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As people settled into primetime viewing hours on the US East Coast and the end of the workday in the West, YouTube appeared to be taking a nap as more than 800,000 people in the US and hundreds of thousands elsewhere in the world reported missing streaming, according to Downdetector. The outage began gaining traction at 5pm PT and quickly rose to 338,308 reports by 5:10pm, according to Datadetector’s graph.
As of 6:30 PM PT, the number of reports had dropped to less than 50,000. Google (which owns YouTube) provided a Status update Label “An issue with our recommendations system prevented videos from appearing across surfaces on YouTube (including the home page, the YouTube app, YouTube Music, and YouTube Kids).”
Downdetector reported the peak of the YouTube outage on February 17, 2026.
CNET staffers who noticed the outage saw the familiar YouTube home screen with a search bar and sidebar, but no videos. YouTube apps, like the one on the iPad, showed 80s-style pixel art and the message “Something went wrong.”
This is a developing story. YouTube and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Disclaimer: Downdetector is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)