Those who use ChatGPT to answer various questions had to turn to other sources on Wednesday. Around 4 p.m. PT, ChatGPT was returning an error for some users. As of 4:30 pm PT, the OpenAI chatbot seems to be back up and running.

CNET staffers in Seattle and Sacramento, California, reported that the site took them immediately to a blank page that read, "Content failed to load." A staff member in Los Angeles reported that they could not use the site until they logged in, and then they were able to ask a question. Staffers in the other cities weren't able to keep the site working long enough for a login to be possible.

An OpenAI representative didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

DownDetector, which tracks outages and problems for online platforms, showed a large spike in people reporting problems reaching OpenAI beginning around 3 pm PT Wednesday. According to DownDetector, the outage was a medium-level disruption focused on major US hubs, with more than 3,000 reports processed over the last 24 hours. ChatGPT services accounted for 78% of reports. The most reports at one time were 788.

DownDetector is currently owned by CNET's parent company, Ziff Davis, although it was sold to Accenture in March.