Peacock Customers Frustrated Service Doesn’t Support External Monitors or HDMI Cords

Peacock, NBCUniveral’s new streaming service, just launched today, and it’s full of exciting new titles and old favorites, from Brave New World to 30 Rock. But not everyone is having a seamless experience with the new platform.

Frustrated customers were met with an error message today when they tried to watch content on the platform. While there are plenty of ways to stream Peacock — it’s available on all Apple devices and both Vizio SmartCast TVs, and LG Smart TVs — users ran into issues with HDMI connection and external monitors.

Because Peacock isn’t available on Roku or Amazon Fire TV, some users tried connecting an HDMI cable to stream content from their device onto their TV. But, as Peacock explained today, it does not support two monitors via HDMI connection. So, if you’re one of the users who tried to stream Peacock using an HDMI cord, you likely got the following message: “Something went wrong. Sorry, your video configuration is not compatible.”

Unfortunately, there’s not an easy fix. To stream Peacock, you’ll need to disconnect your HDMI cord, which means you won’t be able to stream to your external device. According to Peacock, “You are likely trying to stream via an unsupported method, such as an HDMI cord from your computer or mobile device to an external monitor.” To continue streaming, Peacock instructs users to disconnect their external monitor.

Peacock customers were not pleased with the message or Peacock’s solution to the problem. On a Reddit thread about Peacock’s connectivity issue, one user wrote, “Peacock does not support HDMI. Who thought this was a good idea?!”

Twitter lit up with complaints, too. “This Peacock thing is screwing many of us over…not all of us have smart TV’s, and it’s incompatible with HDMI connections…meaning we as a group have to watch on a laptop or phone. Absolutely ridiculous decision making by NBC,” one user wrote.

“So Peacock isn’t on Roku at launch, AND you can’t use 2nd monitors via HDMI? Two huge L’s for @peacockTV within the first 10 minutes of my first experience with the new service. Incredibly poor, get it together @PeacockTVCare @NBCSportsSoccer,” another added.

“Peacock is absolute garbage. The app isn’t on Roku, so I tried to connect my laptop to my TV via HDMI. It shut down and told me to disconnect my external monitor. I’ve never seen a streaming service try this hard to be intentionally unwatchable,” one user tweeted.

Peacock hasn’t announced any changes with HDMI connection, but it did reply to one Twitter user who asked about the error message. “HDMI connectivity is not supported at this time. Users will not be able to view via external monitor connection. They will need to use their PC, mobile or one of our other supported devices directly,” Peacock tweeted, adding a link to their supported devices.