ChatGPT is down – here’s what we know about the outage so far

When did the ChatGPT problems start?

According to Downdetector, the first reports of a ChatGPT outage started around two hours ago at 2.30am ET / 7.30am BDT / 4.30pm AEST.

At their peak, there were around 2,300 reports of issues in the US and around 1,000 in the UK, a not insignificant number which suggests that a significant proportion of users are unable to use the service.

We’re currently unable to use ChatGPT in either the web browser or iOS mobile app, with the latter returning an “internal server error”.

OpenAI has “identified the issue”

While there’s been no word from OpenAI on social media about the ChatGPT issues, its status page now says that it’s “identified the issue and mitigating” (as of 1.32PDT).

In theory, then, a fix shouldn’t be too far away, although the reports on Downdetector have continued to spike in the UK (but appear to be stabilizing in the US).

What’s causing the issues?

OpenAI hasn’t yet committed on what’s causing today’s ChatGPT’s problems, though it currently looks like a simple server outage. 

Most users are either unable to access the website in a browser – we’re getting a “bad gateway” response – or are simply unable to send messages in the web or app versions.

The ChatGPT status page says the issue is still unresolved, so it’s time for rival chatbot users like Copilot to start gloating.