OpenAI recently faced a significant outage affecting ChatGPT, Sora, and its developer-facing API, which began around 3 PM PT on Wednesday. Fortunately, by 9 PM PT, the services were largely restored, and users could once again access their favorite AI tools.
In an update posted on its status page, OpenAI confirmed, “ChatGPT, API, and Sora were down today, but we’ve recovered.” While the exact cause of the outage is still unclear, the company indicated that services started coming back online around 7 PM PT. During the downtime, users attempting to access ChatGPT.com were met with an error message stating, “ChatGPT is currently unavailable. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix.”
This outage coincided with a notable event for OpenAI: the launch of its integration with Apple in the latest iOS 18.2 update. Some users reported issues accessing ChatGPT through Apple Intelligence due to the outage. OpenAI’s developer community lead, Edwin Arbus, clarified in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that “the OpenAI outage was unrelated to the 12 Days of OpenAI or Apple Intelligence,” attributing the downtime to a configuration change that affected many servers.
Earlier in the week, OpenAI also launched Sora to the public. CEO Sam Altman acknowledged the overwhelming interest in the startup, which led to a temporary limit on new sign-ups. Many eager users found themselves unable to generate videos on launch day due to high server demand, receiving notifications that OpenAI’s servers were at capacity.
It’s worth noting that this outage followed a separate global service interruption affecting Meta’s products earlier the same day, highlighting a challenging day for tech services.
This incident occurred on day five of OpenAI’s “12 Days of OpenAI” event, where the company has been unveiling new products daily in anticipation of the holiday season. So far, they have introduced the full release of their o1 reasoning model, a reinforcement fine-tuning research program, updates to Canvas, and the Apple Intelligence integration.
For now, users can breathe a sigh of relief as ChatGPT and Sora are back online, and OpenAI continues to work on providing reliable access to its innovative tools. Stay tuned for more updates and exciting developments from OpenAI!
ChatGPT, API, and Sora were down today but we've recovered. https://t.co/OKiQYp3tXE
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) December 12, 2024
