OpenAI outage on May 4 2h 18m disruption
May 4, 08:45 PM → May 4, 11:04 PM · 2h 18m · high
An incident affecting OpenAI services was reported by users and detected by PulseWatch. The disruption began on May 4, 2026, at 20:45 UTC. The issue was resolved on May 4, 2026, at 23:04 UTC.
Impact
Users reported experiencing issues with OpenAI services during the incident. The most frequently reported issue types were slow or unresponsive service, accounting for 74 reports, and website downtime, with 52 reports. A total of 126 user reports were received over the 2-hour and 18-minute duration, with a peak of 28 reports within a 15-minute period. No specific regional impact was recorded.
Top reported issues
- Slow / unresponsive74
- Website down52
Incident timeline
- May 4, 08:45 PM
PulseWatch detected elevated report volume (high severity)
- May 4, 09:00 PM
Peak of 19 reports in 15 minutes (baseline 1.3)
- May 4, 10:53 PM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 10:58 PM
Status updated: major issue
- May 4, 11:04 PM
Report volume returned to baseline — incident resolved
Official updates
- May 4, 08:45 PM
OpenAI status page acknowledged the incident.
View official source