‘Something went wrong’: Why YouTube services were down worldwide

YouTube experienced a major global outage on Feb 18, 2026, affecting users in the US, Canada, Brazil, UK, and Germany, with over 800,000 reports in the US alone. The outage was caused by an issue with YouTube's recommendations system, preventing videos from appearing on the homepage and apps. YouTube acknowledged the problem and began restoring services, with reports of issues declining as the homepage returned.