YouTube is down. Here's what we know.
Updated on Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 9:15 p.m. ET — As of this writing, YouTube appears to be working again. So far, Google and YouTube have not announced the cause of the outage, or confirmed that the problems are resolved.
Updated on Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 9.26 p.m. ET — YouTube has 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 has announced that the issue has been solved.
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Original story follows.
If you can't watch YouTube videos right now, you're not alone. A Tuesday evening YouTube outage affected users across the globe, with problems starting around 8:00 p.m. ET. Early reports are sketchy, but here's what we know.
The platform DownDetector received 837,973 user error reports (and rising) in the U.S. alone, with 46.7 percent of users reporting problems accessing the YouTube app and 21.1 percent reporting problems with the website. Users in Canada, Brazil, the UK, and Germany are also reporting problems. (Disclosure: Mashable and Downdetector share the same parent company.)
Mashable editors in both the U.S. and Australia were unable to access YouTube's website and app. Attempts to access the website resulted in a blank black screen with only YouTube's sidebar and search bar appearing.
YouTube acknowledged the outage on X, urging users to check the Google Support page for more information.
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The initial update from YouTube simply read, "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."
An additional update from YouTube read, "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 with you at this time."
YouTube is the largest streaming service by far in the U.S.
At this time, the cause of the outage is unknown. Mashable reached out to Google for more information (YouTube is owned by Google), and we'll update this story if we receive more information.
This is a developing story ...
Topics YouTube
Chris is a veteran tech, entertainment and culture journalist, author of 'How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,' and co-host of the Doctor Who podcast 'Pull to Open.' Hailing from the U.K., Chris got his start as a sub editor on national newspapers. He moved to the U.S. in 1996, and became senior news writer for Time.com a year later. In 2000, he was named San Francisco bureau chief for Time magazine. He has served as senior editor for Business 2.0, and West Coast editor for Fortune Small Business and Fast Company. Chris is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a long-time volunteer at 826 Valencia, the nationwide after-school program co-founded by author Dave Eggers. His book on the history of Star Wars is an international bestseller and has been translated into 11 languages.
