Manila, Philippines — February 18, 2026 — Millions of users in the Philippines and around the world experienced major disruptions on YouTube on February 17, 2026. Tens of thousands reported that videos would not load, logins were blocked, and YouTube TV faced interruptions. Downdetector recorded over 280,000 complaints in the United States alone, with thousands more from global users.
Affected users reported seeing the “something went wrong” error message on both the YouTube app and website. Many expressed frustration on social media, with posts joking about the outage and wondering when service would return.
Technical experts suggest basic fixes such as refreshing the page, restarting devices, clearing app cache, or updating the YouTube app. However, since the outage affected a large number of users simultaneously, it appears the issue originated from YouTube’s servers.
Major cities affected included New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Seattle. Users reported that the outage began around 8:04 PM EST, affecting peak viewing hours and disrupting streaming for millions of viewers.
The outage underscores the global reliance on YouTube for entertainment, news, education, and daily communication. While service has reportedly begun returning in some regions, the platform has yet to release an official statement explaining the cause of the disruption.
