YouTube and Google Search reportedly experienced a major service disruption on the evening of December 19, leaving thousands of users in India and the United States unable to access content and browse content online. According to data from the outage tracking website Downdetector, reports of issues spiked around 7:00 PM IST. At its peak, more than 3,500 individual complaints were logged within minutes, though the actual number of affected users is likely much higher.
As of reporting, the services seem to be returning to normalcy as both YouTube and Google Search are reportedly working for many after a brief outage. Google is yet to issue a public statement regarding the cause of the outage.
YouTube, Google Search down: What happened
User reports highlighted a variety of technical glitches across the Google-owned platforms:
Server connection (54%): The majority of users were met with error messages stating that the server could not be reached.
Website access (35%): Desktop users reported that the YouTube homepage and channel pages failed to load entirely.
Video streaming (11%): A smaller portion of users could access the site but faced infinite buffering or “playback error” messages when trying to watch videos.
Global Impact
The outage appeared to be concentrated in major urban hubs. In India, users in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad reported the highest frequency of issues. Simultaneously, in the US, reports came in from New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
Social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) were quickly flooded with hashtags such as #YouTubeDown, as creators and viewers alike expressed frustration over the sudden interruption. Many users reported that while the mobile app seemed sluggish, the desktop version was completely unresponsive for a period of time.
Google has yet to issue an official statement regarding the root cause of the glitch. However, service appeared to be stabilising for some users within the hour, suggesting that engineers are actively working on a fix.
This disruption comes at a high-traffic time for the platform, particularly in India, where evening viewership peaks as users tune in for entertainment and news.
