YouTube service restored after brief outage
At its peak, there were more than 320,000 user reports of YouTube issues in the US
February 18, 2026
YouTube has said that it has resolved an issue that briefly affected access to the video-sharing platform, after outage-tracking website Downdetector reported widespread global disruptions.
YouTube said that an issue with its recommendation system had prevented videos from appearing across YouTube surfaces.
"The issue with our recommendations system has been resolved, and all of our platforms [YouTube.com, the YouTube app, YouTube Music, Kids, and TV] are back to normal," the platform said in an update.
At its peak, there were more than 320,000 user reports of YouTube issues in the US, according to Downdetector.
Downdetector's numbers are based on user-submitted reports. The actual number of affected users may vary.
YouTube also faced outages in countries including India, Britain, Australia, and Mexico, according to DownDetector.
