If you are trying to watch videos right now, you might be out of luck. YouTube is currently suffering from a widespread outage that has left thousands of users in the United States and around the world staring at blank screens. The problems began around 8 PM ET and quickly spiked, with viewers unable to access the homepage or play content on both the mobile app and the website.
The scale of the crash is massive. Downdetector, a site that tracks internet outages, logged over 338,000 reports at the peak of the issue. While the trouble seems concentrated in the U.S., reports are pouring in from Canada, India, the Philippines, Australia, and Russia. It isn’t just a glitch for one region; it appears to be a significant blackout for the video giant.
As of late evening, the situation remains messy. While the volume of error reports on Downdetector has started to dip slightly, thousands of users are still flocking to social media sites like Reddit to complain that the service is dead. Some users say the site is slowly coming back online for them, but others are seeing a broken version of YouTube—the homepage might load, but it won’t show any recommended videos or play anything.
The issues appear to extend beyond just video streaming. Downdetector also registered thousands of reports regarding Google Search around the same time the YouTube problems began. Smart home users are feeling the pain as well. Engadget staff reported that Google Home Assistant devices are currently inaccessible, suggesting a deeper problem with Google’s infrastructure rather than just a simple website crash. Google has not yet stated what caused the disruption or when full service will return.
