When Psy gets his 4,,,th view, a bit counter will roll over from. A longer-term fix would be to start using a larger number of bits — most likely 64 — to represent view counts. Then YouTube will be fine until someone gets 2 to the 63rd power views — a number so huge that no video could possibly reach it. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all.
Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Gangnam Style got so many views that it nearly broke YouTube.
By Timothy B. Lee Dec 3, , pm EST. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Why was there a limit to the number of views YouTube could count? Psy, the man behind "Gangnam Style. In this format, decimal 19 would be stored as: This works great as long as your software is only handling numbers that fit into this format.
But the counter broke at 2,,, How come? Rob Brooks You can use 32 bits to represent any number from 0 to 4,,, What happens when a number gets too big to fit in the space reserved for it? The largest positive integer you can represent in this format is: If you add one to this amount, you get: The way computers represent negative numbers is too complicated to explain here Wikipedia has the gory details , but the bottom line is that this counter "wraps around," going from the highest number that can be represented in this format — 2,,, — to the lowest: negative 2,,, There's a funny xkcd cartoon about this: So when Psy got his 2,,,th view, YouTube's server would have thought he had minus 2,,, views.
How could YouTube fix the problem? When Psy gets his 4,,,th view, a bit counter will roll over from to The system will think he has zero views.
Next Up In Technology. Follow Billboard. All rights reserved. Almost exactly five years after its release, Psy's record-setting video for "Gangnam Style" has been surpassed as YouTube's most-watched clip. After becoming the first video to reach one billion views, the visual now has 2,,, views as of July 11 , but that's no longer enough to hold the title -- Wiz Khalifa's "See You Again," featuring Charlie Puth, has taken over.
As of press time, Khalifa and Puth's tear-jerking Furious 7 ballad that also serves as a tribute to the late Paul Walker has 2,,, views. Upon hearing the news that he's now the new record holder, Puth took to Twitter to tell fans that he never imagined he'd reach this kind of milestone.
Thanks to the insane views on "Gangam Style" and "See You Again" -- the math of those view counts adds up to more than 21, years worth of streaming each -- YouTube had to rewrite its code to up the number of maximum views. YouTube now uses a bit integer for its video counter, which means videos have a maximum viewer count of 9.
Psy has yet to comment although news of YouTube's change was posted on his Facebook and Twitter pages. Gangnam Style hits two billion views. Gangnam Style: What does it mean?
Psy pressure to represent country. Psy explains his name to the BBC. Image source, Reuters. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.
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