YouTube experienced a widespread disruption Tuesday night that temporarily prevented users from accessing videos across its platform. The Google-owned service later confirmed the cause of the issue and began restoring functionality after reports surged globally.
YouTube suffered an hour-long outage on Tuesday
YouTube suffered an outage Tuesday evening that left users unable to load videos across its website and apps. Beginning around 5 p.m. PT, videos failed to appear on desktop and mobile, with many users seeing the message, “Something went wrong. Try again.” Reports escalated rapidly, with Downdetector showing hundreds of thousands of complaints within minutes.
By 5:10 p.m. PT, outage reports had spiked to 338,308, and by 5:45 p.m. PT, total global reports reached 1,688,679, including 837,973 in the United States, 160,259 in Canada, 106,261 in Brazil, 93,284 in the United Kingdom, and 42,994 in Germany. Initial reports began around 7:45 p.m. EST and surpassed 310,000 by 8:15 p.m. EST. YouTube TV also experienced disruptions, with more than 8,600 reports at approximately 8:35 p.m. EST.
CNET staffers reported seeing YouTube’s homepage load without videos, while the app displayed a blank screen accompanied by the message “Something went wrong” and a “Try again” button that did not restore access. Downdetector’s outage map showed concentrated reports in major cities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco, with additional clusters in Seattle, Chicago, Phoenix, and Denver.
The official TeamYouTube account stated, “If you’re having trouble accessing YouTube right now, you’re not alone — our teams are looking into this and will follow up here with updates.”
In a subsequent update, the company said, “An issue with our recommendations system prevented videos from appearing across surfaces on YouTube (including the homepage, the YouTube app, YouTube Music and YouTube Kids). The homepage is back, but we’re still working on a full fix.” By 6:30 p.m. PT, Downdetector reports had fallen below 50,000.
Originally reported by Anubhav Chaudhry on ComingSoon.net.
