YouTube has already started working again for most people, and the major outage is officially marked as fixed.

What actually happened

  • On February 17–18, 2026, YouTube had a large global outage that affected the website, the app, and in some cases YouTube TV.
  • Issues began around the evening of February 17 in the US (around 7:45–7:50 p.m. ET) and quickly spread, with hundreds of thousands of outage reports logged on tracking sites.
  • The main problem was traced to YouTube’s recommendations system, which stopped videos from appearing correctly on key surfaces like the homepage, subscriptions, and other feeds.

Many users reported blank homepages, broken feeds, or “something went wrong” messages, even though the site itself loaded.

Is YouTube working now?

  • Google has issued a final update saying the issue with the recommendations system has been resolved and that all platforms (YouTube.com, the app, YouTube Music, Kids, and TV) are “back to normal.”
  • Outage monitoring reports have dropped back to near-normal levels, which matches what you’d expect once a large incident is fixed.
  • A small number of users may still see login or minor feature glitches on services like YouTube TV, but these are described as residual and also being worked on.

In practice, this means that if YouTube is still not working for you right now , it’s more likely a local or account-specific issue rather than the big global outage.

What you can try if it’s still broken for you

You can treat this like standard troubleshooting, because the global issue is considered closed.

  1. Quick checks
    • Refresh the page or restart the YouTube app.
    • Try opening YouTube in a different browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari) or incognito/private mode.
  2. Connection and device
    • Restart your Wi‑Fi router or switch from Wi‑Fi to mobile data (or vice versa) to see if the issue is network-related.
    • Reboot your phone, tablet, smart TV, or PC to clear temporary glitches.
  3. App and browser cleanup
    • Update the YouTube app from the App Store/Google Play so you’re not stuck on a buggy version.
    • Clear cache and cookies for YouTube in your browser or clear the app cache on Android.
  4. Account / region checks
    • Log out of your Google/YouTube account and try using YouTube while signed out.
    • Check a site like Downdetector or the official TeamYouTube account on X to see if there’s a new, localized issue in your region.

If none of this works and only your device seems affected, your next step is to:

  • Visit the official YouTube Help / Community page and search for your specific error message or post a question describing your device, region, and screenshots if possible.

Forum-style context and discussion vibe

On tech sites and forums, people have been treating this outage as one of the bigger YouTube incidents in recent years, mainly because:

  • It hit multiple products at once (YouTube.com, app, TV, parts of YouTube Music and Kids).
  • It came at a time when creators were already complaining about strange algorithm behavior and performance drops, so many initially thought it was an algorithm change rather than an outright outage.

A typical forum thread around “when will YouTube start working” right now would include:

“Is it just me or is the homepage totally empty?”
“Shorts are loading but my subscriptions are gone.”
“I thought my channel died, turns out YouTube itself was broken.”

Now that Google has said the recommendations issue is fixed, most of those threads are shifting from “YouTube is down” to post-mortems and speculation about how fragile the recommendations and ranking systems are.

SEO-style quick facts (for your post)

  • The key phrase users are searching: “when will YouTube start working” connects directly to the February 17–18, 2026 outage.
  • Official status: Google/YouTube say the outage is resolved and all platforms are functioning normally, with only a small number of lingering login reports on YouTube TV.
  • Trending angle: Users are mixing outage complaints with ongoing worries about algorithm changes and “YouTube starting to break,” so any discussion can tie both together.

At the bottom of your piece, you can safely note something like:

Information gathered from public forums and tech news outlets covering the February 2026 YouTube outage and official status updates.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.