YouTube Gradually Restored After Major Global Outage
Millions Affected Worldwide as Recommendation System Glitch Disrupts Homepage, App, and Music Services
Mumbai: YouTube on Wednesday announced that it has restored a large portion of its services after a widespread global outage left millions of users unable to access videos across its platforms.
Thousands of users worldwide had reported issues accessing the platform, prompting concern across social media. TeamYouTube posted on X, saying, “We’re back!! This issue has been fixed across YouTube. Thanks for all your reports and for sticking with us.”
The company clarified that while the homepage has been restored, teams are still working to fully resolve the issue. In an update, YouTube said a glitch in its recommendation system caused videos to disappear across multiple services, including the main YouTube app, YouTube Music, and YouTube Kids.
“Update: Due to an issue with our recommendation system, videos were not appearing across YouTube (including Homepage, YouTube App, YouTube Music, and YouTube Kids). The homepage is back, but we are continuing to work on a complete fix — more updates soon!” the post read.
Outage-tracking website Downdetector recorded 321,958 user complaints across multiple countries. In India, the disruption was first reported around 6 a.m., with nearly 20,000 complaints, over 70 percent of which came from app users.
In the United States alone, more than 3.2 lakh (320,000+) users reported service disruptions. YouTube TV logged 8,923 complaints, while Google registered 2,694 reported issues.
The outage comes shortly after YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet, reported annual revenue exceeding $400 billion for the first time. The company also revealed that its Gemini AI app has surpassed 750 million monthly active users.
During the quarterly earnings call, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai stated that more than 8 million paid seats of Gemini Enterprise have been sold within just four months of its launch.
“We are also seeing significantly higher engagement per user since the launch of Gemini 3 in December. Overall, our AI investments and infrastructure are driving revenue and growth across the board, helping us meet customer demand and capture expanding opportunities,” Pichai said, adding that the company expects its 2026 capital expenditure to range between $175 billion and $185 billion.
Despite the temporary disruption, YouTube’s swift recovery reassured users as services gradually returned to normal worldwide.
