ChatGPT faced a significant global outage for half an hour on December 11, 2024. When accessing ChatGPT.com, millions of users saw a white screen appear with the message “ChatGPT is currently unavailable.”
The disruption occurred at 7 PM ET (5:30 AM IST) and was reported by Downdetector, which indicated that approximately 74% of users experienced difficulties connecting to the platform.
OpenAI said on Twitter, “We are experiencing an outage right now. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix. Sorry, and we’ll keep you updated.”
Many users took to social media to express their frustrations, often encountering error messages stating that service was temporarily unavailable.
A user said on X, “#ChatGPT is down. Looks like everyone will have to finish their assignments the old-fashioned way.”
Another user said, “ChatGPT went down when I finally started studying for my exam.”
“Breaking: ChatGPT is down globally. Productivity is about to take a nosedive everywhere.”
The outage not only affected ChatGPT but also impacted OpenAI’s API and Sora video generation services. Users attempting to log in were met with messages including that “ChatGPT is currently unavailable.”
As the situation unfolded, OpenAI clarified that they are working on restoring service regionally, suggesting that some users might regain access before others.
This is not the first time ChatGPT has faced operational challenges. Previous outages have occurred, including a notable disruption in November 2023 that lasted approximately 90 minutes.
OpenAI has been under scrutiny regarding its reliability, especially as the platform has grown to accommodate around 250 million weekly active users since its launch in November 2022.
The company has been making efforts to enhance its infrastructure and service reliability. Sam Altam said, “ChatGPT went down for 30 mins today.
(We are much, much better at reliability than we used to be, but more work is in front of us. (it is now the 8th biggest in the world according to SimilarWeb—we have had a lot of work to do these past two years!)”
He also added, “Sorry for the inconvenience, and we will get back to work.”.
As OpenAI continues to work on resolving the current issues, users are advised to remain patient. The company has assured us that it is making progress in restoring functionality and will keep users informed about updates.
