YouTube faced a significant global outage on February 17, 2026, impacting millions of users worldwide. The disruption, which began around 7:45 p.m. ET (00:45 GMT on February 18), rendered the platform largely unusable, preventing access to videos, the homepage, and related services such as YouTube Music and YouTube Kids. The company attributed the issue to a malfunction in its recommendations algorithm.
The outage garnered attention as outage tracker Downdetector reported over 320,000 user complaints in the United States alone, with significant spikes in other regions, including the United Kingdom and India. Users reported various issues, including blank homepages, video playback failures, app freezes, and error messages indicating “Something went wrong.”
YouTube’s official account on X (formerly Twitter) acknowledged the problem soon after reports began to surge, stating that engineers were investigating. By approximately 9:00 p.m. ET, the company updated its support page and social media channels: “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.”
Details of the Outage
The malfunction occurred in the recommendations engine, an AI-driven system designed to suggest personalized content based on user behavior. This failure led to cascading issues across the platform, effectively blocking content from loading on vital surfaces, although backend servers remained operational.
The outage lasted approximately 90 to 120 minutes, with partial restoration occurring around 9:30 p.m. ET. By 10:15 p.m. ET, YouTube confirmed via a final update: “The issue with our recommendations system has been resolved, and all of our platforms (YouTube.com, the YouTube app, YouTube Music, Kids, and TV) are back to normal! We really appreciate you bearing with us while we sorted this out.”
Despite the swift resolution, isolated complaints persisted into the following day. YouTube did not clarify the root cause of the glitch; however, sources familiar with Google’s operations indicated that an incorrect configuration may have been applied broadly across server clusters, amplifying the outage’s impact.
The incident also disrupted services for YouTube TV subscribers, with many users experiencing streaming interruptions and problems accessing channels. Fortunately, no data loss, security breaches, or permanent damage to user accounts were reported. This outage marks one of the most significant disruptions for YouTube in recent years, following smaller incidents in 2025 related to similar algorithmic adjustments.
User Reactions and Future Considerations
Users in high-traffic areas, particularly on the U.S. West Coast and in India, reported the heaviest impacts, coinciding with peak evening viewing times. Social media platforms were flooded with memes and expressions of frustration, with many users switching to alternatives like TikTok and Twitch during the downtime.
YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc., serves over 2.5 billion monthly logged-in users and remains the leading video platform globally. While the company emphasized its rapid response and expressed gratitude to users for their patience, the incident sparked renewed discussions regarding the reliance on complex AI recommendation systems and the need for enhanced failover mechanisms.
As services returned to normal, there were no announcements regarding compensation or official apologies, although YouTube has previously provided goodwill gestures, such as ad credits for significant outages affecting creators. The event underscores the importance of robust infrastructure and contingency planning in maintaining service continuity for a platform of YouTube’s scale.
