Camilla Jessen
Millions report problems accessing the platform.
YouTube suffered a widespread outage Tuesday evening, leaving more than one million users unable to fully access the platform.
According to Downdetector, more than 800,000 complaints were reported in the United States alone. Additional reports came from users in Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom and Germany.
What went wrong
Most users said the YouTube app was not working properly. While the website loaded for some people, the homepage failed to display videos. Others said search, recommendations and uploads were not functioning.
Some users reported they could still access saved or recently watched videos, but could not browse new content.
The outage began around 8 p.m. EST, when roughly 75,000 reports were first logged.
Within hours, global complaints passed the one-million mark.
YouTube responds
YouTube quickly acknowledged the issue on social media.
“Hi everyone, 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 in an initial statement.
Later, YouTube clarified that the issue was linked to its recommendations system.
“We are aware of the ongoing issue impacting YouTube homepage, recommendations, search and uploads and are working to fix it,” the company said.
In a follow-up update, YouTube explained:
“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.”
The company said the homepage had been restored, though some features were still being repaired. It did not immediately provide details about what caused the outage.
Sources: Downdetector, YouTube statements, Unilad
