YouTube, YouTube Music, and YouTube TV services were disrupted between 15 and 16 October, with millions of users worldwide reporting problems watching videos on the platform.
The outage affected streaming for several hours, leaving users unable to load or play content on any of YouTube’s major platforms.
The issue, which drew widespread attention across social media, triggered confusion among creators, streamers, and advertisers who rely on the platform for daily engagement.
YouTube later confirmed that the problem had been resolved, but the company did not reveal the cause of the global disruption.
Users report widespread video playback issues
The outage began when users across the United States started reporting playback errors and missing videos.
According to Downdetector, thousands of people reported issues within an hour of the disruption, with many experiencing problems playing or loading videos on YouTube, YouTube Music, and YouTube TV.
🚨 An ongoing issue with Youtube has now received over 800,000 reports since being identified at 7:12 PM ET.
downdetector.com/status/youtube/
Let us know if you are experiencing problems!
Most users noted that videos would not start or displayed an error message, while advertisements continued to play normally. This partial functionality indicated that certain systems remained active while others failed.
The platform confirmed the problem through a post on X, saying it was investigating the playback issue affecting multiple services.
The company wrote in a Google Support thread:
We’re aware that some of you are experiencing issues watching videos on YouTube, YouTube Music, or YouTube TV. We’re investigating the issue.
Major outages across US cities
The majority of the disruptions were reported in the United States. The most affected cities included Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago, New York, Washington, and Detroit.
Users from other regions, including parts of Europe and Asia, also reported intermittent service issues, though the impact appeared to be most severe in North America.
As user frustration grew, speculation spread online about a potential distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack.
However, YouTube did not confirm or comment on the cause, stating only that engineers were investigating the issue.
YouTube resolves outage and restores services
YouTube acknowledged the problem in a post on X and continued to respond to users’ complaints while engineers worked on restoring normal service.
A few hours later, the company confirmed that the issue had been fixed.
If you’re not able to play videos on YouTube right now – we’re on it! Thanks for your patience, and you can follow along here for updates: yt.be/CYdih
In a follow-up post, YouTube stated that the outage had been resolved and that content should play as usual. The update came after millions of users experienced disruptions across devices and platforms.
Although YouTube confirmed the resolution on 16 October, the company did not specify what triggered the incident.
It assured users that playback on YouTube, YouTube Music, and YouTube TV had returned to normal and thanked them for their patience.
How users can check or report future issues
For users still experiencing playback issues, YouTube recommends visiting its Support Page to describe the problem or browse existing help topics.
The YouTube Help Community allows users to share feedback and track real-time updates from YouTube employees.
The company also regularly posts service-related updates on its Team YouTube X page, which remains the most direct source of information during outages.
Platforms such as Downdetector continue to play a key role in helping users identify and verify the scale of such disruptions.
By collecting reports from millions of users, these services provide real-time insights into where and how widespread outages occur.
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