ChatGPT Outage Sends Shockwaves Across the Globe
On June 10, 2025, millions relying on ChatGPT found themselves abruptly cut off when the chatbot and several related OpenAI tools stopped working. Whether you were trying to finish up some code, write an essay, or just ask the chatbot a silly question, the screen probably flashed an unhelpful network error. This wasn’t just a blip—users in India, the US, and the UK all felt the impact, bringing digital routines and work to a sudden halt.
The disruptions started picking up around 2:45 PM IST (which is early morning in the US and late morning in the UK). By 3:00 PM IST, complaints were pouring in. According to Downdetector, India registered nearly 800 incident reports in just a short span, with a striking 88% focused on the chatbot refusing to respond. The pattern was pretty much the same elsewhere: 1,100 reports in the US and an even higher figure in the UK at 1,450-plus. For many, the error message was the same echo: 'A network error occurred. Please check your connection and try again,' or the vague but frustrating, 'Hmm…something seems to have gone wrong.'
This outage didn’t just silence ChatGPT. Sora, the company’s up-and-coming AI-powered video tool, also failed to deliver. Developers relying on GPT APIs faced degraded performance, which meant any service using OpenAI’s large language models ran into the same digital wall. The timing couldn’t have been worse, with many professionals and creators reaching for these tools for work, study, or just a bit of evening experimentation.
OpenAI Scrambles for Answers as Frustration Grows
As complaints stacked up, OpenAI confirmed the problem but offered little comfort. The company acknowledged the widespread outages and said they were 'investigating,' not giving any concrete timeline for fixing things. This lack of clarity sent users to social media and online forums, where they compared notes and shared their own glitch tales.
For those who’ve been keeping count, outages like this aren’t a one-off. Since the start of 2025, OpenAI has weathered several system hiccups. Previous incidents stretched on for hours, usually chalked up to maintenance or backend tweaks. Each time, services did come back after a wait, but the disruptions have left many wondering how reliable these AI tools really are, especially as they become the backbone for startups, student projects, and hobbyists alike.
The domino effect from the outage was huge. Programmer support forums filled up with frustrated posts about API failures. Creative communities that have flocked to Sora for video experiments had to abandon their projects mid-edit. Meanwhile, business users relying on ChatGPT for workflow automation saw delays and lost time, with productivity tools sitting idle on their screens.
While OpenAI insisted it was tackling the outage, silence on a fix left people scrambling for alternatives, like older chatbots or manual research. The outages might just be technical growing pains, but as AI gets more deeply woven into everyday life, the stakes for keeping things running smoothly keep rising.
Jun, 11 2025