YouTube and YouTube TV are down for thousands of users worldwide in a rare global outage for Google.
The problems first started at around 7.50pm ET / 12.50am GMT, when a huge spike in reports on Downdetector showed over 280,000 reports in the US and over 30,000 in the UK.
Right now, there isn't an official explanation from Google for the outage, but you can follow all the latest on the situation here in this liveblog...
A huge spike in reports
If you're struggling with YouTube and YouTube TV right now, you're definitely not alone – there's been a huge spike of over 317,000 reports in the US and 38,000 in the UK.
The outage seems to be affecting both the website and mobile app for many, with the latter showing a 'something went wrong' message. In the US, YouTube TV is also down, with over 8,000 reports for the service, making this one of the biggest Google outages for some time.
'Something went wrong'
This is the highly unusual error message that many are seeing right now when trying to watch YouTube in the mobile app – and it's affecting the web version too.
The world's favorite video site is still struggling almost an hour on from the issues first started. There's no official cause for the problems yet with nothing on Google's status page, but this appears to be more than a brief blip...
Widespread panic sets in
youtube is down?!February 18, 2026
The YouTube outage is causing incredulity online, with many noting how rare this is.
Of course, speculation is rife about the potential cause, with Downdetector showing spikes for AWS and Cloudflare – but they aren't notable ones and it's still too early to tell.
I'm still being met by a blank screen on thw website and in the mombile app...
Signs of progress?
YouTube has just started working again for me in the mobile app and on the website – and that seems to be the case for many others, according to Downdetector.
There's been a large dip in reports in the US, with the numbers dropping to around 227,000 – still massive, but a long way off the peak from around 30 minutes ago. Let's hope that continues in the same direction...
YouTube confirms a major issue
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: https://t.co/7iTU5S9AgTFebruary 18, 2026
So we weren't just hallucinating – YouTube has confirmed it's experiencing global issues in a short statement.
In a statement on YouTube help, it says: "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."
Fortunately, it seems the site and app and back working for many (including me), but problems remain for thousands according to Downdetector.
The fix seems to be working
Google says it's "looking into" today's major YouTube issues, but whatever it's done seems to be working already.
The mobile app and website and are working fine for me now, and the Downdetector reports are plummeting from their earlier massive high. They're now down to just over 56,000 in the US, suggesting there are still residual issues but that the worst of it is now over...
An update from Google
A new statement on the YouTube help page has shed some more light on what's happened.
According to Google, "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)." So yes, this was an unusually widespread outage.
The statement adds that "the homepage is back, but we're still working on a full fix" with the promise of "more updates coming soon". That means we're not completely out of the woods yet – so if you see any issues, you'll know why...
from Latest from TechRadar US in Computing News https://ift.tt/NfUe267
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