YouTube experienced a significant outage on February 17, 2026, affecting thousands of users worldwide, including those in the United States, Canada, India, the Philippines, Australia, and Russia, starting around 8 PM Eastern Time.
The issue was widespread, with Downdetector recording 338,000 outage reports before the number began to decline. Users reported more trouble accessing the YouTube application compared to the website’s homepage. Google also received thousands of outage reports around the same time, with Engadget Managing Editor Cherlynn Low stating at 9:53 PM that both YouTube and Google Home Assistant remained inaccessible for her.
As the outage continued, users reported access issues on Reddit, with some still experiencing problems at 9:22 PM. However, by 9:33 PM, some users reported partial restoration of service, with the homepage accessible but without recommended videos. Others indicated a complete restoration of service.
Team YouTube acknowledged the problem before 9 PM, initially stating that there were issues with the platform. An update 20 minutes later revealed that the issues were related to its recommendation system, despite the homepage being back online. At 10:12 PM Eastern Time, Team YouTube posted on X that the issue had been completely resolved.
The cause of the outage was not specified by Team YouTube. Despite the lack of information on the reason behind the outage, the swift acknowledgement and resolution of the issue by the YouTube team were notable.
