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”
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.”
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
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
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.
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?
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
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…
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
