ChatGPT encountered a widespread system outage

[Update 10:47] OpenAI said:

We experienced a major outage affecting users on all ChatGPT plans. The scope of influence includes all services related to ChatGPT, but does not include platform.openai.com or the API. This issue started on June 4 at 2:15 pm (GMT) and was resolved on June 4 at 5:01 pm (GMT).

All ChatGPT-based apps and services should now work as expected.

[Update 08:48] : OpenAI encountered another outage that is affecting many users, although the system was soon restored. This extended downtime is being investigated as of 07:33 PDT, but no resolution has yet been found. OpenAI is 'currently investigating this issue'.

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[Update 05:17] : According to OpenAI systems, ChatGPT is no longer down and all services are up as of 04:45 a.m. PDT, noting that 'this issue has been resolved. handle'. No further details were shared about the possible cause of the outage or the issues many people are experiencing. However, users can now access ChatGPT on all their platforms without issue.

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[Update 02:00] : Status has been updated again to confirm 'Major outage' for ChatGPT service. 'We are continuing to fix this issue' is the only update shared at this time.

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[Update 01:31] : OpenAI has identified issues affecting the service and according to the live platform status page, they are being 'mitigated'. Hopefully this will restore access in the coming hours.

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The outage began early Tuesday, 00:21 PDT, with multiple complaints on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that the chatbot could not be launched from Chrome. However, this issue appears to be most worrisome on mobile devices. The ChatGPT app on Android crashes at the login screen, suggesting this outage is not limited to just one platform. According to DownDetector, the most reported issues were with ChatGPT and not with the website or app:

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If connected, 'Internal Server Error' will be displayed when attempting to perform searches and ask questions. Paid subscribers are also experiencing problems with connectivity. It's worth noting that ChatGPT is down for all users. In some cases, users can still use the service as usual. In a quick test, it was still possible to sign in with Google. But after logging in, the few queries generated are slow and have some artifacts.

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For example, when requesting 'a summary of recent England matches', the system initially took over 2 minutes to respond and the results were extremely out of date, whereas this information was retrieved accurately on other AI-based platforms.

OpenAI's status page currently states that 'ChatGPT is unavailable for some users' and that they are 'currently investigating this issue' . At this stage, there are no further details on how long the ChatGPT service may be down.

The most recent major outage was on May 23, when the service crashed for more than eight hours. Even so, OpenAI has a 99.67% uptime rate over the previous 90 days.

Isabella Humphrey

Update 05 June 2024