Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

ChatGPT is back online after being down for more than 3 hours

Jacob Roach
By

ChatGPT is back offline after being down for over three hours. OpenAI has restored service for free and paying users, but it’s continuing to monitor the service as it comes back online. That might mean you’ll see more “at capacity” messages than normal

The outage only impacted ChatGPT itself. OpenAI’s API and other research websites stayed live, powering ChatGPT alternatives and services like Microsoft’s Bing Chate. In addition, OpenAI’s other models, such as DALL-E 2, stayed online, as well.

ChatGPT error message that its servers are offline.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The outage was due to “database instabilities,” and started rolling out a couple of hours after the servers were taken offline. OpenAI restored service for ChatGPT Plus subscribers first, waiting for around 30 minutes before restoring the service for free users.

Related

Down Detector showed a peak of user reports around 8:30 a.m. PT, as well as a spike around 11 a.m. During this time, OpenAI was testing fixes that allowed some users to access the AI chatbot. However, after discovering the root of the problem, OpenAI temporarily took ChatGPT offline to work on a fix.

Recommended Videos

This is the second major outage ChatGPT has seen in the last 90 days. The service experienced another outage on February 21, which brought down the chatbot for four and a half hours. You can keep an eye on OpenAI’s status page to see when the service becomes available again, as well as subscribe for updates.

Server capacity is one of the biggest issues with ChatGPT right now. OpenAI’s viral chatbot has become overwhelmingly popular, often showing “at capacity” messages when new users try to access the service. OpenAI’s status page shows 17 outages for the API over the past 90 days, some of which lasted over five hours. This could become a larger issue with time, especially as services like Snapchat move to integrate ChatGPT.

Now that ChatGPT is back online, make sure to read our roundup of the best ChatGPT tips to get the most out of your chatting.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jacob Roach
Jacob Roach
Senior Staff Writer, Computing
Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn't run on a laptop, he…
In the age of ChatGPT, Macs are under malware assault
A person using a laptop with a set of code seen on the display.

It's common knowledge -- Macs are less prone to malware than their Windows counterparts. That still holds true today, but the rise of ChatGPT and other AI tools is challenging the status quo, with even the FBI warning of its far-reaching implications for cybersecurity.

That may be why software developer Macpaw launched its own cybersecurity division -- dubbed Moonlock -- specifically to fight Mac malware. We spoke to Oleg Stukalenko, Lead Product Manager at Moonlock, to find out whether Mac malware is on the rise, and if ChatGPT could give hackers a massive advantage over everyday users.
State-sponsored attacks

Read more
Apple has been secretly working on a ChatGPT rival for years
An iPhone on a table with the Siri activation animation playing on the screen.

Apple CEO Tim Cook has just revealed that the company has been working on generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools “for years.” The surprise announcement suggests that Apple could launch a ChatGPT rival -- supposedly dubbed “Apple GPT” -- sooner than anyone expected.

The announcement was made in an interview with Reuters following Apple’s third-quarter earnings report. Cook explained that higher research and development (R&D) spending at the company had been driven in part by an increased focus on generative AI.

Read more
Apple’s ChatGPT rival is reportedly ‘significantly behind competitors’
The Siri activation animation on an iPhone running iOS 14.

There has been much chatter recently about Apple working on its own ChatGPT rival called Apple GPT. Well, we’ve just had some bad news: the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot is apparently years away from release.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo put a dampener on expectations in a recent blog post, where he outlined his expectations for what could positively or negatively affect Apple stock prices in the coming months. Apple GPT is so far away from readiness, Kuo believes, that it simply won’t impact Apple stock prices any time soon.

Read more