Major Outages Hit OpenAI’s ChatGPT
Yesterday, June 4th, OpenAI’s widely-used AI platform, ChatGPT, experienced a major outage affecting users across its web and mobile apps for more than four hours. This incident marked one of the most substantial disruptions in recent memory, as the platform typically encounters only minor issues related to specific features like image or text generation.
Timeline of the Outage
The outage began on June 4, 2024, at 2:15 PM GMT, with ChatGPT becoming unavailable for many users. The disruption impacted all ChatGPT-related services across all subscription plans but did not affect platform.openai.com or the API. Reports of the outage first appeared on DownDetector at around 02:30 ET, indicating widespread issues across the web, mobile, and desktop versions of ChatGPT.
OpenAI quickly responded to the outage. By 04:00 ET, they had identified the root cause and were actively working on a solution. Despite these efforts, the issue persisted, and by 05:00 ET, services were still down. Service was briefly restored at around 07:45 ET but went offline again by 10:30 ET.
OpenAI’s Response and Resolution
By 5:01 PM GMT, OpenAI had resolved the issue, restoring ChatGPT services. However, users were advised to perform a ‘hard refresh’ on chatgpt.com to resolve any lingering access issues. This step was suggested specifically for users on the web platform, while those using the Mac app or mobile apps (iOS/Android) were not expected to need this action.
How to Perform a Hard Refresh
- Mac:
- Chrome and/or Firefox: Press Cmd + Shift + R
- Safari: Press Cmd + Option + R
- PC:
- Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge: Press Ctrl + F5
- Mobile Devices:
- Clear the cache manually before reloading the page.
Ongoing Monitoring and Recent Issues
OpenAI continued to monitor the situation following the resolution to ensure stability. This outage followed another recent issue on June 3, 2024, when mobile chat prompts with images were not working. Engineers quickly resolved this issue, with full functionality restored by 3:38 PM PDT on the same day. Additionally, increased latency affecting ChatGPT was resolved earlier on June 3, with the incident fully resolved by 7:42 AM PDT.
Current Status and Recommendations
As of now, ChatGPT appears stable. Users are encouraged to remain vigilant and consider alternatives if issues persist. Our guide to ChatGPT alternatives includes robust options such as Claude 3 and MetaAI.
