ChatGPT down: OpenAI faces global outage as ChatGPT, Sora and API down again

OpenAI’s services, including ChatGPT, Sora and the GPT API, have been struck by another widespread outage, impacting users across continents. This is the second significant disruption in July, fuelling mounting concerns about the platform’s stability amid rising global demand for generative AI tools.

The outage began early morning on July 16, with Downdetector showing a sharp spike in complaints starting around 6:15 AM IST. The issue is global, with high volumes of user reports coming in from North America, Europe and Asia, including India.

According to early data:

    •    88 percent of users reported being unable to access ChatGPT entirely.
    •    The rest faced issues with API responses, Sora video generation delays and errors related to Codex.

OpenAI’s official status page has acknowledged the situation, noting “degraded performance” across services. The company stated, “We have identified elevated error rates and are working on a mitigation.”

Social media platforms were quickly flooded with user reports and complaints. Many described being stuck at login verification stages or facing blank chat windows. Several developers reported that active sessions using Codex were cut off midway, resulting in lost work. Others relying on Sora for creative video generation flagged prolonged rendering times and system errors.

So far, OpenAI has not confirmed what’s behind the disruption or how long it will take to fix. The cause remains unknown, with speculation ranging from server overloads to software bugs.

For now, OpenAI recommends users:

    •    Avoid repeated login attempts, which could result in temporary account locks.
    •    Monitor the OpenAI status page for live updates.
    •    Save any critical content locally to prevent data loss during unexpected disconnections.

This marks the second time in about a month that OpenAI’s infrastructure has faltered on a large scale, triggering renewed scrutiny of its ability to handle the demands of a rapidly growing user base.