Why Was OpenAI’s ChatGPT Down? Reason Explained

OpenAI’s widely used chatbot, ChatGPT, faced a significant outage on Thursday, leaving thousands of users unable to access the platform. The disruption sparked widespread reports of errors and downtime. OpenAI quickly acknowledged the problem and worked on a fix. Now many users are curious to know about what happened to ChatGPT and why was it down.

Here’s why ChatGPT was down on Thursday.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT down reason explained

OpenAI’s ChatGPT experienced a significant outage on Thursday, disrupting service for thousands of users. Starting around 1:30 P.M. EST, reports of issues flooded Downdetector, with over 50,000 incidents recorded by 3:30 P.M. EST.

Many users encountered an “Internal Server Error” message, leaving them unable to interact with the popular AI chatbot. The issues also extended to OpenAI’s Sora video-generation model and its automated application programming interface (API), which led to more technical difficulties across the platform. By 4:05 P.M. EST, OpenAI stated it was actively working on a fix. However, frustration grew among users who turned to social media platforms like X to share their experiences.

The outage lasted for several hours, with OpenAI attributing the problem to an unnamed internet service provider. By 11:16 P.M. EST, OpenAI confirmed that it had restored full service. The statement said, “OpenAI will run a full root-cause analysis of this outage and will share details on this page when complete.” The company issued a statement, acknowledging the disruption and assuring users that a detailed analysis of the root cause would be conducted to prevent future occurrences.

This was the second major outage for ChatGPT in December, following a similar disruption earlier in the month. Despite the hiccups, OpenAI remains one of the most prominent players in the AI market. The platform boasts over 300 million weekly active users and continues to be a valuable tool for businesses and individuals alike.