Is Crunchyroll Down? Troubleshooting Guide

For those of you that live in the US, Crunchyroll is one of the biggest distributors and publishers for manga and anime streaming, featuring both regular anime TV shows, OVAs as well as Asian dramas.

The platform is incredibly popular, with tens of thousands of daily visitors, not to mention the ones that visit it from outside the US if they use a VPN service and get an Asian IP address (or an IP address from any other location).

Unfortunately, not all platforms are bulletproof, and there may be instances when you try connecting to Crunchyroll and are met with a wide variety of error messages, black screen, or simply an unresponsive app.

Why Is Crunchyroll Not Working?

Like any streaming platform, there are many things that can cause Crunchyroll from working properly or even stop it from working at all, and these include:

Site issues and the servers being down
Ad-blocker interferences
Improper VPN settings
Complications with the Firewall, and more

As such, the solutions listed below will target these causes specifically one after the other until you reach the root of the problem.

What to Do When Crunchyroll Is Not Loading

Troubleshoot your Internet connection
Check the Crunchyroll server status
Disable ad blockers
Disable your antivirus or firewall
Clear your browsing data
Check your VPN settings
Reset the Crunchyroll app
Reinstall the Crunchyroll app
Contact Crunchyroll support

1. Troubleshoot your Internet Connection

The first thing that you need to try before modifying any VPN, firewall or browser settings is to simply check out whether or not your Internet connection is to blame for Crunchyroll not working, so check to see whether your router is emitting WI-Fi signal correctly, or if your Ethernet cable is plugged in properly.

It is also common for users connected to public networks to have issues with Crunchyroll because those networks come with built-in and very restrictive firewall settings, and if that’s the case for you as well, simply switch to another network and see if Crunchyroll works afterwards.

2. Check the Crunchyroll Server Status

If your own Internet connection is not to blame, yet you still can’t get Crunchyroll to work, simply go to a website such as DownDetector.com to check whether or not Crunchyroll simply has server issues, or whether they are experiencing any downtimes.

If that is the case, then there’s nothing that you can do about it besides waiting it out and checking back from time to time to see if the servers are back up again.

3. Disable Ad Blockers

Is Crunchyroll down because of your ad blocker? This could be the case since Crunchyroll is known to make revenue out of ads, with a lot of them sometimes popping up even during the middle of shows just like a TV commercial, although those of you that brought a premium Crunchyroll account don’t need to worry about it.

However, those of you that don’t want to pay a few extra dollars to get rid of ads may have opted to use ad blockers, but these can sometimes interfere with Crunchyroll’s functionality and prevent it from running entirely.

If you suspect that your ad blocker is to blame, consider whitelisting Crunchyroll, but doing so varies from ad blocker to ad blocker.

If you’re using Google Chrome and want to completely disable your ad blocker, you can do this by following these steps:

Launch Google Chrome.
Type in chrome://extensions in the address bar and press Enter.
Uncheck the enable option next to your ad blocker.
Restart your browser.

Note: Try doing this to video player extensions as well, since these can also affect Crunchyroll’s functionality

4. Disable Your Antivirus Or Firewall

It’s good to have an antivirus installed on your PC, but then again they are still software that can make the occasional mistake, one of which is usually detecting regular websites as potentially harmful, or pretty much any other kind of false positives.

In fact, this is a frequent issue that you will encounter with all online video streaming websites so by following these steps you might actually fix issues with more than just Crunchyroll.

The process of disabling your antivirus or your firewall depends on what antivirus tool you are using, but they can all be usually disabled for either a set amount of time or permanently until you manually enable them again.

For the purpose of safety, we recommend that you only disable your antivirus and firewall while watching Crunchyroll.

5. Clear Your Browsing Data

Just like any other website that you visit, Crunchyroll will make use of your browser’s cached data so that it can optimize your user experience, but this data can become corrupted due to a number of reasons, especially when a website gets a major update and there is a conflict between how it looks now and your browser remembers it.

Keep in mind that this solution will involve deleting all browser data, including saved passwords, so make sure that you have them backed up somewhere, or maybe even use a reliable password manager.

If you’re using Google Chrome, follow these steps to clear your browser cache:

Launch Google Chrome .
Type in chrome://settings in the address bar and press Enter.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select Advanced.
Look for and then select Clear browsing data.
Check all boxes and select the All time option when asked about the timespan, and finally click on Clear data.
Restart your browser.

6. Check Your VPN Settings

As mentioned earlier, Crunchyroll’s full anime and manga library is only available in the US, so if you live outside the US it’s normal if the website doesn’t work at all, or if it works with issues.

On the other hand, if you are using a VPN, even if you are in the US, make sure that you are connected to a US-based server. Once you connect to such a server, simply restart your browser or relaunch your Crunchyroll Microsoft Store app, and try watching a TV show again.

This process varies from VPN to VPN, but they all usually come with similar interfaces, so navigating through them shouldn’t be all that hard.

In fact, we’ve written an entire article about VPNs for Crunchyroll that you should try out if you’re planning on watching it from outside the US.

7. Reset the Crunchyroll App

Crunchyroll is also available as a UWP Store app that anyone can download for free from the Microsoft Store, and sometimes any playback issues can be caused by the app itself.

If you suspect that that is the case, consider resetting the Store app and try watching something afterwards.

Here’s how you can reset the Microsoft Store Crunchyroll app:

Press the Windows key to open the Start Menu.
Press the Settings button.
- It’s the one shaped like a cogwheel.
Go to Apps.
Scroll down until you see the Crunchyroll app.
Click on it and select Advanced options.
Scroll down until you see the Reset button, and press it.

8. Reinstall the Crunchyroll App

If resetting didn’t do the trick, then you should consider reinstalling it entirely.

Press the Windows key to open the Start Menu.
Press the Settings button.
- It’s the one shaped like a cogwheel.
Go to Apps.
Scroll down until you see the Crunchyroll app.
Click on it and select Uninstall.

9. Contact Crunchyroll Support

If none of the above-mentioned solutions work, then it is finally time to ask for professional help from the official Crunchyroll Support, since it is most likely a problem with your account details on the cloud, or it’s a Crunchyroll backend issue.

Simply head over to the official Crunchyroll support forum, fill out the form with details regarding your issue, and wait until they get back in contact with you, hopefully with a solution.

Crunchyroll Doesn’t Work: Closing Thoughts

By following these steps, we hope that you will be able to enjoy Crunchyrolls vast anime and manga libraries without any kind of technical issues, both on your browser as well as your Microsoft Store app.

Is Crunchyroll down for you? If you’re facing any other similar issues, tell us about it in the comments section below.

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1 Comment

Matthew says:

November 22, 2022 at 4:57 pm

None of these steps helped at all…. Every other streaming service works fine…. Even some of the videos on CR work but very few…. It’s like all the titles are displayed but only 4 work… fresh app install, no cache wired network with zero connectivity issues and still nothing but problems. Have tried finding better support but there really isn’t much

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Crunchyroll Not Working? Here’s How to Fix Crunchyroll Not Loading