YouTube on Wednesday confirmed that the widespread outage affecting users in the United States and India has been fixed, after a recommendation system glitch prevented videos from appearing across key sections of the platform.
“Aaaand we’re back!! This issue has been fixed across YouTube. Thanks for all the reports and for bearing with us while we sorted it out,” Team YouTube posted on X, signalling full restoration of services.
Aaaand we’re back!! This issue has been fixed across YouTube. Thanks for all the reports and for bearing with us while we sorted it out ❤️ https://t.co/cnlULBUJe7
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) February 18, 2026
The outage had disrupted access to videos across the homepage, the YouTube app, YouTube Music and YouTube Kids, prompting lakhs of complaints across multiple regions before the company identified the underlying issue.
What caused the YouTube outage?
According to Downdetector, more than 2.8 lakh users in the United States reported problems at the peak of the disruption late Tuesday. A majority of complaints were linked to the YouTube app, while others cited website failures and login issues. YouTube TV was also affected.
In India, reports surged on Wednesday morning, with Downdetector showing over 18,000 complaints by 6:42 am IST. Most users said the app failed to load videos, while some encountered the familiar “something went wrong” message.
Earlier, Team YouTube had said that “an issue with our recommendations system prevented videos from appearing across surfaces on YouTube”, including the homepage and related apps. The company did not share technical details on what triggered the glitch.
Update: 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 – more coming soon!
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) February 18, 2026
Service gradually restored before full fix
Before confirming full restoration, YouTube had said the homepage was back but a complete fix was still being rolled out. The platform now says the issue has been resolved across its services.
YouTube, one of the world’s largest video-sharing platforms, handles millions of concurrent users across mobile devices, desktop browsers and connected televisions. Outages of this scale often lead to immediate spikes in user reports on tracking platforms such as Downdetector.
With services now restored, user activity appears to be stabilising.