OpenAI outage on May 4 — 5h 12m disruption
May 4, 06:36 PM → May 4, 11:49 PM · 5h 12m · medium
On May 4, 2026, OpenAI experienced a service disruption that was detected through user reports. The incident began at 18:36 UTC and was resolved at 23:49 UTC on the same day.
Impact
Users reported issues with OpenAI services, leading to a total of 266 reports during the incident. The most frequently reported issues included slow or unresponsive service and instances of the website being down. While no specific regions were predominantly impacted, these reports indicated a widespread disruption to user experience.
Top reported issues
- Slow / unresponsive163
- Website down103
Incident timeline
- May 4, 06:36 PM
PulseWatch detected elevated report volume (medium severity)
- May 4, 08:45 PM
Peak of 20 reports in 15 minutes (baseline 1.3)
- May 4, 11:23 PM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 11:28 PM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 11:38 PM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 11:43 PM
Status updated: possible issue
- May 4, 11:49 PM
Report volume returned to baseline — incident resolved
Official updates
- May 4, 06:36 PM
OpenAI status page acknowledged the incident.
View official source