YouTube goes offline following thousands of user problems with the platform

On Tuesday night, YouTube had thousands of users report problems with an outage that lasted about two hours.

YouTube contacted the website after 10 p.m. ET, and the problem was resolved.
DownDetector is the name of an outage-tracking site that reported issues were encountered by over 300,000 people earlier in the evening. Approximately half of the complained problems were connected with the app, and 19% with the web version.
On this part, YouTube TV was having problems with over 8,000 users.

In a statement issued by YouTube, it said: we know that some of you are currently experiencing difficulties accessing YouTube. We know our teams, and we will update them when we have the news.

At 9:20 p.m. ET, video sharing platform YouTube announced: An error in our recommendation system did not allow the video to be placed on surfaces in YouTube (the homepage, the YouTube app, YouTube music and YouTube kids). The homepage is restored; however, we are still having a fix, which will appear in the near future!
At approximately 10:15 p.m. ET, YouTube said that all systems were fixed.

YouTube has confirmed that all sites are operational again, saying that it is not only back to normal after over a quarter million people cited that they cannot access the social media site.

The unofficial, crowdsourced website Downdetector had more than 250,000 users reporting problems accessing YouTube on Tuesday evening. The most complained issue was the people reporting having problems with the YouTube app.

At approximately 10 p.m. Eastern Time, YouTube assured that they had fixed the problem on its websites. 

The problem with our recommendations system was fixed, and everything in our platforms (YouTube.com, the YouTube app, YouTube Music, TV and kids) is working normally again! We truly apologise that you were so patient with us as we figured out, ” the video on the help page of YouTube states”.

YouTube also indicated that this is connected with the bigger problem on YouTube, and a solution is also underway.

YouTube initially confirmed the outage in a post on X: “If you’re having trouble accessing YouTube right now, you’re not alone.” 

The previous Tuesday, the home page of the video service gave a message just before and Independent reporter attempted to utilise it, that the site was given error message, yet there were separate videos that continued to load and play as usual.

The problems on the YouTube site were soon the cause of jokes on the internet.
On X, a YouTube gaming creator, ParrotMode wrote that now YouTubers were writing 45 min scripts about the Great YouTube outage of 2026.