Claude is down for many — here's what we know about the outage

"Unexpected capacity constraints"

We're now seeing the warning message above when using Claude's free plan — it says that "due to unexpected capacity constraints, Claude is unable to respond to your message".

It then suggests upgrading to a Pro plan, which seems a bit odd — if this is related to the "partial outage" on the Claude Status page then this isn't really the time to nudge free users towards a paid plan.

Are you still experiencing issues on Claude's free or paid plans? Let us know in the comments below, or vote in our poll at the top of this liveblog.

The issues are lingering

It looked like Claude's Downdetector graph was moving in the right direction 30 minutes ago, but it's now stabilized at around 145 reports in the UK. Numbers in the US remain fairly low at 85 reports, but it is still very early morning for most Claude users there.

The latest from Anthropic is that is is "continuing to work on a fix for this issue", which has been the case for the last 90 minutes. With "partial outage" still the status for many Claude services, it seems this one is proving tricky to fix.

A fair point

With today's Claude issues seemingly affecting Claude Code as well as its chat interface on web and mobile, it's a reminder of the dangers of having all your eggs in one AI basket.

We recently saw a large number of people switch from ChatGPT to Claude due to the former's unpopular AI military deals, but it certainly pays to have an AI backup plan for the times when your favorite chatbot inevitably has a bad day.

"Still working on it..."

Today's Claude issues don't seem to be restricted to its Opus 4.6 model, despite Anthropic's latest update (see below).

When I try to use Sonnet 4.6, for example, it simply hangs indefinitely with "gathering my thoughts" and "still working on it" messages. Others are also reporting that the chatbot is very slow for them this morning, although Downdetector reports are moving in the right direction...

An update from Anthropic

The Claude Status page has just posted an update suggesting this isn't going to be a quick fix.

It now reports "elevated errors on Opus 4.6", which is Claude's latest flagship model announced in February. The update adds that "we are continuing to work on a fix for this issue".

Considering it's now been three hours since Anthropic said a fix was being implemented, it seems this may be proving tricky to solve....

A slow start to the day

Reports of issues on Claude have been steadily climbing on Downdetector over the past 90 minutes in the UK. Most people are having issues with Claude Chat, with other services like Claude Cowork and Claude for Government seemingly unaffected.

However, there are signs that reports are dropping slightly, which could be related to the fix that Anthropic says is "being implemented".