YouTube experienced a widespread outage on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, disrupting video streaming for millions of users across the United States, Europe, Asia, and beyond.
The platform, which serves over 2.7 billion monthly users, saw reports of playback errors and blank screens starting around 7 p.m. ET, affecting its core service as well as YouTube Music and YouTube TV.
Google confirmed the issue via a post on X, stating that engineers were investigating and urging patience from affected viewers.
At its height, Downdetector recorded more than 366,000 outage reports in the U.S. alone by 7:55 p.m. ET, with complaints surging to over 600,000 globally within hours. Users in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle faced the brunt, alongside international hotspots in the UK (over 62,000 reports), Canada, Australia, and Japan (around 19,000).
Common errors included “An error occurred, please try again later” messages on desktops and “Something went wrong” on mobile apps, preventing video loads, playlist access, and even logins.
About 54% of issues centered on video and music streaming, leaving offline downloads as the only workaround for some.
The outage’s timing amplified frustration, coinciding with evening prime time when users typically unwind with content. Social media erupted with memes and complaints, such as one user joking, “For the first time in history, YouTube actually went down.
Update 1:
By late Wednesday evening, YouTube announced the issue was resolved, posting on X that users could now stream videos normally on all affected services.
Downdetector reports declined sharply, though isolated slow-loading complaints persisted into Thursday morning, October 16.
The company’s status page confirmed teams were monitoring for full recovery, appreciating user patience during the roughly two-hour disruption.
For now, users are advised to check the official X account (@TeamYouTube) or Downdetector for updates, ensuring seamless access to the world’s top video-sharing site.
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