This is what I been experiencing the last three days and I posted multiple forms about this and how this issue is affecting many paying users I’m adding another detailed data point because **I am experiencing the same regression, and it has effectively halted one of my long-running workflows.**
I’m a **ChatGPT Pro user**, and before the recent service problems I was using **GPT-5.6 Sol with High and Extra High Thinking** for a very large, long-running creative-writing workflow involving:
* very long prompts;
* detailed governing instructions;
* long conversation context;
* multiple uploaded text files;
* exact predecessor-file retrieval;
* continuity checking;
* and complex multi-step generation.
This workflow was working reliably before the recent ChatGPT issues.
For me, the serious regression became consistently noticeable around **August 20 at approximately 5:01 PM ET**, following the August 19 ChatGPT incident and the subsequent conversation / Thinking / server instability.
My environment:
* **ChatGPT Pro**
* **GPT-5.6 Sol**
* **High Thinking and Extra High Thinking**
* **ChatGPT web**
* **Apple iPad**
* **iPadOS 26.6.1 (23G83)**
* **Chrome for iOS 152.0.7977.53**
* Also reproduced in **Safari**
This is not isolated to one old conversation. I have reproduced variants of the problem in **new chats as well**.
The biggest problem is that the model frequently behaves as though it has received or processed only part of the available context.
### Prompt/context truncation behavior
My prompts are very long because they govern a complicated long-form project.
Before these recent issues, GPT-5.6 Sol could process these prompts normally.
Now it will sometimes claim that information is **missing even though the information is visibly present in the prompt**.
It may correctly acknowledge a rule or source in one response and then behave in another response as though that same information was never supplied.
It feels less like the context simply disappeared and more like the model is no longer consistently **ingesting, retrieving, prioritizing, or applying all of it during generation**.
### Uploaded files being falsely reported as missing
This is one of the most disruptive symptoms.
I can upload the exact file required for a continuation, see that file attached in ChatGPT, and then GPT-5.6 Sol will tell me that the file is not available and ask me to upload it.
For example, one response told me:
> “I cannot honestly begin writing Part Thirty-Nine…”
because it claimed that the accepted Part Thirty-Eight story file was not present.
It then explicitly told me to upload the Part Thirty-Eight file.
But in another attempt with the same workflow, GPT-5.6 Sol stated that it had **successfully recovered the controlling sources**, directly read the cumulative file and Part Thirty-Eight, and recovered the exact predecessor seam.
So I am getting contradictory file-availability behavior.
That is extremely problematic for workflows where the model must retrieve an exact uploaded predecessor file rather than hallucinating from memory.
### Constant “verification drafts” instead of executing the task
This is probably the strangest regression I am seeing.
GPT-5.6 Sol will sometimes clearly understand the task, explain exactly what it is supposed to do, perform an enormous amount of verification/planning, and then **not actually deliver the requested output**.
For example, I requested a full long-form continuation.
Instead of giving me the continuation, the response told me:
> “A complete prose draft was constructed…”
It then told me that the draft supposedly had **exactly 20,000 words**, described paragraph statistics, duplicate checking, word-count verification, continuity corrections, file verification, and other implementation details.
But the actual 20,000-word story was **not delivered**.
The response was essentially a report describing the output instead of the output itself.
This is exactly what other people in this thread have described: the model appears to know what it needs to do, switches into a planning / verification / explanation mode, and then fails to perform the actual requested action.
### GPT-5.6 Thinking also feels abnormally fast
I am also seeing unusual behavior with **High and Extra High Thinking**.
Complex tasks that previously caused GPT-5.6 Sol to spend substantial time reasoning can sometimes return extremely quickly now.
In some cases the response comes back so rapidly that it does not appear consistent with the amount of context, file retrieval, analysis, and verification the request requires.
And those unusually fast responses are often the same responses that:
* miss instructions;
* falsely report missing context;
* falsely report missing files;
* hallucinate source-state problems;
* or return a verification/explanation instead of the actual task.
I obviously cannot see what is happening on the backend, so I am not claiming to know the specific cause, but from the user side it **looks like Thinking/context processing is being cut short, constrained, routed differently, or otherwise failing to operate the way it did before**.
### It also hallucinates missing information
Another issue is that the model will sometimes confidently state that a source, rule, predecessor text, or required detail was never supplied.
That statement can be demonstrably false.
This is especially concerning because the response often sounds very certain:
* “the file is not present”;
* “the required source is unavailable”;
* “I only have the governing prompt”;
* etc.
But the material actually is there.
This makes it difficult to trust whether a reported retrieval failure is genuine or whether the model simply failed to process the available context.
### I have already ruled out the obvious local troubleshooting
I initially wondered whether this was just Chrome on iOS.
I have already:
* cleared Chrome browser data/cache;
* uninstalled Chrome;
* reinstalled Chrome;
* restarted with clean browser state;
* tested new chats;
* tested High Thinking;
* tested Extra High Thinking;
* tested with the files visibly uploaded;
* and switched to Safari.
**The same general regression happens in Safari.**
That is a major reason I do not believe this is simply a corrupted Chrome installation or cache problem.
If it were purely local to Chrome, I would not expect essentially the same long-context / file / execution problems to appear in Safari as well.
### Why this is especially noticeable in long workflows
This may be much easier to miss if someone is only asking ChatGPT short questions.
In a short interaction, the model still appears normal much of the time.
The problem becomes extremely obvious when the task depends on:
* a large prompt;
* exact instructions;
* multiple attached files;
* long-running context;
* established workflow rules;
* precise continuation state;
* and actually executing the requested task instead of just explaining it.
That is where the reliability difference compared with before August 19/20 becomes dramatic.
### This has effectively stopped my project
This is not just a minor quality difference for me.
I cannot safely continue my project when I cannot determine whether GPT-5.6 Sol:
* received the entire prompt;
* processed the entire prompt;
* retained the relevant conversation context;
* can actually access an uploaded file;
* is incorrectly hallucinating that the file is missing;
* or will spend the response describing a task instead of executing it.
I am a **ChatGPT Pro subscriber paying $100/month**, specifically because I use the higher-capability models for serious long-form workflows.
At the moment, I have essentially had to stop that workflow because the model is not reliable enough for continuity-sensitive work.
### I think this needs engineering investigation
I have also submitted / am submitting this directly to OpenAI Support and am asking that it be escalated to the appropriate technical team.
I hope OpenAI investigates whether there has been a regression involving some combination of:
* GPT-5.6 Sol Thinking;
* long-context ingestion;
* context-window allocation;
* context compaction;
* instruction prioritization;
* conversation-state retrieval;
* file-upload state;
* file retrieval;
* model routing;
* server-side token/context budgeting;
* or another backend component involved in complex conversations.
I’m **not claiming to know which specific backend component is responsible**.
I am saying that the user-visible behavior has changed significantly, it began around the recent service instability, it reproduces across browsers for me, and multiple people here are now reporting remarkably similar symptoms.
The especially important pattern is:
**The model often still understands what the task is and can explain the relevant rules/context — but it no longer reliably applies that information when actually generating the requested result.**
And in my case I would add:
**It is also increasingly reporting files or prompt information as missing when they are visibly present.**
I have screenshots documenting all of the behaviors above, including contradictory file-retrieval responses and the “20,000-word draft was constructed” verification response where the actual requested story was never delivered.
If anyone from OpenAI is monitoring this thread, I strongly hope this gets passed to the **GPT-5.6 / ChatGPT conversation infrastructure / long-context / file-retrieval team**, because this looks substantially different from an ordinary front-end outage.
And if anyone else is experiencing the same thing, it would probably help to include:
* subscription tier;
* model;
* Thinking level;
* operating system;
* browser/app;
* whether it happens in new chats;
* whether attached files are falsely reported as missing;
* whether long prompts seem truncated;
* whether the model switches into planning/verification instead of execution;
* and approximately when the behavior began.
The more reproducible environment information we can collect, the easier it should be to establish whether this is a broader regression rather than isolated account behavior. This is a major problem and I been seeing many users experiencing the same thing my own projects and work has been halted because of these issues that have been going on for the last three days and what makes this worse is I’m a pro member and many other members are paying customers these issues needs to be addressed by openai and fixed instead we get the silent treatment from openai
