[Bug Report][Paid ChatGPT] Projects completely unusable for 5+ days – 503 errors while normal chats work

ChatGPT Bugs
1

Hi,

I’m on a paid ChatGPT plan (ChatGPT Plus) and I’ve been experiencing what feels like a full outage of the Projects feature on my account for more than 5 days. I’d like to document the details here and also ask if anyone else is seeing similar behavior.

1. Plan / Environment

  • Plan: ChatGPT Plus (paid)
  • Region: South Korea (Asia/Seoul)
  • Devices/Browsers:
    • Windows 10 + Chrome (latest)
    • Also tested with Microsoft Edge
  • Networks:
    • Home network
    • Mobile hotspot

:backhand_index_pointing_right: In all of these environments, normal chats work fine, but Projects are effectively unusable.

2. Issue Summary

  • Normal (non-Project) chats:

    • Work as expected. The model responds normally.

  • Chats inside Projects:

    • Either get stuck on loading and never produce a response, or
    • Show an error banner (“Something went wrong while generating the response. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.”), or
    • The response area stays completely blank, as if the model never starts generating.

  • This affects:

    • Multiple existing Projects
    • Newly created Projects

  • The issue has been continuous for more than 5 days.

So from my point of view, it looks like a Projects-only outage on my paid account.

3. Steps to Reproduce

  1. Log in to https://chatgpt.com
  2. Open any existing Project, or create a new Project.
  3. Type a message and send it.
  4. Observe that:
    • No assistant reply is generated, or
    • An error banner appears, and
    • The console shows a 503 error (see below).

If I immediately open a normal chat in a separate tab in the same browser and network, that normal chat works fine.

4. Troubleshooting Already Done

I’ve already tried:

  • Clearing browser cache and cookies
  • Using incognito / private mode
  • Disabling all extensions
  • Testing different browsers (Chrome, Edge)
  • Testing different networks (including mobile hotspot)
  • Testing on different devices
  • Logging out on all devices and logging back in
  • Checking https://status.openai.com (no incident shown for ChatGPT/Projects)

:backhand_index_pointing_right: The problem only happens in Projects, and it persists across all devices and networks.

5. Technical Details

(1) UI error banner

In Projects, when the failure happens, I see this red banner:

“Something went wrong while generating the response. If this issue persists please contact us through our help center at help.openai.com.”

(2) Console / Network error

When I open Developer Tools (F12) → Console and send a message in a Project, I consistently see:

POST https://chatgpt.com/backend-api/f/conversation 503 (Service Unavailable)
4

프로젝트 기능 복구됨 (2025-11-30 ~ 2025-12-22)

  • 장애 기간: 2025-11-30(KST)부터 Projects 전면 사용 불가 → 2025-12-22(KST) 복구 완료

  • 증상: 일반 채팅은 정상이나 프로젝트 관련 채팅/프로젝트 화면에서 503 오류로 진행 불가(여러 브라우저/네트워크/기기에서 동일)

  • 조치 경로: OpenAI 지원팀에 지속 문의 후, 기술팀이 계정 로그를 확인한 뒤 정비가 진행되었고 복구됨

  • 현재 상태(복구 후): 프로젝트 생성/열기/대화 진행이 정상 동작 확인됨

  • 참고: 상태 페이지에는 해당 기간 동안 별도 사건 표기가 없었던 것으로 보였음(참고용)

혹시 비슷한 증상이 있는 경우, 환경 변경으로 해결되지 않으면 지원팀에 “Projects에서만 503 발생(일반 채팅 정상)” + 재현 조건 + 발생 시작 시점을 함께 전달하면 도움이 될 가능성이 있습니다.

Projects feature recovered (2025-11-30 ~ 2025-12-22, KST)

  • Outage window: Projects completely unusable from Nov 30, 2025 (KST) → recovered on Dec 22, 2025 (KST)

  • Symptoms: Regular chats worked, but Projects (project chats/pages) failed with 503, reproducible across browsers/networks/devices

  • Resolution path: After multiple support follow-ups, engineering reviewed account logs and applied a fix, then Projects started working again

  • Current status: Creating/opening projects and continuing project conversations now works normally

  • Note: I didn’t see a matching incident on the status page during the outage (FYI)

If anyone hits similar behavior (Projects-only 503 while normal chat works), it may require support escalation rather than local troubleshooting.

1 Like