Unanswered: is youtube down — platform restores service after recommendation glitch
Users worldwide experienced a brief but widespread disruption to YouTube on Tuesday evening, leaving many unable to see videos or load the homepage. The company traced the issue to its recommendations system and said service was restored late that night.
What happened and who was affected
The disruption began at roughly 8: 00 p. m. ET on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026, when users across multiple countries found video pages, homepages and recommendation feeds failing to populate. Many described loading the site only to encounter a mostly blank screen with a sidebar and search bar visible but no playable content.
Outage-tracking services recorded hundreds of thousands of error reports in the United States at the peak of the incident, and significant reports came in from Canada, Brazil, the U. K., Germany, India, Australia and Mexico. Problems were reported on desktop web interfaces, mobile apps and connected-TV apps, and some users noted issues with uploading content and search results as well.
How the company responded and the timeline to resolution
The company issued an initial acknowledgement shortly after the outage began, advising that engineering teams were investigating. Within about an hour and a half, an update identified the root cause: an issue with the recommendations system that prevented videos from appearing across multiple surfaces. The company noted the homepage was returning for users but said a full fix was still in progress.
At 10: 19 p. m. ET the same night, the company announced that the problem had been fixed and that all platforms were back to normal. Engineers said the recommendations system — the component that serves suggested videos on homepages and in feeds — had stopped delivering content correctly, producing blank or incomplete views for many users. The company did not provide a detailed post-mortem in its public updates, but confirmed the immediate symptoms were resolved by late evening.
What users should know and what to try next
For most viewers the disruption should now be over. If you still see issues, first try basic troubleshooting: refresh the page or app, clear the app cache or browser cookies, sign out and back in, or restart the device. If problems persist on smart TVs or streaming devices, rebooting the device and reinstalling the app can help.
Creators who experienced interruptions to uploads or channel features should check their upload histories and monitor their dashboards for any lingering inconsistencies. If you rely on curated recommendations for discovery, expect a brief lag before personalized suggestions fully stabilize as the recommendations system finishes its recovery.
This outage is a reminder of how central recommendation engines have become to the experience on major video platforms: when the system that surfaces content falters, it can leave the service functionally unusable even if video files themselves are intact.
We will continue to monitor for any follow-up statements and for a more detailed technical explanation from the company. For now, service restoration late on Tuesday evening appears to have returned playback and discovery features to normal for most users.
