Jio Hotstar is facing widespread streaming issues on Sunday afternoon as thousands of users across India reported being unable to watch the KKR vs RR IPL 2026 Match 28 live from Eden Gardens, Kolkata. The platform appeared to be stuck on a “Stay Tuned” holding screen with a looping highlight clip of Cameron Green’s shot playing on repeat — leaving fans staring at the same footage for over 20 minutes just as the match was about to begin at 3:30 PM IST.
Social media platforms including X and Instagram filled up rapidly with users expressing frustration, with hashtags related to Jio Hotstar trending as the clock ticked toward the scheduled start time. Jio Hotstar has not issued an official statement on the outage at the time of writing.
What Users Are Experiencing
The issue appears consistent across a large number of users — the app is not crashing or throwing an error message, which would at least tell you something is wrong. Instead it is displaying a pre-match holding screen on loop, giving users no indication of whether the live stream is imminent or whether something has gone wrong on the platform’s end. For a user who does not follow social media closely, the looping Cameron Green clip could easily be mistaken for a deliberate pre-match feature rather than a streaming failure — making the problem more insidious than a straightforward crash.
Reports suggest the issue is affecting both the Jio Hotstar mobile app on Android and iOS as well as the Smart TV application. The website version appears to be functioning for some users, making it the first port of call for anyone trying to get the live feed up before the toss and first ball.
What to Do If Jio Hotstar Is Not Working for You
The fastest fix that has worked for a number of affected users is force-closing the app entirely — not just minimising it — and reopening it fresh. On Android, go to your recent apps, swipe the Jio Hotstar app off the screen, then relaunch. On iOS, swipe up from the home bar to the app switcher, swipe the Jio Hotstar card upward to close it, then relaunch from the home screen.
If that does not resolve the issue, switching your network connection is the next step. Toggle off WiFi and switch to mobile data, or vice versa, before reopening the app. Streaming platform outages during peak load events — which an IPL match at 3:30 PM on a Sunday afternoon absolutely is — are often caused by CDN routing congestion that affects one network type more than another.
Logging out of your Jio Hotstar account and logging back in has also resolved the issue for some users by forcing the app to re-establish its authentication and stream connection from scratch.
If none of the above works, open Jio Hotstar directly in a browser — Chrome or Safari — on your phone or laptop rather than using the app. The browser version runs on a different delivery stack and has historically been more stable during peak load spikes.
The Television Alternative
The simplest and most reliable solution if the app continues to be unresponsive is to switch to television. The KKR vs RR IPL 2026 match is being broadcast live on Star Sports 1, Star Sports 1 Hindi, Star Sports 1 Tamil, Star Sports 1 Telugu, Star Sports 1 Kannada and their corresponding HD channels. For a match of this importance — KKR desperately seeking their first win of the season against an in-form Rajasthan Royals — missing even the powerplay overs to a streaming outage is not a risk worth taking if you have a television available.
Why This Keeps Happening on IPL Match Days
Jio Hotstar streaming issues during IPL matches are not new. The platform serves tens of millions of concurrent viewers during peak IPL windows, and the transition from pre-match holding content to a live feed is one of the highest-stress moments for any streaming infrastructure — it is the point at which all those concurrent users simultaneously attempt to establish a live stream connection, creating a traffic spike that even well-provisioned systems can struggle to absorb in real time.
The specific pattern users are describing today — a looping pre-match clip rather than an error message — suggests the platform’s live stream handoff is failing for a portion of users while the holding content continues to serve normally, which is a backend switching or authentication issue rather than a full platform outage.
Jio Hotstar is expected to resolve the issue as the match gets underway and the initial connection spike stabilises. In the meantime, Star Sports on television remains the most reliable way to watch KKR vs RR live.