YouTube wasn't technically down, but for a period there on Wednesday, people certainly had difficult viewing content on the site.
Users reported that thumbnail images appeared on the site, but that when they try to play a video, all they got was the spinning wheel. Some also saw a message saying that "an error occurred. Please try again later." The issue surfaced as well on platforms like YouTube TV and in movies and TV shows purchased through Google TV.
People across the US and Europe began reporting the issue at around 3:45 p.m. PT, according to Down Detector.
"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," TeamYouTube said in a tweet. "We'll follow up here with any updates."
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. We’ll follow up here with any updates.
— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) November 12, 2020
The site appeared to be back in working order around 6 p.m. PT, but the cause of the outage hasn't yet been publicly revealed. Some users are still reporting some issues, but for the most part the issue seems to have been resolved.
See also: YouTube has new features to try. Here's how to use them
