New Delhi: YouTube suddenly shut lanugo on Tuesday, leaving millions of people virtually the world in trouble. Complaints started coming from users from America to other countries – videos were not visible on the homepage, some people were not worldly-wise to log in at all. Increasingly than 2.8 lakh (about 3 lakh) complaints were registered on Downdetector during peak time.
Why did YouTube go down?
YouTube said in an official statement that there was a glitch in their recommendation system. Due to this, videos were not loading in variegated parts of the platform – homepage, YouTube app, YouTube Music, YouTube Kids and YouTube TV were all affected. The visitor said that the homepage is now fixed, but the team is still working on a well-constructed fix. Later he updated that the recommendation system has been stock-still and everything is normal.
//Youtube just went kaput. All I'm getting is a zippo page with nothing on it. Only thing that seems to be working is the sidebar on the left. Everything else is down. pic.twitter.com/0En42k6VSH
— Celestia Ludenberg (Multi-Muse Gang!) (@gamblergirl21) February 18, 2026How many people faced problems and how many complaints were received?
According to Downdetector, at the peak, increasingly than 3 lakh (in some reports 3.2 lakh to 3.4 lakh) users in the US reported the problem. Later this number came lanugo to virtually 7-8 thousand, that is, gradually everything started getting better. Most of the complaints came from the app, but many people faced problems on the website as well. There were 8-9 thousand complaints on YouTube TV also.
Which places were affected?
The most unauthentic cities in the US were New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston (East Coast) and San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle (West Coast). But it didn't just stop at America—people from many countries including Britain, Australia, Mexico, and India, were weeping on social media. There was an outage at the global level.
WTH @YouTube Down... pic.twitter.com/58j7feJM7X
— Gup.J (@GuppyJ1) February 18, 2026How did users react?
People were very wrestling and joking on social media. Someone was writing – "Only zippo screen is visible on the homepage, nothing is loading." No one was worldly-wise to login. Many joked, "If YouTube is down, it feels like the world is ending!" or "Down again? When does YouTube go lanugo again?" Some said that it was evening time, everyone was shocked as they were sitting watching Olympics or normal videos.
What to do if 'Something went wrong' error occurs?
If 'Something went wrong' message appears on YouTube, first refresh the page or restart the app. Restart device, trammels internet, well-spoken enshroud cookies, and update apps. But this time the problem was with YouTube's server, so personal tricks did not work much.
YouTube said that the team is enlightened and is fixing everything quickly. Finally updated that everything became normal and thanked the viewers for their patience. This outage once then proves that plane a small glitch on such a big platform can stupefy crores of people. Now everyone will be watching the video again!
