YouTube back online! Video platform says issue fixed — ‘Thanks for bearing with us’

YouTube down: Video platform YouTube on Wednesday that it was back online after its team fixed the issue, thanking users for ‘bearing with’ the company as it sorted things out.

“Aaaand we're back!! This issue has been fixed across YouTube. Thanks for all the reports and for bearing with us while we sorted it out ❤️,” YouTube said in an update on X.

Thus, now there is an official confirmation to questions like “Is YouTube down?”

Earlier, hundreds of thousands of users across the world reported a YouTube outage, with the company as well as its parent Google confirming the issue.

YouTube and Google did not immediately confirm the reason for the global YouTube outage today. However, Google later said that an issue with its recommendation system had prevented videos from appearing across YouTube surfaces.

This was one of the most significant YouTube outages reported in recent months. The platform is used by billions of users globally. The YouTube down report therefore sent social media platforms like X in a frenzy, with users posting to confirm if the outage was being faced by others.

Google issues statement

In a separate statement, Google also issued an update on the YouTube down issue.

“he 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! We really appreciate you bearing with us while we sorted this out,” it said.

It had earlier said that the YouTube homepage was back but urged users to wait until a full fix was implemented.

“An issue with our recommendations system prevented videos from appearing across surfaces on YouTube (including the homepage, the YouTube app, YouTube Music and YouTube Kids). The homepage is back, but we're still working on a full fix,” it said.

“We're also seeing a small number of reports that some people are unable to login to YouTube TV. This is related to the broader issue across YouTube, and we're also working on a fix here,” Google added.

YouTube down for thousands

Tracking website Downdetector said there were more than 300,000 reports of problems accessing the video-sharing site in the United States, though the reports seemed to be diminishing after a peak at about 0100 GMT.

During the worst of the outage, visitors to the website's homepage were greeted with an invitation to come back later.

India also saw a sudden surge, with over 19,000 complaints registered within minutes during the morning hours. This confirmed that the outage was worldwide rather than local. The YouTube outage was also reported in Britain, Australia, and Mexico, according to DownDetector.

Other sites including Google, Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare also experienced issues, according to Downdetector.

Downdetector's numbers are based on user-submitted reports. The actual number of affected users may vary. The platform tracks outages by collating status reports from a number of sources.

Google-owned YouTube is the world's largest video sharing platform, with more than 2.5 billion users actively using the site each month, according to data.