Is YouTube down? Yes. A massive outage is currently affecting YouTube and YouTube TV users across the United States.
Reports began spiking dramatically around 8:00 PM EST on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, leaving hundreds of thousands of users without access to the world’s largest video platform.
Youtube Outages By The Numbers
According to data from Downdetector, the blackout escalated rapidly in a matter of minutes. In the 45-minute window between 8:00 PM and 8:45 PM EST alone, over 823,000 total outage reports were logged.
Timeline of the Crash (EST):
- 7:45 PM: Normal activity (~68 reports)
- 8:00 PM: 🔴 199,709 reports
- 8:15 PM: 🔴 316,931 reports (Peak)
- 8:30 PM: 🔴 306,793 reports
What is down with Youtube?
Users are reporting a "partial" but severe failure. While the YouTube Homepage and Search functions appear to be completely dead for many, some users have found workarounds.
The Homepage: Fails to load or shows a blank screen. The App: 56% of reports stem from the mobile app. YouTube TV: Subscribers are reporting streaming interruptions and login failures.
Workarounds for Youtube Being Down Today
Some users report that direct links to videos or visiting a Channel page directly (e.g., via the "Subscriptions" tab) still works, suggesting the issue may be related to the homepage recommendation algorithm or main feed servers.
Who Is Affected by Youtube Being Down
The outage is widespread across the U.S. Heatmaps indicate major spikes in:- New York
- Los Angeles / San Francisco
- Chicago
- Houston / Dallas
Social media is flooded with confusion, with many users initially fearing their accounts were compromised.
"Thought I was hacked or something." — Christian N. (Facebook) "Gotta be an attack or something I’ve never seen YouTube down." — Carlito M. (Facebook) "Midco never goes down. Come back to cable everybody!" — Augie M. (Facebook)History of Major YouTube Outages
While rare, YouTube has gone dark before.
- In Dec 2020 a massive Google-wide authentication error took down YouTube, Gmail, and Drive for about 45 minutes.
- In Oct 2018 a global outage left YouTube inaccessible for over 90 minutes due to a browser rendering issue.
- Nov 2014 a backend update glitch caused a 2-hour blackout.
Google has not yet released an official statement regarding the cause of tonight's outage.
