ChatGPT was down – here's what we know about the huge outage
(Image: © OpenAI)
ChatGPT had seemingly recovered from what OpenAI described as a "major outage" earlier today, which hit millions of users worldwide. As of 3PM ET, the generative AI platform reported "All Systems Operational."
Reports of today's ChatGPT issues first started at around 2:30am ET / 7:30am BDT / 4:30pm AEST on June 4. OpenAI acknowledged that there was a big issue, with the company's status page reporting for several hours that its AI sidekick was unavailable.
OpenAI then pushed out a fix at around 7:30am ET / 12:30pm BST / 4:30pm AEST, with the service's status returning to a healthier "all systems operational." But that fix soon faltered and soon many users were complaining on social media that they again couldn't access the service. Eventually, OpenAI confirmed fresh issues.
OpenAI hasn't yet commented on exactly what's causing ChatGPT's biggest outage of 2024 but did acknowledge the outage on its status page and note that it was resolved as of 5:01PM GMT. We've asked OpenAI for comment on the day's events and will update this post with its comments if/when we receive them.
When did the ChatGPT problems start?
According to Downdetector, the first reports of a ChatGPT outage started around two hours ago at 2.30am ET / 7.30am BDT / 4.30pm AEST.
At their peak, there were around 2,300 reports of issues in the US and around 1,000 in the UK, a not insignificant number which suggests that a significant proportion of users are unable to use the service.
We're currently unable to use ChatGPT in either the web browser or iOS mobile app, with the latter returning an "internal server error".
OpenAI has "identified the issue"
While there's been no word from OpenAI on social media about the ChatGPT issues, its status page now says that it's "identified the issue and mitigating" (as of 1.32PDT).
In theory, then, a fix shouldn't be too far away, although the reports on Downdetector have continued to spike in the UK (but appear to be stabilizing in the US).
What's causing the issues?
OpenAI hasn't yet committed on what's causing today's ChatGPT's problems, though it currently looks like a simple server outage.
Most users are either unable to access the website in a browser – we're getting a "bad gateway" response – or are simply unable to send messages in the web or app versions.
The ChatGPT status page says the issue is still unresolved, so it's time for rival chatbot users like Copilot to start gloating.
No quick fix, it seems
OpenAI's latestupdate suggests that the ChatGPT issues aren't proving to be an easy fix – its status page has gone from orange to red, and it says "we are continuing to work on a fix for this issue".
There's still no direct word from OpenAI on what the cause is, but we should find out soon hopefully. Otherwise everyone will have to start using, shock, pre-ChatGPT tools for brainstorming and coding.
In the meantime...
The ChatGPT outage appears to be worldwide, with reports on X (formerly Twitter) suggesting it's down for many in the US, UK, France, New Zealand and many more countries.
While we wait for OpenAI's engineers get under ChatGPT's hood and fix the issues, maybe it's time to browse through the best ChatGPT alternatives. Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot must be enjoying the outage – and we wonder how many people today have signed up to Claude 3 to give it a spin...
Three hours and counting...
The number of ChatGPT users reporting the outage on Downdetector appears to be dropping in the US and UK, though there still isn't any sign of an official fix over three hours since the issues started. We're still unable to use the service on the web or mobile app.
OpenAI hasn't yet commented on the issue, but it'll be interesting to hear about the cause when it does. Last year in November 2023, following a similar ChatGPT outage, OpenAI said it was down to “an abnormal traffic pattern reflective of a DDoS attack".
There's no suggestion that this is the case today, but that previous outage occurred during an unstable period for ChatGPT that saw it go down twice over two days –ChatGPT fans will be hoping that isn't the case again.
Millions hit by the ChatGPT outage
ChatGPT may not be used regularly by the average person, according to a fascinating new study from the Reuters Institute and Oxford University, but millions still rely on it for coding, brainstorming, writing reports and more.
The service has around 180 million active users worldwide, and rocketed to 100 million users during its breakout first year from late 2022. Those who do use ChatGPT regularly have made the tool a key part of their workflow, which is why this increasingly lengthy outage is proving particularly painful.
There are still no further updates from OpenAI's status page, over an hour since it said it was "continuing to work on a fix" for the issue.
Signs of life!
Today's ChatGPT issues appear to mostly be affecting logged-in users – that's still most people, though, as OpenAI is still rolling out the option of using the service instantly without logging in (which it announced in April).
But it looks like the problems are slowly getting resolved. We're now seeing full access to the latest GPT-4o model on our Plus account (via web browser) and in the mobile app.
Downdetector is also again seeing a drop in reports following a second spike earlier. All we need now is for OpenAI to give us the good news with a more promising status update...
How does this ChatGPT outage compare?
ChatGPT isn't exactly immune to outages, but this is looking like the biggest and longest one of the year. The last really serious one was just over a year ago in May 2023, when the service was down for around eight hours.
While there are some signs of ChatGPT returning its old self, we're approaching five hours since issues were first reported – and OpenAI's status page continues to show a major incident that's leaving the service "unavailable for some users".
More recently, we also saw ChatGPT go briefly off the rails, with users reporting an array of confusing and even threatening responses from the bot. Even chatbots have bad days, it seems...
The official outage time...
While ChatGPT seems to have now recovered for us in the UK, OpenAI is still reporting a "major outage" that it's "continuing to work on a fix".
The first reports of problems hit Downdetector at around 2.30am ET / 7.30am BST / 4.30pm AEST. But according to OpenAI the outage has officially lasted just over two hours now. Hopefully some official news isn't too far away now...
Good news! There's a fix...
OpenAI has just updated its ChatGPT status page to say that "a fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results".
So if you haven't, like us, already seen the chatbot return to its old self, you should be able to quiz its AI brain very soon. There's still no official word on the cause of the problems, but the main thing is that ChatGPT has seemingly returned from sick leave...
Phew, ChatGPT is back
Right, that should be it now – OpenAI's status page is now reporting that "all systems are operational" and it's now fully working for us on the web and in the mobile app.
That was quite an outage, but one thing we still don't know is exactly what caused it. We've contacted OpenAI to find out and will update you if we hear back. But with ChatGPT now back from its sick leave, it's time to start firing questions at the much-loved chatbot again...
Uh-oh...
Just when it looked like ChatGPT was starting to feel better, the dreaded red "major outage" alert has returned to OpenAI's status page.
All that OpenAI is saying right now is that it's "currently investigating this issue". Let's hope it doesn't last the five or so hours that it took to fix last time. We've asked OpenAI for comment and will update you when we hear back, but we imagine it's a little sidetracked right now...
That's quite the aftershock...
This second major ChatGPT outage might be bigger than the one earlier today, according to Downdetector – or perhaps just worse timed.
There's been a huge spike in reports in the US and UK, with thousands complaining that they can't access the service on the web or mobile app. A large number seem to be have been left in a homework or coding quandary as a result, so let's hope we see another fix appear soon.
Same issue, new error messages?
OpenAI still hasn't commented on what's causing the new outage, other than to say that it's "investigating" it on ChatGPT's status page. But the service is certainly down for us in the web browser and the app is also giving us new error messages.
Earlier, it was "internal server error", now we're getting "we're experiencing exceptionally high demand". This doesn't tell us anything on its own, but we're looking forward to hearing OpenAI's explanation for what is now a lengthy outage.
In a previous outage in November 2023, OpenAI was a little clearer about what was behind the problems, stating "we are dealing with periodic outages due to an abnormal traffic pattern reflective of a DDoS attack". There's no suggestion that's the case again here, but we're continuing to chase spokesperson comment to help clear up the mystery.
A bad day for AI?
Strangely, it seems that some of ChatGPT's rivals have also been having issues today, though nowhere near on the scale of OpenAI. As some have flagged on X (formerly Twitter), Perplexity AI and Claude AI users have reported problems with those services – and Downdetector does show a spike for Perplexity from 10.20am ET / 3.20pm BST.
While those Perplexity reports are a minor tremor compared to the spikes seen for OpenAI (perhaps reflecting the size of its user base), they did happen at exactly the same time as ChatGPT's second wave of issues. All of which has left us a little, well, perplexed...
OpenAI remains quiet
We've asked OpenAI to explain what's behind ChatGPT's problems are and when they might be fixed, but so far the only clues are on its status page. And that still has a big, red warning that the service is "still down for some users" across the web service and mobile apps.
The major tech giants don't always comment on outages like this, but last November OpenAI did say that the outage was related to a DDoS attack. Those comments came a day after the AI chatbot's issues, though, so we may yet hear the ChatGPT maker reveal more at a later date. Until then, there's always Google Gemini or the best ChatGPT alternatives to keep you busy...
Even though OpenAI's status page still shows a red bar for ChatGPT, the AI appears to be returning to normal operation. We queried the new GPT-4o about its operation status, though the chatbot doesn't actually know what's going on.
Good news, ChatGPT fans, the generative AI platform appears to be back online. In fact, OpenAI is now reporting the situation as "Resolved" as of 5:01PM GMT (that's around 1PM New York time). From OpenAI's status page:
"We experienced a major outage impacting all users on all plans of ChatGPT. The impact included all ChatGPT related services. The impact did not include platform.openai.com or the API. This incident started June 4th at 2:15p GMT and was resolved June 4th at 5:01p GMT."
This was the second major outage of the day. The first, which started in the overnight hours and continued through the morning, was resolved early on Tuesday. However, the system crashed a couple of hours later.
That's a lot of instability for one system but, as of this post, OpenAI has yet to explain what happened. What it does offer is some extra advice for those who are trying to reconnect to ChatGPT. Most platforms could need a hard reset to start chatting again. So, if you're still unable to converse with ChatGPT, you may want to do the hard refresh on your browser.
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