Starting around 12:15 pm Pacific, one of my colleagues, Kate Kozuch, told me that ChatGPT wasn't working for her. Then we noticed that reports on Down Detector were spiking quickly hitting over 2,000 by 12:30 pm. It initially started shooting up around 11:40 am.
OpenAI quickly acknowledged the issue with the official status page saying that it has identified the issue and are working on it.
A fix was deployed about an hour and seems to have settled whatever was plaguing the chatbot. Reports began dropping steeply around 12:45 pm.
Keep Tom's Guide in your tabs as we monitor the latest updates concerning ChatGPT.
Sudden spike
OpenAI status page
OpenAI has acknowledged the outage on its official status page where ChatGPT is listed as "currently experiencing issues."
It goes on to say that there are increased errors. The noticed indicates that they are working on the issue but no timeline has been provided.
What ChatGPT says
For some of my colleagues ChatGPT isn't working, but I was able to get on and ask the chatbot if it's working properly.
Everything is working fine it told me.
Hmm...
Today's outage may not be too widespread. I haven't been able to recreate it and several colleagues are also still able to use it.
Additionally, it may only be affecting some "free users."
Though, I have seen online people saying they've been getting the "Hmm...something seems to have gone wrong" message that usually occurs when ChatGPT can't access information.
Reports going down
After a spike that hit nearly 3,000 reports 12:28 pm Pacific, it looks like things might be returning to normal.
As of this posting reports are down to just over 1,000. The official status page hasn't changed yet but we're keeping an eye on it.
Reddit noticed
Over on Reddit, I'm seeing complaints from people getting error messages. There's more error messages than the "something is wrong one."
One user reported they couldn't upload images while another just got one that said "Error in message stream."
One person reported they were able to access an older model that worked so it may just be related to the current version of ChatGPT.
Where we stand after an hour and a half
Reports on Down Detector have taken a steep dive, though I am seeing more posts on Reddit about ChatGPT not functioning properly.
The official OpenAI status page says that the company has "deployed a fix to restore functionality" and they are monitoring it.
I suspect things will be resolved shortly.
Down Detector basically over
While the status page hasn't changed yet, reports on DD have hit under 150. The baseline is around 40, so only being 100 up indicates that it's largely dead.
I'll keep an eye on things for a bit longer, but this one seems done and dusted.
