Netflix Suffers Catastrophic Malfunction, Rentals Delayed For At Least 3 Days [UPDATED]

If you're like me and have been wondering why the hell you haven't gotten your expected Netflix movies this week, bad news: Netflix has suffered a catastrophic malfunction at every single one of its shipping centres, preventing them from shipping out movies for the better part of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Take a gander at the message that greeted me last night when I logged in to double check my queue to see what was going on:

IMPORTANT: Your DVD Shipments Have Likely Been Delayed

We're sorry to report that since Tuesday we've been experiencing issues with our shipping system, so many of you have not received DVDs in a timely manner and many of you have not received emails letting you know we got a DVD back from you.

We pride ourselves in delighting you, and we've let you down. We apologize and are working around the clock to restore normal operations. To all of you whose shipments have been delayed, we'll be automatically applying a credit to your next billing statement. Or, if you are new to Netflix and your first shipments have been delayed, we recognize that this is not a good way to begin your Netflix membership and we'll automatically extend your free trial.

Our goal is to ship DVDs as soon as possible and to keep you updated. Again, we are sorry for the inconvenience we've caused you and thank you for your patience.

No word from Netflix regarding exactly what's going on, but this malfunction constitutes the biggest disruption in service by Netflix in its entire nine year history.

A quick check of my account profile didn't yield any details on how we'll be compensated for the service outage, but at least my Queue has been extended to encompass six movies out at a time (double my usual), with a "Processing" message attached to my next 3 movies, so I suspect they'll be mailed out today (Friday.)

Netflix doesn't quite know when normal service will resume, but hopefully they're working round the clock so that us junkies can continue to get our fix.

Have you been affected by the outage?

UPDATE: Netflix reports that their shipping centres are now back to normal operations on Friday, and that all customers affected by the outage will receive a 15% discount on their next billing cycle:

We're happy to report that all of our shipping centers are resuming normal operations (after 3 days of issues). If you should have been shipped a disc Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, it will ship today (Friday).

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. To all of you whose shipments have been delayed, we'll be automatically applying a 15% credit to your next billing statement. Or, if you are new to Netflix and your first shipments have been delayed, we recognize that this is not a good way to begin your Netflix membership and we'll automatically extend your free trial by a week.

Again, we apologize for the delay and thank you for your understanding.