OpenAI outage on May 4 — 7h 44m disruption
May 4, 04:34 AM → May 4, 12:19 PM · 7h 44m · medium
On May 4, 2026, the OpenAI service experienced an outage, which was detected through user reports. The incident began at approximately 04:34 UTC and was resolved by 12:19 UTC on the same day.
Impact
Users reported experiencing issues with the OpenAI service for approximately 7 hours and 44 minutes. A total of 179 user reports were received during the incident, with the majority indicating slow or unresponsive service (148 reports). Other reported issues included the website being down (28 reports) and API-related problems (3 reports). No specific regional impact was recorded during this period.
Top reported issues
- Slow / unresponsive148
- Website down28
- API issues3
Incident timeline
- May 4, 04:34 AM
PulseWatch detected elevated report volume (medium severity)
- May 4, 04:45 AM
Peak of 8 reports in 15 minutes (baseline 4.0)
- May 4, 05:03 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 05:08 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 05:13 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 05:18 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 05:23 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 05:28 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 05:33 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 05:38 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 05:43 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 05:48 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 05:53 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 05:58 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 07:08 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 07:23 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 07:28 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 07:38 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 07:53 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 07:58 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 08:08 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 09:08 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 09:23 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 09:28 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 09:53 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 09:58 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 10:08 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 10:38 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 10:53 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 10:58 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 11:08 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 11:23 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 11:28 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 11:38 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 12:08 PM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 12:13 PM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 12:19 PM
Report volume returned to baseline — incident resolved
Official updates
- May 4, 04:34 AM
OpenAI status page acknowledged the incident.
View official source