YouTube outage explained: Here's what caused global disruption

YouTube, the globally used video platform owned by Google, underwent an outage on Tuesday at around 8:00 p.m. ET, during which thousands of users were affected.

YouTube has found the reason behind this far-reaching disruption, stating that the issue stemmed from a malfunction in its recommendations system, which suggests videos based on users' viewing habits.

YouTube outage due to recommendation system issue

In a statement posted from the official TeamYouTube X account, the company explained that the recommendations system failure prevented videos from appearing across various YouTube platforms, including the homepage, the YouTube app, YouTube Music, and YouTube Kids.

Outage tracking site, Downdetector, indicated a spike in activity, with over 1.6 million error reports lodged in the last 24 hours, half of which were from the U.S.

The social media giant reassured users that while the homepage was restored, work was ongoing to implement a system-wide fix.

YouTube provided further updates during the outage period. It noted that a small number of users were also experiencing login issues with YouTube TV, which was linked to the broader outage.

At around 10:15 p.m. ET, the company announced that the recommendations system issue had been completely resolved and that all YouTube platforms returned to their normal functionality.