Is Netflix search not working?

There are certain unique situations which, when they occur, make you realize exactly what a weird time we all live in.

For example, running out of data on your phone plan and then having to navigate around a city on a slow-as-hell Google maps. These little moments where something doesn’t work as it should and you suddenly, jarringly realize exactly how profound an impact the smallest of our modern conveniences actually have on our lives.

Or, more likely, I’m just playing a souped up armchair philosopher for a basic tech glitch. Starting in the evening of Tuesday, August 27, 2024, many people woke up to find that the search function inside Netflix wasn’t working. Don’t worry, it’s not just you. Users from across the entire globe are reporting the same issue. It appears to be an internal issue within Netflix itself.

The complaints seem to mostly be within TV apps. Tangentially, I just tried using the search on my browser Netflix, and it was fine. So either they fixed it by Wednesday morning (hooray!) or only certain versions of Netflix are having the issue.

Netflix hasn’t said anything about the search engine bug or why it happened. If your Netflix search isn’t working, you could trying looking up the film or show you’re trying to watch on an external search engine, like Google or DuckDuckGo (cool kids use DuckDuckGo, by the way).

Hang tight. One of the pros of a giant corporation like Netflix is that they’re bound to take an issue affecting worldwide users seriously.