EZTV Suffers Downtime Due to Server Troubles
Written by Ernesto on October 25, 2009With more than half a million visits a day, EZTV is the leading TV-torrent release group. It therefore comes as no surprise that rumors and confusion spread when the site went offline earlier this week. EZTV users can be reassured though, the downtime is caused by technical issues and not any legal trouble as some had suggested.
EZTV was founded in the spring of 2005 after some prominent TV-torrent sites were shut down. With relatively little competition it soon grew to become the leading TV-torrent distribution group.
Today the group serves more than 16 million visitors a month on its website alone, and a multiple of that on the other torrent sites they distribute their releases on.
Several days ago EZTV’s website suddenly went offline without prior notice, something that usually leads to wild rumors about what the cause. Luckily EZTV’s problems are due to technical problems and they are currently working on a comeback.
EZTV’s Novaking told TorrentFreak that a rebuild of the servers stuffed up and they are currently waiting for some tech people to look into it. It’s not clear when the site will return, but it’s safe to assume that it will be a matter of days, not weeks or months.
This is not the first prolonged outage the popular TV-torrent site has suffered this year. During the summer the website was down for six weeks. It went offline because of hardware problems, but EZTV decided to take advantage of the situation and relocate all hardware to a new datacenter while implementing several new features.
Even though the website is currently offline, EZTV’s releases are still widely available though a number of sites. “You can still get our stuff from Mininova, The Pirate Bay, Twitter and Zoink,” Novaking told TorrentFreak.
Previously: Busting Common Trackerless Torrent Myths
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66 Responses
Lol they got owned
hope they fix it soon
Come on guys, sort this out quick.
Lovely fellows those EZTV guys are.. Luckily – their “formal” RSS feed is still up and available (and updated regularly) :) – http://ezrss.it
Just follow EZTV on twitter and you can be updated with all the latest posts
Just use EZTV’s channel at Mininova.
http://www.mininova.org/user/EZTV
Glad to find out what was going on.
How is EZTV a release group? Is Torrentbytes a release group too? Swebits? Lol…EZTV is just a TV tracker with uploaders that leak _scene releasese_. Nothing else.
#7 lol ’scene’ releases of tv shows. get a grip
Damn. 1st Demonoid and now EZTV.
Next is TPB because i live in Holland ;-(
Common CB3rob can you save us again?
I’m glad i have a couple of private trackers where i have nice ratios so i can DL all i want but i dont like this crap.
boa notícia! não sabia o q havia acontecido até agora…. vlws
roffle this site isn’t the leading anything
I bet their pretimes on average are 24 hours +
1337x.org ist down too…
I have to say though, at least they have a backup solution, even if its not 100% as good.
They have other sources where the torrents, which they index on their site, can be downloaded.
Good on them.
Actually Im with Quasit on this one. EZTV goes to great pains to tell people that they aren’t a release group, and will never release anything, only distribute torrent files of quality content. The Tracking is even done offsite by partners and supporters.
It is believed that this is one of the main reasons that they get to stay up with minimal legal challenges.
It is much like Painballers use Paintball ‘Markers’ because if they were called “guns” they would be classified “guns” and would then be regulated as guns.
yea, its cool, get well soon! i need you for my RSS torrents :)
@7Quasit
“How is EZTV a release group? Is Torrentbytes a release group too? Swebits? Lol…EZTV is just a TV tracker with uploaders that leak _scene releasese_. Nothing else.”
You sir are an idiot. EZTV has TV shows, and from what I’ve noticed, the TV shows aren’t uploaded until AFTER they have aired at their regular time on television.
To add to my comment:
The TV episodes I have downloaded from EZTV have been TV rips. They have the logo of the TV network on the video just like on TV. So I don’t get how they can be a “leaked scene release”. I find the episodes I want around and hour or more after the time it has aired on TV in my area.
seems it’s a black week on torrent sites: tpb, eztv, btarena, h33t, demonoid… good that are just some server issues on all sites
I like EZTV but as lately they have missed some shows and released others weeks after.
Hope they get their act together and have less trouble in the future.
From the FAQ:
Q: Why don’t you cap my favourite show?
A: eztv caps no shows, it is a distribution group only. The shows are capped by other
release groups over whom eztv has no control (or communication).
Q: Why do some episodes from a series get distributed, but not all?
A: Once again, eztv caps no shows, it is a distribution group only. The shows
are capped by other release groups over whom eztv has no control (or
communication). Sometimes the release groups capture some episodes and not
others, there is nothing eztv can do about that.
Q: I don’t like torrents, can’t I just download straight from your site or
channel?
A: No. eztv is purely a torrent distribution group, and devotes all available
bandwidth to that means of distribution.
Conclusion: EZTV distributes other groups releases. “Distribution group” would be more correct than “release group”.
The other shows missed by EZTV get released by VTV.
http://www.mininova.org/user/vtv
Slow news day, huh.
I really liked their countdown list of what is airing for the week and at what times, does anyone know of a good replacement?
@23 try – http://on-my.tv/
Good luck guys, and thanks for all your work. eztv is really great, i wouldn’t know how to spend the last hour before sleep without it :)
scene releases lol you moron, i hope you come back and look at these comments and see what a retard you r
Wow, some of you Ppl are amazing, I would just bet $$$ that if you were to be hanged, you would bitch about the rope that was going to be used rather than being hanged itself, LMAO
All I can say is the comments are always quite entertaining…
EZTV RoKZ!, ’nuff said!
You can get all EZTV & VTV releases here – http://pirlog.com/verified.html
http://Pirlog.com
to keep up with specific show air times, and select shows to ‘watch’ – check out http://myepisodes.com
I can’t understand why EZTV removed the filesize from the listings in the fairly recent site ‘upgrade’.
Since they’ve removed that, one needs to download the torrent file before knowing whether it is HD or SD.
Is there some other way of displaying this information now?
This has been the final straw to pull my finger out and start using usenet and tvnzb.
It’s far superior.
@30..
Simple, search for EZTV’s ups somewhere other than EZTV’s site…Mininova, TPB, Seed to Peer..etc.. all ups at those sites show the file size…
But then when it says “720* or “MKV” in the show title it’s kinda like a MAJOR clue, wouldnt you agree?
All due respect, but “…EZTV is the leading TV-torrent release group”…?
Hardly. As others have said – they don’t _release_ anything, they simply distribute episodes (which are capped and released by the scene groups). Also, they are hours and sometimes days after pre. Not really “leading” anything.
Still, I hope they fix their sh!t.
@Soundwave:
It wasn’t removed, it was moved to the episode synopsis page. We plan to make it easier for people to get all that kind information without flooding the front page.
@everyone else:
We have always stated we are a DISTRIBUTION group not a RELEASE group. the only “tagging” we do is on the torrent filename only, we do not hinder the .avi file or tag ourselves in any other way. some people say we are ’stealing the fame’ from scene cappers, but that is not what we are about. we are about providing the public with TV shows as quickly and as fast as possible.
We are constantly updating the site and providing more infrastructure so events like this don’t occur, but as we are a pure non-for-profit website (no ads, no donations) this is all done from our own pockets, so we can not just simply put up 50 servers with full redundancy and backup system, as much as i would love to have such a setup! :)
but even while we are down we still index all our shows on twitter, mininova, thepiratebay, bt-chat, shareractor, pirlog, vertor, zoink and a few others.
Thanks NovaKing!!
I depend on EZTV for the few shows I do watch… Very reliable,and fast files, you guys RoK!
Soundwave, just put your mouse on one line of the episode’s list and wait
http://www.siteslike.com/similar/eztv.it
EZTV torrents are available in our TV directory too: http://bitsnoop.com/tv/
Eztv ain’t a frakking TV release group. The largest TV groups are FQM & LOL for XviD / CTU & DiMENSiON FOR 720p/1080p x264; whose releases are ’stolen’ (read : leaked by those who stand to profit from it) to $#!tty bittorrent. Get your facts right.
whose releases are ’stolen’ (read : leaked by those who stand to profit from it) to $#!tty bittorrent. Get your facts right.
A Thief (assuming your really a “sceene guy” and not some fanboi wannabe) calling us BT users thiefs, now theres irony for you. Why cant you just accept that some people actually find it easier to use torrents than go trawling websites looking for an episode of a TV show hosted on some file server, that requires you to pay a monthly subscription to get high speed downloads? not to mention the fact that hapf the time you find a link to a show, its in two parts, but unless you pay the file hosting site a subscription you end up getting slow downloads and have to wait around an hour to get the second file.
I much prefair torrents for the simple fact I can click a link, and usually within 30-40 mins depening on peers I can be watching the TV show. EZTV provides a world class service for this Keep up the great work guys.
oops forgot to add ” ” around the first paragraph to show its a comment of 39
Point by point..
1. EZTV is a *torrent release group* and a *TV distribution group*. Everyone’s right. Stop arguing.
2. Technical issues suck :)
3. Listen to the NovaKing. He knows his stuff :P
4. To #33; it is rare that we are hours or days behind with shows, and when we are it is usually *always* due to slip-ups. We have *a lot* of data to throw around and a short time in which to do it, so it’s not all that strange that we sometimes miss a show or two (but we always catch up). We are usually pretty fast to come out with the shows (I do believe we are > 1h since pre on most rels)
- @SantaBJ, #EZTV
all i want is eztv to come back on line…..
Guys, please don’t be so harsh on ez tv! They do a great job and because of people like them…people all around the world can access their favourite Tv shows. Give them a break will you?
Thanks Ez TV!
Thanks to number 24 that’s a great site
Damn… did it take TF long enough to report what the hell was happening?!
Jesus, I thought they would be all over this… but they were more concerned about TPB BS and other worthless info.
And LOL at all the noobs
Jeeez, stop complaining about a free service that does a great job in catering to, and going beyond, the needs of most of us. Who cares if they miss the odd show? Who cares of the odd show is a little late? Do you people watch so much TV that you have withdrawal symptoms after an hour or two of not being able to find something? EZTV provides a simple, effective way to track and download torrents. I’m sorry they’re down at the moment, but I’m sure they’re doing their best to get back up. It’s a free service, and for that you get great value. If that isn’t good enough for you, get a damned life.
eztv is a rubbish site.
It covers a very very small sample of U.S. popular TV.
Everytime you request a show it gets ignored by the staff.
get all their feeds from twitter http://twitter.com/EZTV_IT
Don’t complain about them not making the actual releases. They say that on their site and most people should know it. Someone has to upload scene releases to P2P, why can’t it be them? They’re not taking credit for making the releases.
#49: We cover almost all the popular shows in the US except for daytime TV and dailies (exceptions being The Daily Show (VTV), Colbert Report (VTV), Real Time w/ Bill Maher and Conan). There is a show request thread on the forum. We don’t ignore it, but it usually takes more than one mention to get it on the site. There are many examples of requests we’ve followed up, though.
There are also examples of shows that are popular by viewing numbers (Nielsen) but that we have stopped distributing because they weren’t popular enough with our users.
LOL
I don’t know why i read the comments on TF. Most of them are just stupendous ;).
Anyhow EZTV was my first source of tv rips and they desrve a big thanks for doing this as long as they been doing it.
With eztv down I decided to check out /www.torrentfly.org while not quite as nicely organized as eztv it is way way fast downloads, plus they have everybodies fav axxo movies. Trick is to skip the ‘pay’ downloads and use the torrrent option instead.
It seems to be back online,torrents a week out of date
Yeah, it’s back:)
up up UP !
seems to be down again.
despite all the haters, i have to say, i love EZTV. the guys do a great job, and its a one stop shop for all the shows i watch.
Thanks from Ireland.
eztv seems to be back up again as 11:30pm est
Eztv is back and better !
#36 – Alex
Oh OK. I always just hover over by the Download Arrows and click them in order, so I never saw the tooltips for the filesize. Thanks, that’s better than nothing.
It was more convenient for me before they removed it from the listings, but EZTV is still fantastic.
@59
No, its back and the same. Which is still pretty damn good.
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Who even uses the site anymore? The mods are fucktards who take half a day to get whats on mininova on their own site.
Frankly I think it should just stay down, because the owners think they should get as much respect as the cappers.
it’s working:eztv.it
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