Today was the day that HBO Max became Max. This wasn’t a quick change, but one that had apparently been in the works for some time now. Even in its most official capacity, we were warned that the transition would happen almost six weeks ago. In spite of this, it seems as though many have encountered issues on Max’s first day.
To be fair, it is not uncommon for the launch of a new streaming service to result in problems. Even just the launch of a new app on one platform can cause issues, let alone the number of devices and platforms that Max has launched on today.
Still, the problems have been there. One of the most common issues we’ve seen today is the general lack of apps automatically updating. Warner Bros. Discovery did make a big point about how the existing HBO Max apps will automatically update to Max. While the company did also state that some users will need to manually install the Max app separately, it would seem that most apps have failed to update automatically.
In addition to the number of user reports we’ve seen on this issue, we encountered it ourselves throughout the day. Whether it was on mobile, a smart TV or streaming player, we’ve had to manually install the separate Max app.
Early in the morning the HBO Max app just continued working as if nothing happened, but later in the day the apps did begin to be updated. However, these updates only led to a prompt to download the Max app. We’ve yet to encounter a single app automatically updating.
Another very common issue we’ve been hearing about today is the inability to log in to the new Max app. While there have been different instances of this problem, a very common one is live TV subscribers (paying for HBO Max as an add-on) failing to have their account authorized when attempting to sign in to the Max app.
In particular, there’s been quite a few reports of YouTube TV users running into issues. When they try to log in with their YouTube TV account details, they typically get an error message or are informed that they are not a subscriber.
For those that are running into an issue like this, we’ve seen a few different potential workarounds that might help. The one that seems like it might be the best option is to try signing in through the Max website first using your TV provider. Once you have signed in, you can then more easily sign in on other devices like a smart TV or streaming player.
As an extension of this, Max itself does note that some live TV provider users may still need to create a Max account. While this isn’t fully explained, the lack of a Max (or HBO Max) account may be causing some of the issues with authorization.
We should point out that miles always vary with these things, and we have also seen plenty of users that report being quite happy with the transition. Not to mention, the additional content they now have access to with Max.
