is youtube down? Service briefly disrupted Tuesday evening, recommendations issue blamed

If you found videos missing or a blank homepage on Tuesday evening, you're not alone. The video service suffered a widespread disruption that began around 8: 00 p. m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 17 and was resolved later that night. The company confirmed the issue was fixed by 10: 19 p. m. ET after identifying a problem with its recommendations system.

Timeline: how the outage unfolded

The disruption was first noticed by users at roughly 8: 00 p. m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 17, when attempts to load the site or app produced incomplete pages or empty home feeds. Error reports from outage-tracking services spiked into the hundreds of thousands in the U. S., with additional reports from Canada, the UK, Brazil, Germany and other countries.

• About 8: 00 p. m. ET — Users begin reporting widespread access problems, including blank homepages and missing videos.
• 9: 15 p. m. ET — The company acknowledged the disruption and indicated teams were working to restore service.
• 9: 26 p. m. ET — An update posted on the service's official social account said the root cause was an issue with the recommendations system that prevented videos from appearing; the homepage was returning for many users, while engineers continued work toward a full fix.
• 10: 19 p. m. ET — The company announced the problem was resolved and that its platforms were back to normal.

Cause, scope and impact

Engineers traced the outage to the recommendations system, which is responsible for surfacing videos across the homepage, search results and related feeds. When that system stopped functioning normally, many users saw empty pages, failed searches and disrupted uploads across multiple surfaces of the service, including mobile apps and TV interfaces.

Outage-tracking services recorded hundreds of thousands of user error reports in the U. S. at the peak of the disruption, and reports came from multiple countries worldwide. The actual number of affected users is difficult to measure precisely, since those aggregates are based on user-submitted problem filings.

The disruption did not appear to affect playback for every user; some people were still able to watch individual videos by accessing them directly, while others could not load the platform's home feed or search effectively. support teams had limited additional details during the incident and directed users to its community updates while engineers worked on a fix.

What users should know and next steps

The incident was brief but disruptive for creators and regular viewers alike: creators saw uploads and recommendations impacted, and viewers relying on personalized home feeds encountered empty or incomplete pages. For most users, normal service returned once engineers resolved the recommendations issue.

If you encounter lingering problems after a restoration announcement, try basic troubleshooting steps: force-quit and reopen the app, clear your browser cache, restart your device, or check for app updates. If issues persist, watch for official community posts from the service for further updates on any lingering effects or planned follow-ups.

Broader takeaways include the central role recommendation systems play in modern streaming platforms and how a problem in that layer can cascade into widespread disruptions even when core video playback remains intact. it would provide further updates as needed, and service teams had confirmed the platforms were back to normal by late Tuesday night.