Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
Update: October 15, 2025 (7:52 PM ET): YouTube appears to be facing a major outage, with reports flooding in from users across the globe. According to Downdetector, over 200,000 users have reported issues accessing the platform as of now. Many users have also taken to X to share that videos aren’t loading or the platform isn’t opening at all. Some folks are also reporting issues with YouTube Music. YouTube has yet to acknowledge the outage publicly. Original article: YouTube is the largest online video platform globally, with over 2.7 billion monthly active users. With that being the case, YouTube not working translates to a problem for most of us. So, what do you do when you find yourself in this situation? Here are some things you can try on your Android and Windows devices.
Editor’s note: Some of the instructions in this article were generated using a Google Pixel 8a running Android 16, an Apple iPhone 15 running iOS 18.5, and a custom PC running Windows 11. Keep in mind that steps can be slightly different depending on your device.
Find out if YouTube is down
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
While it’s not a common occurrence, YouTube can sometimes go down. This is the first thing you should check. There is no straightforward way to check if YouTube’s servers are non-operational, but we recommend a couple of methods.
You can get the info straight from the horse’s mouth by going to the official YouTube Twitter account. Chances are any outage will be reported there.
We also recommend Down Detector, a website where people can report issues with YouTube not working. The site is almost always spot-on, and it even includes a live map to see if there are any local outages.
If YouTube is down, you can do nothing but wait it out.
Close and reopen the app or website Simply closing and reopening the YouTube app often fixes any local issues or bugs. If you’re using a computer, you can close either the tab or the browser and try reaccessing YouTube.
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