YouTube issues official statement after global crash leaves millions in the dark
Saloni Jha | Oct 16, 2025, 09:59 IST
YouTube users faced a global outage on Wednesday night as the platform went dark. The platform has now responded.
Wednesday night turned into an internet fever dream as YouTube suddenly stopped working for millions. Instead of their usual late-night binge, users were met with blank screens, cryptic error messages, and pure frustration. It was not just a few unlucky users either, the chaos spread like wildfire across the United States, sparking instant panic on X (formerly Twitter).
![YouTube | The YouTube issue began shortly after 7 PM ET, when reports started spiking on Downdetector.]()
Chaos erupts as YouTube goes dark
The issue began shortly after 7 PM ET, when reports started spiking on Downdetector. Within minutes, over 320,000 complaints poured in, making it one of the platform’s biggest recent meltdowns. Everything from YouTube’s main site to YouTube Music and YouTube TV seemed to have collapsed under the glitch.
YouTube | The YouTube issue began shortly after 7 PM ET, when reports started spiking on Downdetector.
Chaos erupts as YouTube goes dark
The issue began shortly after 7 PM ET, when reports started spiking on Downdetector. Within minutes, over 320,000 complaints poured in, making it one of the platform’s biggest recent meltdowns. Everything from YouTube’s main site to YouTube Music and YouTube TV seemed to have collapsed under the glitch.
when youtube is “down” but ads still work pic.twitter.com/bLifXgA5uu
— Islay (@Islay2806) October 15, 2025
“An error occurred” becomes the internet’s villain
Instead of creators and cat videos, users were slapped with error messages like “An error occurred. Please try again later” the digital equivalent of a door slammed in your face. Others were left staring at a black screen that looked more like a horror film than their YouTube homepage.
YouTube | The YouTube issue began shortly after 7 PM ET, when reports started spiking on Downdetector.
Meanwhile, YouTube Music was not spared either. Streaming completely failed for most, with only downloaded songs remaining accessible. For many, it was a sudden reminder of how much of their daily routine runs on autoplay.
Team YouTube responds to the frenzy
It did not take long for YouTube to issue a response. TeamYouTube posted a message on X, assuring users they were aware of the issue and were working to fix it. A support page was also updated with a message thanking people for their patience while teams investigated the disruption.
The outage impacted users across major cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Seattle, Chicago, Washington DC, and Detroit. Urban hubs turned into collective scream rooms as users tried, and failed, to refresh their screens.
A few hours later, YouTube confirmed that the issue was resolved across all services. However, the platform stopped short of revealing the exact cause of the outage.
For now, the internet has returned to its usual scheduled programming. But Wednesday night will be remembered as the time the world had to face… real silence.