Millions of ChatGPT users experienced difficulties accessing the generative AI service on Thursday, with OpenAI acknowledging "increased error rates" for both ChatGPT and its API.
"This issue has now been resolved. Between 3:33 AM and 4:23 AM PST [12:33 PM to 1:23 PM CET], customers experienced elevated error rates on ChatGPT and the API," OpenAI initially announced at 1:43 PM CET, noting that a fix had been implemented and monitoring was ongoing.
However, users continued to report problems. OpenAI updated its website at 2:43 PM CET, stating the issue was under investigation and its cause identified.
Reports of access issues spiked globally around 12:30 PM CET Thursday, according to Downdetector.com. In the UK, over 5,100 reports were logged, while the US saw more than 4,300 at the time of reporting. Users reported encountering "Bad Gateway" errors on both the website and app.
Issues with upload speeds and ChatGPT access were also noted on Wednesday, peaking at 296 reports in the US by 5 PM CET. One user, @BeneddraNaim, shared on X (formerly Twitter): "Hi @OpenAI, it seems there’s a general issue with photo uploads on your platform. Many users (including myself) have noticed that the feature isn’t working properly. Could you confirm if this is being looked into? Thanks for your help!"
OpenAI confirmed it had resolved login and file upload issues in an update at 5:15 PM PT Wednesday (2:15 AM CET Thursday).
The last major reported outage for ChatGPT occurred on December 26, lasting approximately three hours, according to OpenAI's status page.