Fix YouTube “Something Went Wrong, Tap to Retry” Error on iPhone or iPad

Some YouTube users on iPhone and iPad have noticed that videos fail to play at random, instead showing an error message that says “Something went wrong. Tap to retry”.

YouTube is apparently aware of the issue, as it is being commonly reported by many iPhone and iPad users on Twitter and throughout social media.

If you experience the issue, it’s fairly obvious. You go to play a video, and it will randomly not play and instead show a black screen with an error message that states “Something went wrong. Tap to retry”. If you tap to retry, either nothing happens and the error message stays, or it spins and reappears.

Update the YouTube App on iPhone / iPad

The first thing you should do is update the YouTube app on iPhone or iPad, since YouTube will undoubtedly be fixing this issue with a bug fix update.

Go to the App Store > Updates and install updates to YouTube app on your device.

Update iOS / iPadOS

You will want to make sure your iPhone or iPad is up to date on the latest system software version available for the device.

Go to Settings > General > Software Update and install whatever system software updates are available on your device.

If you don’t have iOS 16.2 or iPadOS 16.2 or newer, install the latest versions until you do.

Reboot the iPhone / iPad

You can often temporarily resolve the “Something went wrong” YouTube error on iPhone or iPad by rebooting the device.

This will typically let you watch a few more videos, but it will likely happen again until the issue is resolved completely, or you update your apps and system software.

You can hard reboot and force restart, or you can soft reboot by turning the device off and on, or you can ask Siri to restart your iPhone or iPad.

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Did this resolve the “Something went wrong” YouTube error on your iPhone or iPad? Did you find another solution? Let us know in the comments.