YouTube suddenly goes dark for thousands as Google confirms major glitch

YouTube was hit by a major outage that left tens of thousands of users unable to load videos, sparking frustration across the United States before Google confirmed a technical fault behind the disruption.

Problems began surging at around 5:30pm PST on February 17, with more than 30,000 users reporting issues at the peak, according to Downdetector. The US West Coast appeared to be hardest hit, including San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Users attempting to access the platform were met with blank homepages, missing recommendations and repeated “Error, try again” messages across both the website and the app. YouTube TV and other Google-linked services also saw smaller spikes in complaints.

What actually caused the YouTube outage?

Google later said the disruption was triggered by a failure in YouTube’s recommendations system, which prevented videos from appearing across the homepage and other key sections of the platform.

The glitch impacted YouTube.com, the YouTube app, YouTube Music, YouTube Kids and YouTube TV.

The company confirmed the issue had been resolved by around 7:30pm PST, with Google stating shortly after that the recommendations system problem had been fixed.

How widespread was the YouTube outage?

At its peak, more than 30,000 US users reported problems, though the true number of affected viewers may have been significantly higher.

Downdetector data showed reports dropping below 5,000 by 7:45pm PST, indicating that service was gradually being restored. In the hours that followed, only a few hundred scattered complaints remained.

However, some users continued to report sign-in issues and loading delays even after the official fix.

Is YouTube still down?

For most users, YouTube is now fully operational. Remaining issues are likely linked to cached data stored during the outage.

If the platform is still not working properly, users can try a hard refresh in their browser using Control + F5 on Windows or Command + Shift + R on Mac. On mobile devices, fully closing and reopening the app may help. Clearing cached images and files can also resolve lingering glitches.

The February 17 outage briefly knocked one of the world’s largest video platforms offline for thousands, highlighting how even a single internal system failure can disrupt millions of daily viewers.