Some YouTube users found late last night that the site was effectively unusable after a bug began trapping them in repeated CAPTCHA verification loops. These appeared before every video, with no clear way to stop them.
According to multiple reports across Reddit and DownDetector, affected users are being presented with old-style, word-based CAPTCHA puzzles accompanied by a generic “unusual traffic” warning. The tests reappear constantly, making it borderline impossible to browse or watch content normally on the web version of YouTube.
What makes the bug particularly frustrating is that none of the usual suspects seem to be causing it. One user based in Germany confirmed they were not using a VPN, the most common trigger for traffic verification prompts on Google services. Another user switched their DNS to Google’s Public DNS, which appeared to fix the problem temporarily before the CAPTCHAs returned. Even ad blockers, which YouTube has aggressively targeted over the past two years, appear to be innocent in this case. Multiple users reported that disabling their extensions had no effect on the loop.
Along with the captcha, users experienced message prompts like:
“Our systems have detected unusual traffic from your computer network. Please try your request again later.”
As one user put it:
I cannot figure out what’s wrong. I do not use a VPN and as far as I know I do not have any malware running. It’s weird…
The issue appeared to be confined primarily to YouTube’s web version. Several affected users noted that the mobile apps continue to work normally. Some users also said the contrary, that they could browse YouTube without any issues, and attempts to replicate the problem in incognito sessions have produced inconsistent results, suggesting the trigger may be tied to specific account states, geographic regions, or server-side configurations rather than anything on the user’s end.
Someone from the YouTube team later reached out to these Reddit posts and said:
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YouTube has been increasingly aggressive in its anti-ad-blocker enforcement, rolling out detection systems that pause videos or block playback entirely for users running ad-blocking extensions. That campaign has already generated significant user frustration.
A CAPTCHA bug that punishes legitimate users who are not using VPNs, not running ad blockers, and not doing anything unusual adds another layer of friction to a platform that has been testing the patience of its non-paying audience for months.
For now, the bug seems resolved, but if you face it, our best advice is to switch to mobile devices until Google finds a permanent solution.
