed on June 9, and the previous version was rolled back

Finally, and most comically, HBO Max sent a strange blank email message last night (June 17) titled "Integration Test Email #1" to a mailing list of customers that included several TG staff members hbomax's Twitter account @ HBOMaxHelp acknowledged this and wrote, "We accidentally sent a blank test email to a portion of the HBO Max mailing list this evening We apologize for any inconvenience caused No, really We are helping them

Hopefully this outage will not hurt the interns' careers

HBO Max is so great (aside from these errors) that we made it the best streaming service overall That may change if these problems become even more disruptive