ChatGPT Goes Dark: Global Outage Sparks Chaos as Users Struggle with “Error in Message Stream”

June 10, 2025 — For millions worldwide, Tuesday morning began not with coffee and productivity, but with frustration and digital silence. At 2:45 AM Eastern Time, OpenAI’s ChatGPT—the AI tool powering workflows, homework, and creative projects—spluttered to a halt. What followed was a 7-hour global outage leaving students, professionals, and developers stranded in a sea of error messages and timed-out requests. From London to Sydney, Chicago to Chennai, users faced an unnerving reality: their AI copilot had vanished .

OpenAI’s status page confirmed the nightmare: “Elevated error rates and latency across ChatGPT, APIs, and Sora.” By 9:00 AM ET, Downdetector logged over 1,400 outage reports in the U.S., 800+ in India, and hundreds more across 12+ countries. India’s peak hit at 3:00 PM IST—88% cited unresponsive queries, 8% reported app crashes. The disruption even breached OpenAI’s paywall: ChatGPT Plus subscribers, paying $20/month, faced identical failures .

Timeline of a Digital Blackout

The First Wave (2:45 AM ET): Early users in North America encountered cryptic alerts: “Error in message stream,” “Too many concurrent requests,” or “Conversation not found.” Reddit and Downdetector lit up instantly. OpenAI acknowledged “investigating” by 3:00 AM ET but gave no timeline.

The Global Surge (7:45 AM BST): As Europe and the U.K. woke up, outage reports spiked 300%. Australia, Canada, and Israel joined the fray. Melissa, a ChatGPT Plus user in Ohio, lamented: “Doing [work] manually isn’t efficient—today could really suck”.

Partial Resilience: Some models resisted collapse. While GPT-4o-mini limped along, flagship versions like o3 and o4-mini-high crashed entirely. As OpenAI engineer Srinivas Narayanan tweeted: “We’ve diagnosed the root cause… working on the fix”.

Voices from the Void: How the Outage Paralyzed Users

• Students in Crisis: Dean, a Grade 11 coder, scrambled: “I use ChatGPT to debug assignments. Now I’m stuck” .
• Legal Standoffs: Simon (U.K.) leaned on ChatGPT for a “high-conflict divorce” against his solicitor ex-wife: “Thanks to ChatGPT, I’ve held my own!” .
• Emotional Crutches: For Elise, the outage coincided with a breakup anniversary: “I’ve talked to ChatGPT all year. Now I’m alone with my feelings” .
• Research Paralysis: Maus (Netherlands) studied zebrafish behavior: “GPT was my lifeline for sparse research. Now I’m crying in a corner” .

“Corporate employees and students worldwide right now,” tweeted one user alongside a meme of panicked crowds—a snapshot of AI-dependency gone awry .

Beyond ChatGPT: Sora, APIs, and Economic Ripples

The outage wasn’t isolated. OpenAI’s text-to-video tool Sora and critical APIs—integrated into thousands of apps—also faltered 46. This struck days after OpenAI celebrated $10 billion in annual recurring revenue, doubling 2024’s figures. Yet, its infrastructure groaned under global demand 34.

The Fix (and Finger-Pointing)

After 5 hours of silence, OpenAI pinpointed a “root cause” (undisclosed) and deployed a “mitigation.” Rival chatbots seized the moment:

• Grok (Elon Musk’s xAI) bragged: “Grok excels in technical tasks… today, Grok is more reliable” .
• Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek saw traffic surges as refugees sought alternatives .

By 10:00 AM ET, whispers of recovery emerged. Mark in Wisconsin noted: “Answers arrive after 5-minute delays.” But stability remained patchy—a Band-Aid on a bullet wound .

Why This Outage Felt Different

This wasn’t ChatGPT’s first downtime (see: April’s Ghibli-image crash). But its scale and duration exposed society’s fragile reliance on AI. As Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, observed: “A brief disruption feels like a roadblock—highlighting how deeply AI has woven itself into our lives” .

The New Normal: AI Dependence and Digital Vulnerability

Today’s outage was more than a technical hiccup—it was a stress test for the AI age. Students reverted to textbooks. Lawyers scrambled. Coders debugged manually. As one TechRadar reader mused: “We’re huddled around our devices like past generations around radios” .

OpenAI restored partial service by midday, but the scars linger. For millions, June 10 unveiled an uncomfortable truth: When AI fails, we’re not just inconvenienced—we’re unmoored. As Altman’s team races to fortify servers, the world watches… and backups its chats.

FAQ: ChatGPT June 10 Outage

Q1: How long did the ChatGPT outage last?
Services faltered for over 7 hours, starting ~2:45 AM ET. Full restoration was confirmed by 10:00 AM ET .

Q2: Were paying subscribers affected?
Yes. ChatGPT Plus users ($20/month) faced identical errors, sparking complaints about service guarantees .

Q3: Did the outage affect other OpenAI tools?
Absolutely. Sora (video generator) and APIs crashed too, disrupting third-party apps .

Q4: What caused the outage?
OpenAI cited an undisclosed “root cause,” ruling out hacking. Experts speculate server overload or a flawed update .

Q5: Which regions were hit hardest?
India (800+ reports), U.S. (1,400+), U.K., Australia, and Canada saw peak disruptions