YouTube to world: Move along, nothing to see here … because we’re having an outage

Cute animals rendered useless for two hours as streaming site got the wobbles

The video locker was slow to load videos and balked when asked to upload new content on Wednesday, from just before midnight GMT. While all but night-owl European users mostly missed the mess, other netizens were deprived of their favourite vids and top-notch strategic content like Reg lectures.

In typical Google style, YouTube had very little to say about the incident, other than acknowledging it was aware of the situation and then sounding the all-clear without revealing any details about what had transpired.

...And we’re back – we’re so sorry for the interruption. This is fixed across all devices & YouTube services, thanks for being patient with us ❤️ https://t.co/1s0qbxQqc6

— TeamYouTube (@TeamYouTube) November 12, 2020

Multiple observers have pointed out that YouTube’s travails were matched at Google’s Movie-and-TV-show streaming operations, suggesting a problem on common infrastructure.

Plenty of people make a living on YouTube, so the outage is more than an inconvenience or opportunity to make cheap quips about cat videos.

Cats, however, may have enjoyed a brief respite from being pursued in the hope of displaying viral cuteness. Your correspondent asked the cat that hangs around their house and demands food without displaying notable affection in return for its opinion. Said cat refused to wake up. ®