Why ChatGPT, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp services were down

Services of OpenAI's popular chatbot, ChatGPT, as well as Meta's Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram experienced major outage in many countries including the UK, parts of Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the US.

The ChatGPT disruption left millions of users unable to access the service for nearly three hours. Shortly before 7:00 PM ET (5:30 AM IST) on Thursday, users logging into ChatGPT encountered an error message stating the service was unavailable. This disruption extended beyond ChatGPT, affecting OpenAI's API, a critical tool for developers, and Sora, another AI-powered service. ChatGPT creator OpenAI has acknowledged the issue and has also posted about the same on X (formerly known as Twitter). “We're experiencing an outage right now. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix. Sorry and we'll keep you updated!,” posted the company.

Meta's services also encounted outage around 6 PM GMT on Wednesday with over Over 22,000 users reported issues with Facebook, and more than 18,000 experienced problems with WhatsApp, according to outage-tracking website Downdetector.


The outage caused various problems for users, from complete inability to access the apps to difficulties refreshing feeds. Meta said it was working on a solution soon after reports began surfacing. A similar major outage occurred in 2021, affecting Meta's services for nearly six hours.

ChatGPT, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp working now?

OpenAI claimed to have successfully restored services of ChatGPT. Meta too confirmed that the services of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram have been restored.

Meta acknowledged the issue on X, formerly known as Twitter, stating: "Thanks for bearing with us! We're 99% of the way there - just doing some last checks. We apologize to those who've been affected by the outage."

WhatsApp and Instagram also confirmed their restoration on X, with WhatsApp stating: "And we're back, happy chatting!" and Instagram adding: "Andddd we're back - sorry for the wait, and thanks for bearing with us."

What caused the outage?

Netither Meta nor OpenAI have publicly revealed the reason for the outage. However, OpenAI said that it had "identified the issue".

According to TechCrunch OpenAI's integration with Apple in iOS 18.2 could have caused an influx of traffic on the company’s servers.

The Conversation suggested that since the outage affected all products of Meta, there could be "a single point of failure: something relied upon by all of Meta’s services, without which the services can’t function".