ChatGPT outage: Millions across US, India, and Europe impacted
What's the story
ChatGPT, the chatbot that has become an internet sensation, was down for a few hours on February 27 and 28. OpenAI's other models, including Playground and DALL-E 2, were not affected. The company confirmed the outage at 7 am PST on February 27 (8:30 pm IST). Millions of users across the US, Europe, and India were affected by the outage
Context
Why does this story matter?
Within months, ChatGPT has become a go-to tool for many. The chatbot's endless abilities hastened its transformation from a novelty to an essential. It is the same abilities that have become its curse. That chatbot's servers are not equipped to handle the high demand it experiences daily. Unless OpenAI comes up with a solution, this will become a common issue.
Down
The outage lasted for over three hours
Per status.openAI.com, ChatGPT was impacted by a partial outage for two hours and 23 minutes, while the major outage lasted for 57 minutes. On the status page, OpenAI mentioned that it was database instabilities that caused the issue. The incident was resolved by 10:30 am PST (12 am IST, February 28). However, there are still reports of the chatbot not functioning properly.
Restored
OpenAI took ChatGPT temporarily offline
OpenAI took the chatbot temporarily offline after the initial fixes did not work. The company then restored partial traffic. By 9:45 am PST (11:15 pm IST), OpenAI restored the chatbot for customers with a paid subscription. Soon after that, the company confirmed that it had implemented a fix. Around 10:20 am PST (11:50 pm IST), the service was restored for free customers as well.
Second outage
Server capacity is a major issue for ChatGPT
This is the second major outage ChatGPT has seen in the last seven days. On February 21, all OpenAI services, including ChatGPT, were down for over four hours. Server capacity is one of the biggest issues with ChatGPT. More often than not, you will see an "at capacity" message. With more platforms integrating ChatGPT, this issue will only magnify over time.
Reaction
Netizens were heartbroken to see ChatGPT down
The recent ChatGPT outage led to a meltdown on Twitter. Many daily ChatGPT users were heartbroken to know that their favorite chatbot was down again. "ChatGPT is down. I feel paralyzed," wrote a Twitter user. "ChatGPT has been down for hours now. I have no clue how to write the 347 blog posts I promised my clients."
Twitter Post
ChatGPT made brains a little rusty
#ChatGPT down, 10 million people restarting their brains in the hopes it still works 😂
— Warren Manuel (@WarrenCManuel) February 27, 2023