YouTube Outage Disrupts Viewing After Tuesday Night Recommendation Glitch

Overview

• Reports of instability began shortly after 9:30 p.m. Brasília time on Feb. 17, with Downdetector charting a surge that peaked around 10:20–10:30 p.m. at roughly 43,000–48,000 complaints in Brazil.
• User issues centered on the mobile app but also hit the website, video playback and smart TVs, producing blank screens and error messages such as “Something went wrong.”
• YouTube’s posts on X said teams were investigating, identified a fault in the recommendation system, and restored the homepage while working toward a complete fix.
• The disruption affected multiple services tied to recommendations, including YouTube Music, YouTube Kids and, per reporting, YouTube TV.
• Social discussion spiked under #YouTubeDOWN, and the company later reported platform restoration for users, though no detailed post‑mortem has been released.