ChatGPT Is Down Again — And This Is the Fourth Time in Four Days

If you're here because ChatGPT just stopped working on you, you're not imagining a pattern. OpenAI's services went down worldwide again this morning, and this is the fourth service disruption in four days for the company. That's not a coincidence worth glossing over — one bad morning happens to every tech company eventually, but four in four days is the kind of streak that says something about what's currently going on inside OpenAI's infrastructure, not just bad luck. The direct answer: ChatGPT, along with OpenAI's API and its Codex coding assistant, experienced a global outage starting around 5 AM ET on July 25, 2026. Users worldwide, including in the US, Europe, India, Japan, and Australia, reported being unable to load chats, send messages, or access chat history, with many hitting "too many concurrent requests" errors. OpenAI acknowledged the issue on its status page and applied a mitigation within about an hour, though as of this writing the service has been reported both resolved and still showing elevated error rates depending on the source — check OpenAI's official status page for the current, real-time state. Quick Facts Detail Info Date July 25, 2026 Start time Approximately 5:00 AM ET Services affected ChatGPT (web and mobile), OpenAI API, Codex Regions affected United States, Europe, India, Japan, Australia Common symptoms Stuck loading screens, "too many concurrent requests" errors, inability to load chat history Downdetector spike Over 1,560 reports, up from a typical baseline of around two Suspected root cause Reports point to the login/authentication layer rather than the core AI model itself Internal error label observed "biscuit_baker_service_me_circuit_open" (503 errors) Pattern Fourth OpenAI service disruption in four days OpenAI's response Acknowledged on status page, applied a mitigation, moved from "investigating" to "monitoring" within about an hour What Actually Happened Today Reports began surfacing on Downdetector and social media in the early morning hours, with the outage-tracking platform registering a sharp jump from its usual baseline of around two reports to more than 1,560 in a short window. Affected users described a consistent set of symptoms: ChatGPT getting stuck on loading animations in the sidebar, an inability to send new messages, and "too many concurrent requests" errors appearing across both the web interface and mobile apps. The disruption wasn't limited to casual users — enterprise subscribers and developers relying on API integrations were affected too, along with OpenAI's Codex coding assistant. OpenAI confirmed the issue on its official status page shortly after 5:30 AM ET, stating it was investigating elevated error rates across ChatGPT, its APIs, and Codex simultaneously — all three of OpenAI's major product pillars going down together, rather than one isolated service. Some reporting identified a specific internal error label, "biscuit_baker_service_me_circuit_open," associated with the 503 errors users were hitting, suggesting the failure was tied to a specific internal service circuit breaker rather than a broad infrastructure collapse. OpenAI reportedly moved from "investigating" to "monitoring" status within about an hour of acknowledging the issue, indicating a mitigation had been applied, though full resolution timing varied across different tracking sources throughout the day. The Bigger Story: Four Outages in Four Days This is the detail worth paying more attention to than today's specific error codes. Today's disruption marks the fourth service incident for OpenAI in as many days — a frequency that goes well beyond the occasional, expected hiccup any large-scale cloud service experiences. One outage-tracking service noted it has recorded 172 separate OpenAI ChatGPT incidents since October 2025 alone, with individual incidents typically resolving within roughly five hours. Why this matters to you: a single outage is a bad morning. Four in four days is a signal worth taking seriously if you or your organization depend on ChatGPT, the OpenAI API, or Codex for anything business-critical. It suggests either an underlying infrastructure issue that hasn't been fully resolved between incidents, or a period of unusually heavy load or change management risk inside OpenAI's systems — either of which is relevant information if you're deciding how much single-point-of-failure risk to accept by relying on any one AI provider for critical workflows. What to Do If You're Affected Right Now Check OpenAI's official status page first , not just Downdetector or social media, since OpenAI's status page reflects the company's own real-time assessment and is the most authoritative source for whether the issue is confirmed, still being investigated, or resolved. If you're mid-task on something urgent , don't keep repeatedly retrying the same request — that behavior is part of what "too many concurrent requests" errors reflect, and hammering a struggling system with retr