Was YouTube down for YOU?  Worldwide outage knocked out website, app and streaming service for one hour

YouTube was hit with a worldwide outage for one hour Tuesday, leaving users unable to watch their favorite videos.

Issues hit the platform around 4 pm ET Tuesday, plaguing the website, app and the company’s streaming service, YouTube TV.

YouTube has more than 2.7 billion active users as of 2023, but the number impacted by the outage is unknown.

The platform addressed the outage on X at 4:46 pm ET in a post: ‘We’re aware of the issue, working on a fix [right now]! Thanks for your patience.’

And the issue appeared to be fixed by 5 pm ET. 

DownDetector, a site that monitors online outages, showed over 4,000 issue reports in the US, but other countries like the UK, India, Australia and parts of Europe were also hit.

Approximately 51 percent of users reported having problems with the website, 28 percent cited the app, and 20 percent could not connect to YouTube’s streaming service. 

The streaming service, called YouTube TV, launched in 2017 as the public hopped on the cord-cutting movement. 

Users shared their issues on X, showing screenshots taken from the ‘offline app and telling them to check their internet connection. 

Another user, by the name of Sam, posted: ‘YT channel your channel page not working on multiple devices including desktop version? Try Again Error coming up which won’t do anything.’ 

Issues hit the platform around 4 pm ET Tuesday, plaguing the website, app and the company’s streaming service

The platform addressed the outage on X at 4:46 pm ET in a post

YouTube is the largest video provider and rarely experiences outages.

However,  the cause could be caused by a server going down – which usually happens during more extreme events.

The platform began in 2005 after the site’s co-founder Jawed Karim uploaded the first video.

The 18-second clip shows Karim standing in front of an elephant exhibit at the San Diego Zoo, telling the camera that the animals have ‘really long trunks.’

Although simple and short, the video has been viewed more than 90 million times.

Karim’s video was just the beginning of what YouTube is today.

Now it is a destination for artists, musicians and creators to share their work and have it viewed by millions – maybe even billions.