OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Sora video generator are down as of 1:30PM ET, with users reporting issues worldwide.
Is ChatGPT down: The answer is yes
The issue first became apparent when users started reporting various error messages while attempting to access ChatGPT. Some encountered a “404 Error, Page Not Found” message, while others were met with a notification stating “Request is not allowed. Please try again later.” In many cases, the chatbot would load but remain unresponsive to any user queries, displaying internal server errors instead of the usual helpful responses.
By 2:00 PM ET, OpenAI had acknowledged the situation on their status page, confirming that ChatGPT, their API services, and the Sora text-to-video generator were all “experiencing high error rates.” The company provided an additional update at 2:18 PM ET, attributing the problems to an “upstream provider.” However, they haven’t specified which provider is causing the issues or provided an estimated time for service restoration.
The scale of the outage is substantial, with DownDetector recording more than 5,300 user reports of service disruptions. The majority of these reports are coming from users in the United States, where the impact appears to be most concentrated.
The timing of the outage has proven particularly frustrating for many users who rely on ChatGPT for work and study purposes. Social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter), have been flooded with comments from affected users expressing their dismay. One user lamented the unfortunate timing, noting that the service went down just as they had planned to tackle some productive personal work. Another highlighted how the disruption was affecting their studies, commenting that they had questions to solve but couldn’t access the tool.
The outage’s impact extends beyond just ChatGPT, as users have reported that other AI services, including Claude, are also experiencing issues. One user pointed out the unusual circumstance of both major AI chatbots being unavailable the day after Christmas, underscoring the growing dependency many people have on these AI tools for their daily tasks.
This isn’t the first time OpenAI’s services have faced such difficulties. The company has experienced several significant outages in recent months. Earlier this month, shortly after making Sora available to ChatGPT subscribers, both the video generation tool and ChatGPT went down for several hours. A similar incident occurred in June when a widespread outage affecting various AI tools brought ChatGPT’s services to a halt.
These recurring issues highlight the challenges faced by AI service providers in maintaining consistent uptime as their user base continues to grow. The current outage is particularly notable as it affects multiple OpenAI services simultaneously, suggesting a more fundamental infrastructure problem rather than an issue with any single service.
While OpenAI continues to monitor the situation, users are left waiting for a resolution. The company’s status page remains active with updates about the ongoing situation, but the lack of a clear timeline for service restoration has left many users uncertain about when they’ll regain access to these increasingly essential AI tools. Users are looking for ChatGPT alternatives.
Featured image credit: Kerem Gülen/Ideogram
