OpenAI outage on May 4 — 9h 33m disruption
May 4, 03:15 AM → May 4, 12:49 PM · 9h 33m · medium
OpenAI experienced a service disruption on May 4, 2026, which was initially detected via user reports. The incident began at 03:15 UTC and was resolved at 12:49 UTC on the same day.
Impact
During the 9-hour and 33-minute service disruption, users reported a range of issues. The most frequently reported problem was slow or unresponsive service, accounting for 200 of the 231 total reports. Additionally, 28 reports indicated website downtime, and 3 reports cited API issues. No specific top impacted regions were recorded during this period.
Top reported issues
- Slow / unresponsive200
- Website down28
- API issues3
Incident timeline
- May 4, 03:15 AM
PulseWatch detected elevated report volume (medium severity)
- May 4, 03:30 AM
Peak of 8 reports in 15 minutes (baseline 4.0)
- May 4, 03:43 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 03:48 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 03:53 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 03:58 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 04:03 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 04:08 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 04:13 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 04:23 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 04:28 AM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 04:38 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 04:43 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 04:48 AM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 12:38 PM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 12:43 PM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 12:48 PM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 12:49 PM
Report volume returned to baseline — incident resolved
Official updates
- May 4, 03:15 AM
OpenAI status page acknowledged the incident.
View official source