Twitch down: Live streams not working as site fails to load for some users

A picture taken at the Tokyo Game Show on September 21, 2018, shows the logo of the VOD and streaming video games company Twitch (MARTIN BUREAU/AFP via Getty Images)

Twitch has stopped working, with users unable to load live streams.

The company confirmed that it was aware of an issue that would mean the service would "fail to load in some cases".

Tracking website Down Detector confirmed there appeared to be a major issue, and a variety of users complained on Twitter that they were unable to access the site and its app.

Down Detector showed problems particularly coming from Europe, and a smaller cluster in the US, though that may simply be a consequence of where its users are online and trying to use the service.

The problems were also reflected on Twitch's status page, which noted that it was experiencing "degraded performance".

But not all users appeared to be hit by the problems, with many still able to watch as normal. Many streams still showed tens of thousands of viewers – suggesting a large number of people could access the site, even if fewer than normal.

Twitch says that an average of 1.5 million people are using the site at any given moment. Some 4 million people stream using the site each month, and is visited by 17.5 million people each day, it claims.

The site is owned by Amazon and is gradually becoming more integrated with the retail giant. Earlier this month, it announced that it would rebrand its premium service as "Prime Gaming", in an attempt to bring the various Amazon services together.