Marsha P.

I have had Acorn subscriptions off and on since 2013. After an "off" period due to heavy work schedule, I recently renewed so I could catch up on a couple of series that are not available elsewhere. Much to my dismay, I've discovered that the streaming feature has apparently gone straight downhill, with numerous lags, stalls, and skips.

Since I renewed the subscription in October 2016, I have noticed buffering problems that were never there in past subscriptions. Also, the episodes will sometimes suddenly freeze, then abruptly skip ahead to the end of the episode, bypassing the stuff in the middle. But the worst problem happens if I try to pause the show in mid-episode (to answer the phone, grab a cup of coffee, etc.) and then resume play after a few minutes. Some of the time, the audio resumes playing but the video picture remains frozen, but most of the time, the episode just won't restart. I have to reload the site, clear the cache and all cookies, and then restart. At which point, the episode resumes playing from the very beginning and there is no way to fast forward to the point where it left off. Very frustrating. I see by numerous forum posts, here and on other sites, that this is an ongoing problem but Acorn is apparently unable or unwilling to fix it. I sent a complaint several weeks ago but received no response. After another week of very frustrating "service" and no way to speak to a human being at Acorn about the problem, I'm about to cancel my account and request a refund for the remaining portion of my yearlong subscription.