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Season four of Game of Thrones premiered on Sunday.

Let the Games begin.

It's been one month since the much-hyped finale of the gritty crime drama True Detective crashed HBO's GO online-streaming service. Last night, it happened again, with the season-four premiere of the network's fantasy series Game of Thrones.

HBO GO is a password-enabled app that enables subscribers to stream content on their phones, tablets and laptops. But it's been become apparent that many HBO subscribers are sharing their passwords – with friends, neighbours, co-workers and anybody else who may be eagerly anticipating the broadcast of a particular show.

Given the amount of hype leading up to last night's show (as was the case with True Detective), it's likely that both GoT aficionados and bandwagon-jumpers alike were clamouring to watch the first new episode in nearly a year.

And just as with True Detective, a good percentage of people attempting to watch the medieval drama via the online service were greeted with a "fatal error" message.

HBO acknowledged the problem early into last night's broadcast with a cheeky Twitter missive that said, "Having trouble accessing HBO GO? Send a raven. Game of Thrones will be available soon on HBO On Demand with some cable providers."

HBO also reminded viewers that the premiere would replay at 11 p.m. Eastern Time.

Not surprisingly, many Thrones devotees who made plans to watch last night's premiere reached out to Twitter to register their displeasure.

A disgruntled fan named Chris Boy (@cboy7461) tweeted, "Dear HBO go servers. Fix yourselves or I swear to God I'll tweet every spoiler I know about game of thrones."

From Twitter user @lauuust: "HBO GO, I hate you. I will be upset if Game of Thrones is ruined for me."

And this tweet from @LanaTucci: "HBO GO – YOU HAD ONE JOB. LET ME WATCH THE GAME OF THRONES PREMIERE AND STOP CRASHING."

And it's entirely possible, if not likely, that a good percentage of people trying to watch the season-four premiere of GoT were already familiar with the plot lines: The show was recently named the most-pirated TV show on the planet.

Interact with The Globe