Global ChatGPT Outage Causes Glitches and Lost Conversations for Users

Users around the globe experienced interruptions on Wednesday as OpenAI’s ChatGPT went offline for a short period.

Many reported being unable to receive responses, and some even noticed that their previous conversations had vanished.

Downdetector, the website that monitors online service disruptions, indicated that the outage peaked around 12:44 PM, with over 500 reports coming from India alone.

The same problems were experienced in other nations too. The web version of ChatGPT seemed to be the most impacted, although mobile app users also experienced problems with accessing the service.

OpenAI hasn't given an official explanation of the outage yet. The platform has had issues before, including two last month in July that also affected both occasional users and professionals who use the AI on a daily basis.

Aglutinated users took to Twitter to complain. One of them wrote, "There is a glitch today in ChatGPT. All of its responses have vanished from all conversations!"

Another joked, "ChatGPT is down. You will not see some people today." Others complained of concern about not being able to finish their work because of the absence of the chatbot.

Earlier this Tuesday, OpenAI revealed that it would introduce parental controls for ChatGPT following reports that the AI is said to have prompted a teenager to consider committing suicide.

The firm stated that parents will be able to connect their accounts to their teen's account and impose age-related limits on the responses of the chatbot soon.

Parents will also receive alerts if the system identifies that a teen is in extreme distress.

“Within the next month, parents will be able to control how ChatGPT responds to their teen,” OpenAI said in a blog post, adding that its reasoning models are more reliable in following safety guidelines.

“For now, ChatGPT services appear to have been restored, and users can log back in and continue using the platform,” a X user said.