Thousands of users around the world were affected when YouTube experienced a major outage on 18 February 2026causing problems with video discovery, homepage content, and app functionality. The disruption left many wondering, “Why is YouTube down?” and what caused the issue.
On Tuesday evening, a significant number of users reported technical difficulties in accessing YouTube services. According to outage tracker Downdetector, more than 300,000 users submitted problem reports at the peak of the disruption.
The outage affected multiple features across the platform, including:
Homepage and recommendations feed not loading
Difficulty discovering or accessing videos
Issues with YouTube Music and Kids sections
Users across regions including the United States, India, the U.K., Australia, and Mexico experienced access problems during the peak of the outage.
YouTube later confirmed that the outage stemmed from a malfunction in its recommendations systemwhich is responsible for generating personalised video suggestions on the homepage and app. This malfunction prevented content from appearing correctly for users, leading to widespread access issues.
The recommendation system plays a critical role in how videos are displayed and surfaced, so any failure can significantly disrupt the user experience — even if the core streaming servers are still running.
In response to the outage, YouTube acknowledged the problem publicly and assured users that teams were actively working on a fix. The company stated that the homepage had been restoredbut some features were still being fully resolved.
Users were encouraged to check the app and refresh pages as engineers rolled out solutions to stabilise the platform.
