ChatGPT was down for thousands of users, with many complaining about a 'steam error message' while trying to load chats or generate responses.
Downdetector showed over 1000 reports at the time of writing this story.
Users reported seeing error messages such as 'Something went wrong', 'Error in message stream', and 'Unable to load conversation', or blank chat windows or endlessly loading screens.
The 'stream' or 'steam' wording generally refers to a temporary issue with how responses are being delivered from OpenAI's servers to the app or browser.
Users can check OpenAI's official server status page to see if ChatGPT is down.
Quick fixes for ChatGPT errors include refreshing the page, logging out and back in, clearing browser cache, switching browsers or devices, disabling VPN temporarily, and checking internet stability.
OpenAI acknowledged the outage and is working on implementing a mitigation.
