Reddit Hit With Major Outage, Users Face Widespread Disruptions

A major online platform went dark for many on Monday, May 18, 2026, leaving thousands of users staring at blank screens and broken feeds. Reddit, a cornerstone of internet culture and communication, was slammed with widespread service disruptions throughout the day.

The problems began surfacing around 10:20 a.m. PT, or 10:40 a.m. PDT, which translates to approximately 1:40 p.m. ET. Reports of degraded performance quickly escalated, with user complaints piling up on outage tracking services like Downdetector. Initially, around 4,000 reports flooded in, rapidly climbing to over 10,000, and by mid-morning, more than 25,000 reported issues were recorded, signaling a significant platform-wide incident.

The outage manifested in various frustrating ways for its massive user base. Those who prefer the classic "Old Reddit" interface reported general difficulties accessing the site. Meanwhile, users on the newer Reddit platform primarily struggled with images failing to load. The issues weren't limited to specific parts of the site; many noted that entire subreddits often displayed only the most recent five or six threads, with older posts vanishing from view. Comments were also sluggish to appear, further hindering engagement and discussion. The disruption hit users across all access points, affecting the desktop website, the mobile application, and the mobile website.

Reddit's official status page quickly acknowledged the unfolding situation. Around 10:39 a.m. PDT (1:39 p.m. ET), the company posted a statement indicating it was "Investigating elevated site errors and issues accessing media." Just under an hour later, at approximately 11:08 a.m. PT, Reddit provided an update, confirming that the root cause of the issue had been identified and a fix was actively being implemented. While the resolution was underway, the platform cautioned its users that they might continue to encounter various errors and general loading problems across their feeds, posts, and search functions. Specifically, recently uploaded images and videos might not display as expected during the recovery period. By 2:06 p.m. ET, Reddit reiterated that the issue was identified and work on a resolution was progressing.