OpenAI reported a significant outage affecting ChatGPT, Sora, and its developer API, as noted on the company’s status page. As of 4:55 PM PT on Wednesday, OpenAI announced that it had identified a way to resolve the issue and was actively implementing a fix.
While the specific cause of the outage remains unknown, OpenAI indicated at 5:50 PM PT that traffic for ChatGPT and its API was partially recovering, although Sora continued to be inoperative. The company began investigating the issue around 3:17 PM PT.
Visitors to ChatGPT.com encountered an error message stating, “ChatGPT is currently unavailable. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix.”
Interestingly, this outage coincided with the launch of OpenAI’s integration with Apple in iOS 18.2, which may have led to a surge in traffic to its servers. Some users also reported on social media that ChatGPT was not functioning correctly in Apple Intelligence due to the downtime.
Earlier in the week, OpenAI had publicly launched Sora, with CEO Sam Altman mentioning that the startup did not expect the overwhelming interest. As a result, they had to limit the number of user sign-ups. Many users who managed to sign up reported issues generating videos on the launch day, receiving notifications that the servers had reached capacity.
The outage also followed a global service interruption for Meta’s products, though it is unclear if there’s a connection between the two incidents.
This disruption for OpenAI’s services occurred on the fifth day of their “12 days of shipmas” event. During this promotional period, OpenAI has been unveiling new products daily leading up to the holiday season, including the public release of the o1 reasoning model, a reinforcement fine-tuning research initiative, the release of Sora, and updates to Canvas alongside Apple Intelligence integration.
Despite the challenges posed by this outage, OpenAI continues to communicate with users and work towards a resolution, reflecting its commitment to improvement and innovation.
In summary, while the outage presents immediate difficulties, OpenAI’s proactive approach and focus on new integrations and services highlight the company’s adaptability and continued growth in the technology landscape. Users can remain hopeful for swift resolutions and improvements in the future.