ChatGPT was down for many – here's what we know about the outage that hit some paid subscribers

OpenAI confirms there's an issue

OpenAI has been quick to confirm issues, providing an update that it has identified the issue as of 8:38AM ET. Here's the full message on the status page.

Elevated errors on ChatGPT for all paid users

We have identified that users are experiencing elevated errors for the impacted services.

We are working on implementing a mitigation.

It's listed as a partial outage that's still ongoing and is mostly impacting paid users. I have my own ChatGPT Plus account and haven't encountered any issues as of yet, although reports on Down Detector are still in the low thousands – 1,500 in the US and approximately 700 in the UK.

It's possible that this has a shorter-lasting impact on ChatGPT's services this morning.

OpenAI's status page indicates that this partial outage has been ongoing for 37 minutes and that most of the issues are related to conversations with ChatGPT. Meaning that the AI might be erroring out when responding to a query from you or just not responding at all.

Reports on Down Detector indicate that the issue is starting to resolve, which may mean that OpenAI's efforts to fix it are progressing smoothly. As of 9:10AM ET, Down Detector in the US shows 164 reports, and in the UK at 9:12AM shows 81 reports.

Both of those fall within the normal range for reports that don't necessarily indicate a larger issue. Considering OpenAI has confirmed an ongoing issue, it likely means we're closer to a full resolution.

OpenAI states that it's still working on resolving this partial outage, but it appears that for most individuals who reported the issue, ChatGPT is now functioning normally.

The latest status update, posted at 9:41 AM ET, reads, "We're continuing to work on mitigation."

I did ask ChatGPT about the issues this morning, and it recommends retrying to send a message if it fails or refreshing the page after a minute or two.

ChatGPT gives the all clear

As of 10:16 AM ET, just minutes ago, OpenAI has given the all clear, and ChatGPT is now back to normal for the impacted users. Remember, this partial outage impacted paid subscribers.

The update reads, "We have applied the mitigation and are monitoring the recovery." So if you're still seeing errors, it's best to retry sending the message or refresh the page.

It's good to see that ChatGPT is back to business as usual for all folks now, though. Down Detector reports are still way down, but in the normal range as well.