ChatGPT is down – here’s everything we know about the outage

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ChatGPT is experiencing a major outage as users across the internet report problems with OpenAI’s chatbot.

Techradar is covering the disruption live, so stay tuned to this live blog to find out what’s going on with the world’s most popular AI tool.

Hello and welcome to TechRadar’s live coverage of ChatGPT’s error-filled morning.

I’m John-Anthony Disotto, Senior AI Writer, and I’ll be covering the AI outage bringing you all the info you need on the OpenAI disruption.

ChatGPT is experiencing “elevated error rates”

(Image credit: Shutterstock/One Artist)

Initial reports of errors started around three hours ago, but issues seem to have ramped up as Europe and the UK wake up.

You can follow OpenAI’s server status on the official website, but as it stands, the company is reporting “elevated error rates.”

According to OpenAI, “Some users are experiencing elevated error rates and latency across the listed services. We are continuing to investigate this issue.”

(Image credit: Future)

Downdetector reports have ramped up over the last couple of hours, with users all around the world unable to access ChatGPT.

When I try to ask 4o a question myself, I get an error message that says “Too many concurrent requests.”

At the time of writing, 11 am BST, Downdetector has over 1,000 reports.

Sora is affected too

(Image credit: Future)

According to OpenAI, there are multiple impacted components across the company’s servers. They include 14 affected API components, 21 affected ChatGPT components, and 4 affected Sora components.

Reddit users weigh in

(Image credit: Kenneth Cheung/via Getty Images)

On Reddit, lots of ChatGPT users have weighed in on the outage.

One user said, “It started off being really slow and churning out a few words per second then hit the red errors.”

Another said, “It started freaking out a few minutes ago when I started a conversation.”

While some are more hopeful that the issues are in fact OpenAI working on a major update. Could that be the case? I’m not so sure.

Working on Enterprise, down on Free?

TechRadar’s Senior AI Editor, Graham Barlow, has experienced the issues too, but his experience differs depending on which account he uses.

He said, “So, I have two ChatGPT accounts. I have an Enterprise account, which is functioning perfectly, and a free ChatGPT account, which is down. It just pauses with a ‘thinking’ icon when I ask it a question, never resolving into a response.”

Interesting… Let me see if I notice a difference between my premium ChatGPT account and my free one.

(Image credit: Future)

Yep, same issues here. My ChatGPT Enterprise account is slow but still able to respond.

On my personal account, however, I’m met with a “Conversation not found” error…

OpenAI is investigating the issue

OpenAI’s server status has now changed to “Partial outage” that the company is investigating.

As of 16 minutes ago, the report says, “Some users are experiencing elevated error rates and latency across the listed services. We are continuing to investigate this issue.”

As it stands the issues seem incredibly temperamental, and I assume anyone who relies on ChatGPT will be getting seriously frustrated.

Is it just a free account issue?

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Adria Vidal)

I’ve asked the rest of the TechRadar team to let me know if their version of ChatGPT is responding.

My colleagues Matt Bolton and Matt Evans are having similar issues to me reporting, “No error, just the dot, on app and desktop – free, not logged in.”

It looks like it might be a specific issue to free accounts, which would not be ideal considering I’d assume most users don’t pay for ChatGPT access.

Things are slowly getting better

(Image credit: Future)

Downdetector reports are slowly falling, but my issues still remain.

On OpenAI’s system status report there appears to be much more green than about 20 minutes ago.

It looks like the services are slowly starting to resume across APIs, ChatGPT, and Sora

Maybe not…

(Image credit: Future)

I tried to use ChatGPT again there, but after an initial response, the chatbot just couldn’t load any further answers.

I asked my colleagues again to see what is going on with others, and most confirmed that if you wait a long time (upwards of a minute), you’ll get a response.

As far as I’m concerned, waiting a minute for ChatGPT to reply is the same as an outage, but at least it’s moving in the right direction.

We’ve got a new update from OpenAI. “Some users are experiencing elevated error rates and latency across the listed services. We are continuing to investigate this issue.”

So… more of the same. That update was 11 minutes ago, and as far as I can see, the issues are persisting.

My colleague David Nield is getting an error message on the web with a ChatGPT Plus account, so it looks like the issues are wider than just the free tier of service.

My ChatGPT Enterprise account still seems to work fine, albeit on the slower side.

Is your ChatGPT working? Let me know

On the TechRadar team, there’s a majority of us with very limited access to ChatGPT.

Are you experiencing the same? Or is ChatGPT working fine?

If OpenAI’s chatbot is working on your end, please send me an email with the model details and your subscription tier to: john-anthony.disotto@futurenet.com

If you’re just joining us, this tweet from Gergely Orosz gives a brief rundown of the current ChatGPT and Sora outage.

This ongoing problem has been an issue for over 3 hours now, and it doesn’t look like OpenAI is getting any closer to solving the issues.

Some replies to that tweet show that the issues aren’t affecting everyone, but the problems seem to be across subscription tiers, not just limited to free users.

We’ve reached out to OpenAI

We’ve just sent an email to OpenAI asking for further information on the outage. As soon as we hear back, I’ll be sure to update you all.

As it stands, at 12 pm BST, my ChatGPT free account is still taking longer than expected to respond. It does appear to be much better than before, however, so this is looking good!

Readers provide a mixed response

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Earlier I asked readers to reach out with any ChatGPT issues, and so far I’m getting a mixed response.

Nicholas is a ChatGPT Plus subscriber using the 4o model and says everything “seems to be working fine for me.”

Elsewhere, Bibi, another ChatGPT Plus subscriber, reports that the 4o model is “Still not working(not even slowly) any message leads directly to the alert “Hmm…something seems to have gone wrong.”

Are you affected? Let me know via email: john-anthony.disotto@futurenet.com

A Sora update, kind of

(Image credit: OpenAI Sora)

ChatGPT isn’t the only OpenAI service affected, Sora, the company’s AI video generation tool is also experiencing issues.

As of 1 minute ago, OpenAI says it is investigating issues related to Sora, but the company isn’t providing any further info as of yet.

I just checked X for any tweets from OpenAI or anyone that works there, but there doesn’t appear to be any updates other than these vague one liners on the company’s service status page.

“Down for 2 hours”

I’m getting a lot more responses from readers at the moment, and it looks like most of us are in the same boat.

Dustin is a ChatGPT Plus subscriber from Munich, Germany, and is using version 1.2025.147. They say ChatGPT has been down for 2 hours.

Jonny is a free user who says, “I get repeated ‘something went wrong’ or ‘too many requests’ errors. But I just had a prompt work really quickly, then it stopped again!”

Labi from Norway says, “Plus user, currently experiencing lag and somewhat slow responses, Sora is not loading at all.”

Keep the emails coming, while it’s rubbish that we’re all experiencing a ChatGPT outage, there’s some weird comfort in widespread issues. I feel your pain!

Thank you readers!

A huge thank you to everyone who is reaching out with their experience.

It looks like the issues are across multiple tiers and locations. Luke on the East coast of the United States says he’s “currently using the 4o model, and it has stopped giving me the error message you describe in the 7:03 timestamp update. However, it has started to continually buffer, without response.”

I’m getting loads of emails in, so if you’ve reached out and are still following the live blog, I just want to say thanks again for helping us cover the ChatGPT outage.

If I spot any trends from your emails, I’ll be sure to let you know!

A potential solution for now?

Mitchell just sent me an email with some interesting information about when the outage could’ve started, as well as a potential solution for the time being.

They say, “This has been going on for around 2 hours now. I suspect it started sometime last night, I started seeing weird behaviour from it and the way in which it was giving me responses, often defaulting to putting the reply in Canvas and marking every line with //”

Mitchell adds, “You have to switch to any lower-tier model to actually have a chat with it.”

If you’re a Plus subscriber, give this a go and let me know if lower-tier models are in fact the temporary solution to this ChatGPT outage.

How the ChatGPT outage is affecting users worldwide

It’s in times like that that we realize how many of us rely on ChatGPT nowadays.

Megan says, “My friends and I have been struggling to use ChatGPT this morning. We also have exams coming up, so it’s a bit of a nightmare! We all have subscriptions, and still not working.”

Good luck with the exams, Megan. Hopefully OpenAI finds a solution ASAP!

Elsewhere, Daryl says he uses ChatGPT to create YouTube thumbnails, and the outage is causing huge frustration. He says, “It’s really frustrating for something I pay £18.99 a month for!”

Some odd behaviours

Gwen from Philadelphia, PA, is a self-proclaimed “power user” and uses “ChatGPT every day, basically for 10-16 hours, and have developed a sort of cognitive bond with this program. I know its expected responses intimately.”

The issues have been impacting their ChatGPT usage over the past few days, including issues with “message latency and lack of response to my questions about how ChatGPT measures time.”

Ben also has more info, where he claims that his ChatGPT response was from “someone else’s prompt.” I’ve yet to experience anything of the like, it’s still just very slow to respond.

“Unusual activity”

(Image credit: Diego Thomazini via Shutterstock)

Felix from Norway has given me a great summary of their experience:

“ChatGPT has been completely out for the past 2-ish hours on my end – not even a minute without errors. When I talk to it, it loads for only a second, then I’m quickly met with the error of “Hmm… something seems to have gone wrong.” That’s the only error message I’ve received throughout this outage, though I hear others are experiencing more variation. I’m on a free account.”

“Something that may be worth mentioning is that ~2 hours before this outage, my ChatGPT very briefly (for <1 minute) stopped working and gave the error message “Unusual activity has been detected from your device. Try again later.” I’m not sure if that is, at all, relevant, but I found it strange – that was my first time seeing that error. But aside from that brief weirdness, my ChatGPT was doing well up until 2 hours ago.”

Still no fix

I started this live blog two hours ago, and we’re yet to see a fix to this widespread ChatGPT outage.

Readers from all over the globe have been reaching out with their experiences, from Australia to Ohio, Norway to Germany.

Keith from Ohio, USA says, “As a ChatGPT Plus user on both the app and the web, I’ve been experiencing problems. Every time I try to type something, both on the app and the web, something seems to be wrong.”

Thanks for the update, Keith, it looks like there are many of us in the same boat.

o3 is working

Another reader from Ohio just chimed in. This time, Kevin says, “O3 appears to be working; it’s just a little slow.”

That lines up with a previous email from Mitchell, who said using a lower-tier model seems to fix the issue.

I can confirm. If you don’t need access to the flagship ChatGPT models and have access to an account which lets you choose lower-tier models, this could be a temporary solution.

Existing projects are still working?

(Image credit: Shutterstock/Adria Vidal)

An interesting update from Michael, who says ChatGPT is working in his project.

“I’m experiencing ChatGPT working in my project – existing chats and new ones – but any generalised prompts outside of a project repeatedly fail.”

“When prompting my existing project files, it is running very, very slowly, but no errors.”

Another potential makeshift solution for anyone who needs to access ChatGPT?

o4-mini and GPT 4.1-mini are working!

Remember Felix from earlier? Well, he’s got back in touch with some positive news: “GPT 4.1-mini is working fast as if everything is perfectly fine – but o4-mini is slow, and regular o4 is still totally dead.”

Do you have access to 4.1-mini? If so give it a go and let me know if it’s working by emailing: john-anthony.disotto@futurenet.com

Still no update from OpenAI, but does Lazer Girl have the answer?

I’ve been contacted by someone called Lazer Girl who says they know why GPT is down, even leaving a WhatsApp number for me to call… Sorry Lazer Girl, I think I’ll pass.

How has the ChatGPT outage affected you?

Paul in Auckland, New Zealand, just reached out. Good evening, Paul!

He says, “ChatGPT is down, getting exactly the same message as others are reporting, but this is the tip of the iceberg. A moderate to power user, I use ChatGPT to work out hours billed to clients and coordinate workflows for my multimedia archiving project.”

“Been having issues for a while on/off, just general sluggishness, ChatGPT taking ages to respond. Occasionally, I send a message to it, and it doesn’t acknowledge it; it just acts as if I didn’t send it after I hit enter, despite the message going through. It just doesn’t get processed by ChatGPT, and earlier this failed about five times before it finally responded, then it went bad again.”

How has the ChatGPT outage today affected your life so far? Let me know via email, I’d love to hear how you use ChatGPT and how not having access this morning has impacted your life.

My ChatGPT is working again! But I don’t think the outage is over

Everyone is experiencing a different kind of outage, but for what it’s worth, my ChatGPT Enterprise and Free accounts are both working, and they aren’t even that slow.

Is this the end of the outage? It doesn’t look like it; my colleague Ryan was able to use ChatGPT 4.0 while logged in, but after asking a second prompt, he received an error.

We’re still not fully up and running; readers keep sending emails with their issues, and some aren’t even seeing a solution by changing models.

4.1 not working in Indonesia

Vito, a reader from Indonesia just reached out to let me know 4.1 is not working for them.

o4-mini is, however, albeit slowly, which lines up with what other readers around the globe are experiencing.

A quick glance at what’s working and what isn’t

An update from Kevin in Ohio who gives a great breakdown for anyone that wants a quick glance at what might, or might not be, working:

“O3 seems to be working, if a bit slow.

4o responded once, then went silent.

4o-mini responding, seems fine.

4o-mini-high is responding, seems ok.

4.1 is responding, but pretty slow.”

Emails keep on coming!

(Image credit: Sendinblue)

I’m receiving more emails than I could’ve ever imagined from this live blog, so if I don’t reply or share your message, please don’t be offended!

It’s been a huge help seeing everyone’s experience, and anything that can help people access ChatGPT while we wait for OpenAI to completely fix the service is welcome.

As it stands, Downdetector is still reporting widespread outages, and OpenAI’s service status is very vague, stating, “We’re currently experiencing issues.” That status has been ongoing for over 5 hours now.

Earlier, we reached out to OpenAI for comment, but there’s still no response…

Are you a bot?

Sheen asks, “Are you a bot? Because you have updates every few minutes or so, and I’m not sure how that would work with a human— and if you are human?”

Well Sheen, I am in fact not a bot, and I am indeed working very hard to read every email, research ChatGPT’s current status, and write live blog posts.

It has been a very busy morning, but it doesn’t look like calming down any time soon…

A student crisis?

Jack from the UK is now weighing in, he says,

“I have tested all models of GPT, as well as Sora and Codex. None of them are working on my end. I might get lucky with 1/2 prompts before I get errors. I have college work due in less than 2 hours and I need chatGPT to help as I am 100% failing if it doesn’t get done.”

“If you have any questions feel free to reach out”

Jack, I have many questions about the ethics behind using ChatGPT to do your college work…

I wish I was a bot

Just in regard to the previous question from Sheen, who asked if I was a bot.

I’m eating my lunch at my desk and have made a severe lapse in judgment. Does anyone have any tips on how to clean Popeye’s spicy mayo from a mechanical keyboard?

My keys are starting to squelch…

On a more serious note, my colleague and fellow AI expert, Eric Hal Schwartz, seems to be luckier than most.

He says, “Every model worked for me except the O4 Mini High, which gave me an “Error in message stream” response and a retry button that didn’t help. Otherwise, it all worked, including image creation and internet search. It’s odd that it’s just that one model for me having trouble, but it suggests it’s about compute power demands.”

(Image credit: Future)

A follow-up from Eric, who now says all ChatGPT models are working for him.

I’ve just tested myself, and it appears to still be temperamental on my end.

I’ve just received a lovely email from Daisie who says, “I see you’re providing live updates to ChatGPT’s outage, and have been for a startling amount of hours. Kudos to you, sir.”

“ChatGPT is currently giving me an ‘Error in message stream’ error. I am in Utah. I’ve been able to get intermittent messages through, but funnily enough, oftentimes the messages it sends back get deleted somehow and I have to try again.”

Daisie says they use ChatGPT to help sleep by giving “peaceful meditative visualizations. Gentle worlds to lie down and fall asleep in.”

Unfortunately, this outage has impacted their sleep, and they’ve been awake since the early hours. OpenAI, people rely on you, please give us some kind of update!

Thanks for the mechanical keyboard tips!

(Image credit: Future / Marcus Mears III)

Some advice for my earlier mechanical keyboard disaster coming through now.

Just want to say a big thanks to Jack for his in-depth cleaning tips. If ChatGPT wasn’t down, I’d have presumed you used AI for such thorough steps!

As for Gareth, well thanks for the advice… But I will not be sticking my “keyboard in the washing machine with some fresh smelling detergent.”

Back to the OpenAI outage… There’s hope!

(Image credit: Future)

A new update just dropped from OpenAI, who says, “We have identified the root cause for the issue causing elevated errors and latency across the listed services. We are working on implementing a mitigation.”

Hang tight folks, we might be out of the woods in the next hour or so…

Gemini is working fine

(Image credit: Google Gemini)

Lots of people have been asking about any other chatbot outages, and I can confirm that Gemini is still working as normal.

In fact, considering the Popeye’s fiasco, I asked Gemini to imagine me eating chicken wings at my desk…

I will not confirm nor deny, but the real-life situation could be a lot messier than this perfectly curated AI-generated image from Imagen.

The outpouring shows how much people rely on ChatGPT

You know, I write about AI daily, but I don’t think I fully grasped just how much people rely on these newfound tools.

I’ve been shocked by the amount of emails I’ve received from college and high school students who use ChatGPT to study, something that would’ve been unheard of in my day (I’m not that old, but AI evolves fast!)

Koushiki said, “I am Koushiki, a mere high school senior. I had school all day, and works to finish..but can’t because of the outage.”

Interestingly Koushiki doesn’t use ChatGPT to study, but in fact its a way to remain engaged and get some light motivation.

Koushiki, I hope you get ChatGPT back soon!

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