OpenAI Experiences Major Outage with API Disruption!
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In the early hours of November 9, OpenAI announced on its official website that ChatGPT and its API suffered a major outage, affecting all users globally for over 2 hours.
Currently, OpenAI has identified and fixed the issue, but the system remains unstable, and security monitoring continues.
OpenAI has not disclosed the specific cause of the error, but external speculation suggests it may be related to the newly released GPT-4 Turbo model, with a surge of users and developers overwhelming the servers.
This is notable as ChatGPT and its API have not experienced major incidents for a long time.
Announcement posted by OpenAI on its official website
Timeline of the Outage
- First outage
Initially, around 8 PM Pacific Time on November 7 (approximately 12 PM Beijing Time on November 8), users began reporting periodic outages affecting ChatGPT and the API.
At 8:30 PM, OpenAI implemented a fix for the issue, though investigations were still ongoing. By 8:47 PM, services were fully restored, and security monitoring continued.
At 9 PM, ChatGPT and the API experienced another degradation and outage. By 10 PM, OpenAI had resolved the issue, and by 10:20 PM, it was completely fixed.
2) The Second Major Outage
Starting at 5:40 AM Pacific Time on November 8 (around 9:40 PM Beijing Time), ChatGPT and the API encountered another, more severe outage, affecting all users.
At 6 AM, OpenAI began investigating and identified high error rates in both the API and ChatGPT. By 6:50 AM, the root cause was identified, and repairs commenced. At 7:33 AM, services began to gradually recover, with ongoing monitoring.
From the timeline, it's clear that OpenAI handled the outages promptly. However, experiencing two outages within 24 hours—one of which was particularly severe—suggests that OpenAI may need to optimize its models and servers in the future.
Past Incidents of ChatGPT and API Outages
According to OpenAI's official incident history, the operation of ChatGPT and its API has not been smooth sailing, with several major incidents occurring that resulted in even longer downtimes than the current one.
- Major ChatGPT Outage History
- February 21, 2023: 4-hour outage
- February 27: 3-hour outage
- March 20: 4-hour outage
- May 24-25: 2-hour outage
- July 11: 2.5-hour outage
- August 31: 3-hour outage
- Major API Outage History
- January 7, 2023: 7-hour API outage
January 25, 4 hours;
February 21, 3 hours;
March 2, 3 hours;
August 9, 5 hours;
September 15, 3 hours;
October 19, 3 and a half hours.