YouTube is down, it's not just you

Google's video-streaming service YouTube is down, and the problem appears to be affecting users globally. Service uptime monitoring site Downdetector first started getting reports of problems around 6:45 p.m. E.T. with the number of reports skyrocketing thereafter and peaking at over 280,000 reports less than an hour later.

It's official — YouTube's official Twitter account confirmed the outage at 7:23 p.m. E.T. but didn't offer any more detail about the problem. At the time of writing, we weren't able to load any content on YouTube via web browsers, phone browsers, or mobile applications. Which searches works, clicking on any thumbnail returns an error message.

Users on Twitter report either getting an error message or an incessant loading wheel, and that the outage is affecting not just regular YouTube, but also YouTube TV and any content purchased through what used to be known as Google Play Movies & TV (now Google TV).

Great for Vimeo — Almost every major online service goes down once in a while, so it had to happen to YouTube eventually. But that's scant consolation. We had a long night of iPhone 12 destruction videos QAnon conspiracy clips planned. But hey, at least the moderators get a little time to catch up... and there's always Vimeo.

UPDATE (8:40 p.m. E.T.): Though YouTube hasn't officially announced it, users on Twitter are reporting normal service has largely resumed, and we are now able to load videos via web browsers and the YouTube app.