Desperate fans wanting to watch Rio 2016 on their mobile phone, tablet or PC have been let down on Day 1 of the Olympics.
Put simply, some people have been fresh out of luck watching what they would like.
The Seven Network’s live streams of the event, both through the ‘Olympics on 7’ app and through their online live streaming service ‘Plus7’ seem to have ground to a halt for a large number of users.
I myself hopped on to the app just a short while ago to watch the swimming finals on Day 1, only to find that what I was instead destined to watch was a never-ending loading screen.
Of course, while the live stream of the actual events isn’t functional, the app has no problem streaming you an advertisement every time you try to get in. This is all just my experience, which seems to be replicated by plenty across the internet. Check out some of the scathing tweets down the bottom.
I’m just going to flat out refuse to watch the Adriano Zumbo dessert-making TV show – which I’ve seen the ad for five or six times in a hour now – in protest (in all fairness, I wasn’t planning to anyway).
Hopping on to the live stream of my PC instead, I got seven seconds of Mack Horton standing on a podium, wearing his magnificently Clark Kent-esque glasses, before that stream cut out too, asking me if I was sure I was connected to the internet.
Yep, I’m pretty sure. I’m writing this article right now.
Judging from social media I’m pretty clearly not alone here – there have been plenty of folks giving Seven a serve for their service so far.
Their standard response to a complaint via their Twitter has so far been: “We are aware of issues w/ the app & website streams. Tech team is working hard to resolve. Thanks for your patience.”
So, hopefully we will be getting some good live streaming access soon! In the meantime, your best bet is to find a TV, or of course you can hop on one our many live blogs here on The Roar.
If you’ve had a problem with the live stream, let us know about it in the comments! Misery loves company as they say, so let’s all complain together.
We’ve even had complaints on The Roar.
Seven are aware of the issues and are preparing a fix. But that won’t be much comfort for anyone who missed any of the gold medals in the pool for Australia.
GMB
Guest
You have to "watch".....not 'arch' sorry, autocorrect.
GMB
Guest
Now you have to arch two 15 second advertisements to then be fronted with the same error message. Rubbish app. Just like Sevens coverage.
Ants32
Roar Rookie
Get Kodi for your android device. Get an add-on for live streaming European coverage. I recommend Sport Devil. :/
Endtimes
Guest
Seriously I buy the premium $20 app. watching live tennis( game with Dockovitch) and switch to the highlights and see dockovitch lost. Not really live 7.whats up with that. Replay of the women's 100m relay wasn't posted for well over an hour.Watched on you tube .Just replaying your free to air to stuff. Not special not premium not worth it going to overseas providers for individual event downloads and real live cross Lost me
HardcorePrawn
Roar Guru
The worst ever? Where were you in 2012? 7's coverage has been pretty poor so far, but Nine's in 2012 was jaw-droppingly inept: a particular lowlight being when they showed about 10 minutes of the US Basketball team warming up, then, literally seconds after their match against France got under way, they cut to the Water Polo to show us the Australian team climbing out of the pool for half-time.
David Moore
Guest
The iOS app is absolute tripe. Live streaming works ok ... I thought I might use the app to show me when the sports I want to watch would be on TV. Rubbish. How 7 thought putting these undercooked features into the app was sensible is beyond me.
Bob
Guest
Exactly this
Colin Simpson
Guest
The whole 7 coverage is the worst Olympics coverage Australia has ever had to endure. Really disjointed, jumping about with no chance to actually follow an event. Poor commentary. Web app a total failure - bet I won't be able to get my $19 back. More ads than sport. Often the same event on two channels - what a waste. They chop and change between short clips and the viewer can never engage. Like many others I've resorted to a VPN watching far better overseas coverage.
Griffo
Guest
When there are live events they seem to have three channels. When it's late night/early morning in Rio (no events happening) it's just the 1 channel with replays.
HardcorePrawn
Roar Guru
It's better than Nine's 2012 games coverage, but that's damning it with faint praise. I was watching the men's road race this weekend and found it to be quite frustrating: the broadcast jumped to other sports without warning, switched channels on a few occasions (making it impossible to just set the PVR and go to bed), or crossed to (what appeared to be) repeated pre-recorded updates that solely covered Australian competitors. There was also a continuity announcer who segued between these different sports, and to and from ad breaks, who clearly had no idea about any of the sports he was covering. At one point he spoke of "the whole peloton and all the Aussies in with a chance of gold" minutes after Phil Liggett had talked of Greg Van Avermaet being the likely winner, with the peloton unable to catch up to the leaders, and with most of the Australians already out of the race. He then mistook footage of Serge Pauwels crossing the line, fist aloft in celebration of Van Avermaet's victory, as that of Van Avermaet himself. An easy enough mistake to make if you're unfamiliar with the cyclists involved, but Van Avermaet crossed the line by himself, with Fuglsang and Majka behind him, while Pauwels crossed later amongst a group of other competitors. The differences were fairly obvious. 7 are also falling into that ridiculous habit of telling us about a 4th placed Australian, while neglecting to mention the winning competitor (they did it during a crossover to archery this weekend). I know of no one with even a passing interest in sport that is so parochial to only care about their own nation's sportspeople or teams, so why do Australian TV networks insist on doing this?
Neil Anderson
Guest
The app is rubbish. The ads always run. The Olympics never stream. Wait for ever then get message to get latest version. If only there was one!!!!!! Even the non-live streams fail. HOPELESS.
Gurudoright
Guest
In the app you just go to the sport and click on which event/ game you want to go to. It comes up with times and you can watch anything that has already been finished
Zoob
Guest
I think it just appears that way because we're winning SO MANY GOLDS.
Dani
Guest
I have to admit amusement. I live in rural Victoria. RURAL. I'm NOT a Telstra client - Telstra and I had issues many years ago. I've had no streaming issues. My biggest issues with the coverage have been the whole We're showing the Aussies. At one point last night on LIVE TV - I had the Opals vs Brazil game. First quarter, second quarter and fourth quarter. All at the same time. Having the same sport with the same people isn't too bad - that's idiots with the switches mucking it up - but to be touting live coverage and be showing that far behind? TWICE??? Getting the current USA vs AUS tennis women's singles match 3 games out as well. And forget the supposed HD channel. It's gone. Could we give it back to Foxtel? Please? I don't m ind having to watch channel 7 for the swimming and the like but I watch for the Gymnastics - and while our one Aussie gymnast is good - I watch for the Russians, Chinese and Italians who are brilliant. And for the wonderful lady competing in her 7th Olympics - as a gymnast.
I think you need to get up a bit earlier :) I watched 6 hours straight on the 3 main channels this morning from 6am. Back to back Aussie teams and very entertaining.
Buddha
Guest
Absolutely useless. Ad upon ad upon ad. Just a total rip off.
Msd
Guest
Best not confuse Bits with Bytes. Note is states 5 Megabits and not 5 megabytes. In turn is around 500KB/s not 5MB/s. My ADSL2 gets decent speed at 1500KB/s (approx 1.5MB/s or 15Megabits). Plenty fast enough and when it works, stream looks great............when it works!
Let The One King Rule
Guest
I'd like to know that too. Not being from Aus, I appreciate but do not get into the extremely parochial support of the TV networks.
Vivalasvegan
Guest
Serious question techies... How do I watch non Australian athletes in the Olympics? are there any clever ways to watch a range of international sportsmen and women, in sports that Australia do not historically go well in? The coverage is appalling if you want to watch the olympics as an event, rather than a stream of australians only...
Bakkies
Guest
Get Modbro and watch the BBC coverage