No TV, EPL for some StarHub users due to login problems
Several StarHub users said they faced a host of log-in issues late on Jan 20, which meant they could not access the telco’s TV services.
Speaking to The Straits Times, one user said she faced issues that stretched until the early hours of Jan 21, which meant her husband could not watch English Premier League (EPL) games.
The two EPL matches scheduled for broadcast on Jan 20 on StarHub channels were between Arsenal and Crystal Palace at 8.30pm, and on Jan 21 between Brentford and Nottingham Forest at 1.30am.
The user, who wanted to be known only as Ms Lim, said she called the StarHub hotline for help when her husband had experienced issues logging in to watch the EPL games.
She said: “In the meantime, we tried to change our password, but the link to do so was not working. I waited at least 20 minutes to get technical assistance. Then, when I finally got through, I was told there was an overall problem.”
“So we didn’t bother to try again after we were told it was an overall issue.”
Ms Lim added that she asked the StarHub representative if EPL subscribers would be compensated, but he was unable to provide an answer.
Reports of outages on monitoring site Downdetector reached a peak of 180 reports at 10.53pm on Jan 20 before easing to about six reports at 1.23am.
However, the site registered another small spike of about 19 reports of outages at 1.53am, with about 10 reports at 2.53am before stopping at about 3.08am.
The Downdetector portal said it “monitors and analyses signals from platforms in real-time to automatically detect incidents and service disruptions in their very early stages.”
Other StarHub users who faced similar problems flooded a StarHub Facebook post with complaints about not being able to log in to their StarHub TV accounts through their TV boxes and apps.
On Facebook, user Zack Lim on Jan 21 at 1.29am said: “Wasted 30 minutes of my life reconnecting all the hardware, restarting, trying to log in, again and again. Then took me more than 30 minutes waiting on the phone line to confirm the server is down!”
Another user Kakao Cheng, posting at 1.09am on Jan 21, said: “At least post to inform your users that TV services are down. Called StarHub customer care, waited for 30 minutes, then your agent tells me that there is an issue and to try logging into my TV box tomorrow.”
Other users who aired their disappointment on the StarHub Facebook page said they were eventually told by a StarHub representative that there was an issue with the servers, after multiple attempts to rectify their log-in issues via restarting their devices and logging in again as instructed by the telco.
In response to queries, a StarHub spokeswoman said “some users faced intermittent log-in issues” and its team had “provided assistance promptly”.
“There was no disruption to last night’s Premier League match. If there are anticipated network issues or scheduled maintenance, we do inform our users in advance”, she added.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now
