ChatGPT down as OpenAI suffers issue with businesses and users across globe reporting problems

Potentially millions of ChatGPT users including several who need it for work and business could be affected as OpenAI admits 'we have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix'

OpenAI appears to be suffering an outage as users and businesses across the globe report issues with the artificial intelligence company based in the United States that provides services including ChatGPT.

Monitoring website DownDetector.com reports 2,483 reports as of 11.42pm last night. Users report widespread disruption to OpenAI services - including several users who pay for an enhanced or 'premium' service via subscription and businesses who rely on OpenAI’s API for their projects.

OpenAI says it has identified an issue affecting API, ChatGPT and Sora services and work is underway to resolve the disruption - and in the latest updates, the company claims it is starting to see things get better. It claims it has now identified a "pathway to recovery" just under two hours since it first acknowledged a problem, and claims some traffic has returned to normal.

And two hours after that, they claimed they were "bringing ChatGPT traffic back up by region".

In its very latest update, which it has just posted on its status page on its website, it states: "We have identified a pathway to recovery and we are starting to see some success traffic return. Continuing to work to return service to normal." They then added a few minutes later: "We are continuing to work on a fix for this issue."

Just under an hour later, they have updated to say: "We are continuing to work towards remediation. API and ChatGPT traffic is partially recovered. Sora remains down."

Another hour later, they have said: "We are continuing to work towards remediation. API traffic recovery is ongoing and we are bringing ChatGPT traffic back up by region. Sora is partially beginning to recover."

No reason for the outage has been given by OpenAI as of yet.

OpenAI is most famous for its chatbot ChatGPT, which appears to be down for hundreds of businesses, free users and paying users this morning. Down Detector, which tracks such outages based on users' reports, has seen a massive spike in reports of users unable to use ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is free, or you can pay for a 'Plus' version which is $20 a month and gives you expanded access; or you can get the 'Premium' version, which is $200 a month, and is the highest level of access.

In an earlier online log, OpenAI stated initially: "We have reports of API calls returning errors, and difficulties logging in to platform.openai.com and ChatGPT. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix."

In a later, updated log entry, they then said: "ChatGPT, Sora, and the API remain down. We have identified the issue and are rolling out a remediation. We are working as fast as we can to return service to normal and apologize for the downtime."

They confirm services remain disrupted but confidently state that the issue was identified a while ago and work on a fix is well underway.

Many users are seeing features suffering from slow logins and degraded performance.

It was around midnight in the UK - 7pm where OpenAI is based in the US - that reports began. Before long, the outage was significant and affected its API, ChatGPT, and Sora services.

The outage could potentially be affecting millions of users across the world but no estimated resolution time has been given so far.

GPTPro subscribers who use it for business and work are reporting not being able to use it at all.

On Twitter, OpenAI is being bombarded with queries and complaints.

One Twitter user said: "Hey @openai @sama @chatgpt im a gpt pro subscriber. im having problems with my acc... can you help?" Another begs: "Do something for premium users asap please."

They said they were getting this error message when trying to use ChatGPT: { }error:{ code: 503, message: "Service Unavailable.", param: null, type: "cf_service_unavailable" }

Another user said they were getting this message: "upstream connect error or disconnect/reset before headers. retried and the latest reset reason: remote connection failure, transport failure reason: delayed connect error: 111"

Another Twitter user wrote: "#chatgptdown again. What’s going on?? It’s so annoying! If you can’t do it properly then resign! Upstream error. #ChatGPT #down #outage"

Another wrote: "@OpenAI ChatGPT not working. I am on a paid subscription. Nothing is happening."

In a tweet, OpenAI wrote: "We're experiencing an outage right now. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix. Sorry and we'll keep you updated!"

One commenter joked: "ClosedAI."

Another quipped: "Do you think ChatGPT used ChatGPT to figure out what was wrong with ChatGPT and that’s why the website isn’t working?"

A professor has tweeted: "When you're working on a tight deadline, and #ChatGPT is down ... What's going on @OpenAI huh?"

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence company based in the US which is behind a range of AI tools and apps.

It is most known for ChatGPT but it also provides Dall-E, Data Analyst, Web Browser, Writing Coach and others.

It offers the OpenAI API, which provides access to its language models, including GPT.

Users can pay for a pro version of the services and many businesses and small businesses rely on its AI tools for numerous functions.

A night of outages

This is not the first outage users of major online applications and services have suffered with tonight.

At around 6pm UK time yesterday evening, the Mirror reported how social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp went down amid a widespread Meta outage.

Website Downdetector, which monitors where there are issues with websites and apps, showed large spikes for Facebook and other Meta apps with people saying they had been affected by the outage. According to Downdetector, Facebook outages were first reported at about 6pm UK time (1pm ET) and reached more than 100,000 complaints.

Users also complained about having issues with Instagram with 11,891 being registered by Downdetector since 6pm UK time. Both social media apps are operated by Meta.

WhatsApp, also owned by Meta, saw numerous reported disruptions around the same time frame today. According to the Downdetector website there were more than 9,600 outage reports since 6pm.

A Meta spokesperson shared the following statement with The Mirror: "We’re aware that a technical issue is impacting some users’ ability to access our apps. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience."

There have been numerous instances of Meta and other social media apps having issues and reporting outages. Earlier this year Facebook users suffered an outage after they were met with log in errors.

Mark Zuckerberg previously apologised after Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram went down for nearly six hours in October 2021. During the outage, potentially billions of people were left without access to the social media tools they heavily relied on for communication with friends and family.

The repercussions also extended to Mark Zuckerberg at the time, with an estimated $6 billion (£4.4 billion) loss in his personal fortune as Facebook shares experienced a sharp decline. Zuckerberg wrote in a post: "Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger are coming back online now. Sorry for the disruption today -- I know how much you rely on our services to stay connected with the people you care about."

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