YouTube outage cause revealed: What we know

Source: Mashable Tech

Updates

• Updated on Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 9:15 p.m. ET — As of this writing, YouTube appears to be working again. Google and YouTube have not announced the cause of the outage, nor confirmed that the problems are fully resolved.
• Updated on Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 9:26 p.m. ET — YouTube revealed the cause of the outage. In a statement on X, the company said it was due to an issue with their recommendations system, which stopped videos from appearing. “The homepage is back, but we’re still working on a full fix – more coming soon!”
• Updated on Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 10:19 p.m. ET — YouTube announced that the issue has been solved.

Outage overview

If you can’t watch YouTube videos right now, you’re not alone. A Tuesday‑evening outage affected users worldwide, with problems starting around 8:00 p.m. ET. Early reports were sketchy, but the following details have emerged.

Reports and impact

• The platform DownDetector logged 837,973 user error reports (and rising) in the U.S. alone.
  • 46.7 % of users reported problems accessing the YouTube app.
  • 21.1 % reported problems with the website.
• Users in Canada, Brazil, the UK, and Germany also reported issues. (Disclosure: Mashable and DownDetector share the same parent company.)

Editor experience

Mashable editors in both the U.S. and Australia were unable to access YouTube’s website and app. Attempts to load the site resulted in a blank black screen with only the sidebar and search bar visible.

The YouTube homepage goes dark… – Credit: Amanda Yeo / Mashable

YouTube’s response

YouTube acknowledged the outage on X, directing users to the Google Support page for more information.

• Initial update: “Hi everyone, we’re aware some of you are having issues accessing YouTube right now. Our teams are aware, and we’ll provide updates as soon as we have them.”
• Follow‑up update: “We are aware of the ongoing issue impacting YouTube homepage, recommendations, search and uploads and are working to fix it. Please follow along in our Community for updates. Our support agents do not have any additional information to share at this time.”

Background

YouTube is the largest streaming service by far in the United States, according to The Ringer.

Outlook

At the time of writing, the exact cause of the outage remains unknown. Mashable has reached out to Google for further details and will update the story as new information becomes available.

This is a developing story.