Why was YouTube hit by global outage?
As millions face loading errors, Google says issue stemmed from internal system failure, that services were being restored, and it was working on a full fix
YouTube suffered a major global outage late Tuesday (February 17), leaving users across India, the United States, and several other countries unable to access videos or browse content. At the peak of the disruption, hundreds of thousands of complaints were logged as the platform’s homepage failed to load and videos refused to play.
Parent company Google acknowledged the outage in an early statement posted by TeamYouTube on social media.
“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,” the company said.
Users attempting to access the platform encountered repeated “something went wrong” messages, while others were prompted to return later. The disruption extended beyond the main platform, affecting YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, and YouTube TV, indicating a broader system-wide issue.
Recommendations system identified as cause
In a subsequent update on its help page, YouTube said the outage was triggered by “an issue with our recommendations system,” which prevented videos from appearing across multiple surfaces, including the homepage and mobile applications.
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“The homepage is back, but we’re still working on a full fix,” the company added, suggesting that services were gradually being restored.
Surge in complaints on Downdetector
Outage-tracking platform Downdetector recorded a sharp spike in user complaints during the incident. In the United States alone, more than 320,000 users flagged issues at the height of the disruption. In India, over 19,000 complaints were registered within minutes during morning hours, underscoring the global scale of the outage.
Downdetector compiles data from user-submitted reports and other signals, meaning actual affected numbers could be higher.
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The outage appeared to peak around 0100 GMT, after which reports began to decline. Social media platforms were flooded with posts from frustrated users reporting simultaneous failures across regions.
YouTube is the world’s largest video-sharing platform with over 2.5 billion monthly active users.