YouTube restores service after widespread global outage

YouTube experienced a widespread outage, disrupting access for users across the United States and several other countries before service gradually began to return later in the evening.

The company acknowledged the issue in a post at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, saying it was aware that “some of you are experiencing issues watching videos on YouTube right now.” It added, “We’re investigating the issue and really appreciate your patience.”

According to Downdetector, which tracks online service disruptions, more than 300,000 outage reports were filed by U.S. users within an hour as of 7:30 p.m. ET, with problems spanning from the East Coast to the West Coast.

Reports also came from Europe, Asia, and Latin America, suggesting the outage was global.

Users described videos failing to load, pages taking unusually long to open, or receiving the message: “An error occurred. Please try again later.” Related services such as YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, and YouTube TV were also affected.

By late evening, reports began to subside, indicating that YouTube and its associated platforms were returning to normal operation.

The platform, owned by Google parent company Alphabet Inc., is one of the world’s most-visited websites, serving more than 2.7 billion monthly users.

The cause of Wednesday’s outage has not yet been disclosed.