While it’s relatively rare for Google services to go offline, the phenomenon does occasionally occur. YouTube and YouTube TV (in the US) are currently down, with videos not playing.
Update 1: As of 8:30 p.m EST., YouTube and the Play Store are coming back online. Google later confirmed the fix.
1:20 a.m. EST the speed of browsing and playing video seems to be still impacted
According to monitoring site DownDetector, user-reported YouTube problems began spiking at around 7 p.m. EST. The issues appeared most acute in the Northeast U.S., the U.K. and Western Europe, as well as in Mexico, Australia and South America. Around 95% of the issues reported were with watching videos, per DownDetector.
Complaints about problems on YouTube peaked around 7:23 p.m. EST before they substantially tapered off by 8:30 p.m., according to DownDetector. with YouTube on Twitter confirming the problem. The company is “aware of the issue and working on a fix.” Given the timing, the outage is being particularly felt across the US.
During the outage period, users who tried to play videos on YouTube video encountered a spinning wheel, with videos failing to initiate playback (before sometimes starting after several minutes). YouTube was sporadically displaying error messages, including one that said “An error occurred. Please try again later.” For some users, YouTube’s homepage was not loading. Google’s YouTube TV subscription-television service also was down, according to user reports on social media.
The problems were evident on desktop and mobile apps, as well as connected-TV devices including Google’s Chromecast. YouTube ads also were not loading during the technical outage.
YouTube on all platforms is currently browseable, but users are not able to play videos. Initially, the thumbnail image would appear on mobile, but be accompanied by a continuously loading progress indicator. Later on in the outage, an error message appeared. Searching for videos still works, but there is a slight delay before everything loads.
A similar issue plagues YouTube TV, which is only available in the US. The YouTube Music app does not appear to be impacted, but the streaming service is not loading on Smart Displays, speakers, or other Assistant devices.
Also offline is Google TV, previously Play Movies & TV, suggesting an issue with the company’s video capabilities. As such, users cannot watch rented or purchased content.
The Play Store is also affected. Android apps are downloading, but the install process will not complete.
No other Google products appear to be down this evening, suggesting an outage that is limited to a specific part of the company’s video-serving infrastructure.
Updating…