Google-owned YouTube service reported widespread technical disruptions on Wednesday morning, February 18, 2026, coinciding with the second day of Chinese New Year. Users worldwide reported empty homepages and error messages, with no official statement from Google yet.
On Wednesday morning, February 18, 2026, the video-sharing platform YouTube experienced a global technical outage affecting millions of users. The incident occurred amid heightened online entertainment demand during celebrations for the second day of Chinese New Year, drawing many to digital content.
Reports from outage-tracking site Downdetector indicate hundreds of thousands of complaints from users worldwide in a short time. The primary issues included suddenly empty homepages with no videos displayed, and errors preventing recommended content from loading. In tests by VIVA around 08:45 WIB, access via laptop showed only a white screen, while mobile devices displayed the message 'Terjadi Error, Coba Lagi'. The disruption also affected the YouTube TV app, where the homepage failed to show usual content suggestions.
Other functions, such as playback of specific videos, operated partially, but overall access was impaired. As of now, Google, YouTube's parent company, has not issued an official statement on the cause of the outage or estimated resolution time. This has left the user community monitoring the situation via social media and tracking sites.
Previously, YouTube faced a similar global downtime in mid-October 2025, when the app displayed connection loss messages around 07:00 a.m., impacting all accounts and regions.
