ChatGPT was down for many – here's everything we know about the outage

ChatGPT was down for many users earlier today, with a significant number experiencing intermittent error messages and slow performance – but the problems now seem to be over.

The website Downdetector first started showing a large spike in reports in the US and UK around 9amET / 2pm BST. Most users reported either laggy performance or error messages like "something went wrong" on the desktop version and "upstream connect error" on the mobile app.

OpenAI acknowledged the problem on its Status page, which showed issued with "Increased Error Rates" on ChatGPT. This affected both text queries and requests for its new image generator, which has proved hugely popular over the past week.

But after two hours of problems, OpenAI rolled out a "mitigation", which has seemingly fixed things for most, according to Downdetector. We'll be keeping an eye on ChatGPT for the rest of today, but here's how the AI chatbot's latest wobble played out..

The latest news

• ChatGPT is now back and working properly for most users
• The issues originally started at around 9am ET / 2pm BST
• But OpenAI has rolled out a fix that seems to have resolved ChatGPT's issues

When did the problems start?

According to Downdetector, the latest ChatGPT outage started at around 9am ET / 2pm BST, when we saw a big spike in reports in both the US and UK.

The issues are seemingly intermittent, with the main problems including "something went wrong" error messages in ChatGPT's browser version and "upstream connect errors" in the mobile app.

We've seen both issues on the TechRadar team, though it doesn't appear to be a complete outage that's affecting everyone equally...

You may be seeing this a lot today...

It isn't yet clear what's causing today's ChatGPT problems, but OpenAI's status page says it's investigating a live incident.

The problems seem to be intermittent and producing a variety of lovely symptoms, including the "something went wrong" message above and the classic "upstream connect error" (always a favorite) on the mobile app.

While it's a bit too soon to blame the Studio Ghibli image craze, it's hard to ignore the timing of Sam Altman's increasingly panicked X posts telling us to stop making so many...

OpenAI acknowledges ChatGPT issue

So it wasn't just our collective imaginations – OpenAI's Status page is now showing an "Increased Error Rates" issue for ChatGPT.

The notice states that "we are investigating the issue" but doesn't provide any more information about a cause, other than it's been "ongoing for 2hr".

The description seems to fit our experience – while it isn't a complete outage for the service, we have certainly been seeing a lot or error messages.

The Downdetector reports seemed to have dropped slightly from their earlier peak, but not by far – with the number hovering at around the 1,000 mark at the timing of writing. Seems like ChatGPT had a heavy weekend on the old Ghibli cocktails...

Is Gemini having issues too?

Maybe we do need more of those AI chips and GPUs after all – it seems Google Gemini also experienced a minor outage at the same time as ChatGPT, though its issues seems to be largely resolved already.

We noticed error messages like the above in Gemini recently and Downdetector showed a fairly big spike in reported problems at around 9.36am ET / 2.36pm BST. This could point to DNS issues affecting both Gemini or ChatGPT, or it may be unrelated.

Either way, Gemini seems to be back to its old self – while OpenAI is seemingly having a second spike in reported problems, according to Downdetector...

Is "biblical" demand to blame?

While OpenAI hasn't officially commented on what's causing today's ChatGPT problems, it's hard to escape the conclusion that the soaring demand for its new image generator has at least had at least some impact.

Sam Altman has been posting increasingly concerned messages to X (formerly Twitter) over the past few days, starting by stating that "our GPUs are melting" from the Ghibli craze on March 28 to a "this is insane our team needs to sleep" yesterday on March 30.

In a reply, Altman added that OpenAI hadn't been able to catch up with the increased load, adding "biblical demand, I have never seen anything like it". Well, perhaps OpenAI should have thought of that when it stoked the Ghibli fire.

In our tests, we've found that ChatGPT's image generator is still working, but is very slow going – much like the rest of the AI chatbot today...

OpenAI may be rolling out a fix...

Some potential good news for those who are struggling to get ChatGPT to make images of monkeys riding Segways (or help with more serious work) – the OpenAI Status page now says "we are working on implementing a mitigation".

Yes, that statement is so non-committal is must have been written by ChatGPT, but it at least promises that the AI chatbot will be running a bit more smoothly soon. The spike in Downdetector reports have also dropped significantly, so perhaps it's already working for some...

A promising sign...

OpenAI has now removed the message acknowledging "increased error rates" on ChatGPT from its status page – which suggests the problems are now easing.

That's also reflected in the Downdetector graph above too, which shows that only around 120 people reported problems with OpenAI in the US at the time of writing (and that number is fortunately even lower in the UK).

This means today's issues likely won't be a repeat of the big outage in January 2025, which saw over 10,000 people report problems at a peak that was caused by a widespread "bad gateway error". Good news – you may recommence your Ghibli-themed image generation, unless you're too much of a fan to do it...

ChatGPT is back to its old self

Aside from an ongoing wrinkle around new signups for ChatGPT and Sora in some regions, the AI chatbot now seems to have recovered from its latest wobble – and is back to full working order.

That's good, because its Monday 'to do' list contains around two billion requests for Studio Ghibli-style images and more, so it had better get cracking.

We'll be keeping a close eye on ChatGPT this week, because it's clearly been under strain from some unpredented load following the roll-out of its viral image generation feature. But for now, we're happy to see that it's back to its error message-free self.