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OpenAI’s popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT, experienced a major global outage, leaving thousands of users unable to access the platform.
The disruption began shortly before 3 PM IST, according to real-time data from Downdetector.
At the peak of the outage, Downdetector registered over 1,100 problem reports, with 93 percent of them specifically linked to ChatGPT functionality.
An additional 7 percent of complaints were related to the OpenAI app, while 1 percent involved login issues.
The issues reportedly began around 2:45 PM IST and peaked at approximately 3:02 PM.
Social media platforms, especially X (formerly Twitter), were flooded with complaints from users experiencing blank screens, partial responses, server errors, and failed loading attempts. Several users reported being logged out unexpectedly or stuck in an endless login loop.
Others claimed that their active chats were disrupted, causing lost content and interrupted tasks.
OpenAI has not provided a detailed explanation for the outage. However, the company’s official status page acknowledged that “some users are experiencing elevated error rates and latency across the listed services.”
However, no estimated time for full recovery has been given.
The issue appears to be affecting both free-tier users and ChatGPT Plus subscribers, indicating that the problem is not limited by subscription level or geographic region.
While OpenAI has yet to confirm the root cause, the surge in global complaints suggests a potential server-side issue or overload. In similar past incidents, OpenAI typically restored full service within a few hours.
Technical teams are presumed to be actively investigating the matter and working on a solution.
Until then, users are advised not to refresh sessions repeatedly or re-enter login credentials, as doing so may trigger unnecessary security steps or cause further delays.
What Users Can Expect
Downdetector’s live outage heatmap shows high concentrations of disruption reports from North America, Europe, and India. More updates are expected as OpenAI continues its investigation and implements a fix.
For now, affected users are encouraged to monitor OpenAI’s status page or official social media channels for real-time updates.
