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ChatGPT was down — Here's what happened during the quick OpenAI outage

Another day, another ChatGPT outage

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OpenAI seems to be down, as ChatGPT is not working for a lot of people right now.

Reports began appearing on the outage tracking site Down Detector at around 9:30am BST / 1:30am PT / 4:30am ET, with a sudden spike happening shortly after.

According to OpenAI's status page, this seemed to only be affecting the API level (the implementation of ChatGPT tech into other apps), but it was more widespread than that.

Fortunately, a fix was implemented quickly afterwards and operations seem to have returned to normal.

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BREAKING: ChatGPT is operational again

ChatGPT

(Image credit: ChatGPT)

OK I'm calling it. After receiving reports from other folks and testing ChatGPT myself, it looks as if service has been restored.

We'll keep a look out in case there's a dreaded second spike, but for now, I'm calling it. Downdetector reports are down to 102, which is considered normal.

Well, that was fast...

Down detector

(Image credit: Down detector)

No need to call it yet, but that spike has massively fallen off — indicating that a fix has been implemented. We'll keep monitoring!

Who is affected right now?

Down detector

(Image credit: Down detector)

Looking at the UK heatmap on downdetector, there seems to be a huge concentration in London and Manchester, as well as reports cropping up from Glasgow, Cambridge and Birmingham.

Here come the X posts

Looking like people are starting to share their frustrations!

What components are down?

OpenAi

(Image credit: OpenAi)

This is an interesting question to answer, as I'm hearing one thing from OpenAI, and another from the people using the service.

According to OpenAI, the issue affects the APIs — the tools developers use to implement ChatGPT into their apps. This is causing slow down or stopping access to it at the moment.

Meanwhile, if you take a look at what the users are reporting, they're saying ChatGPT access is unavailable right now more broadly.

We'll keep investigating.

U.S. may not be affected

Status Gator

(Image credit: Status Gator)

Now, this could just be because everyone in the U.S. is probably asleep. But this outage report is completely focused on the UK and Europe.

Looking at Status Gator gets us a little more information on this, as the heat map is particularly prominent in Europe right now.

That's a big spike

Down detector

(Image credit: Down detector)

Welcome to the OpenAI outage live blog! So far, 1269 concurrent reports have been made over the past hour.

We're getting an understanding of what's happening, and reaching out to OpenAI for comment.