YouTube DOWN: Service back online after video-sharing monster suffers global crash
YOUTUBE service has returned after the video-sharing platform suffered a major crash in the early hours of this morning.
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Users began reporting issues just after midnight UK time, according to Down Detector, which monitors whether a site is working or not. According to its live map, the issue was reported all around the world, across Europe and the US but also in South America, Australia and South East Asia.
YouTube said: "If you're having trouble watching videos on YouTube right now, you're not alone - our team is aware of the issue and working on a fix."
The website itself appeared to load successfully, with the search bar and video thumbnails all operating as normal.
However, when a video was clicked, the buffer wheel turned indefinitely with the video refusing to load.
me switching from wifi to data trying to get youtube to load #YouTubeDOWN pic.twitter.com/td1iPxxs64
— singl3 is everywhere (@singl3xo) November 12, 2020
Some users reported that the video did eventually load, though it took an unusually long time to do so.
Users flocked to social media to discuss the site crash. One said: “So 2020 killed YouTube now.”
Another says: “YouTube went down again. I spent a solid 10 minutes confused on why videos weren’t loading.”
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Many said they attempted to switch between their mobile phone network to a WiFi connection in order to fix the issue, without success.
Others resorted to turning their phones off and on, while some even uninstalled their YouTube application and reinstalled it.
Many appeared to have taken the incident in good humour as memes circulated within minutes of the crash, gathering thousands of likes.
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Everyone rushing to Twitter after noticing YouTube is down #YouTubeDOWN pic.twitter.com/6m2QZfWmJ2
— ً (@bandersjatc) November 12, 2020
Team YouTube tweeted roughly an hour after the disruption began: "...And we're back - we're so sorry for the interruption.
"This is fixed across all devices and YouTube services, thanks for being patient with us."
The video-sharing platform did not elaborate on what may have caused the service outage.
YouTube is widely reported to be one of the most-visited websites in the world, second only to Google.
Google itself purchased YouTube back in 2006 in a deal worth $1.65 billion.
According to Statista, over 500 hours of video were uploaded to the platform every single minute as of May 2019.