Same here. Didn’t renew my subscription. I guess I’ll be saving 20 bucks. For what it’s worth, I enjoyed using the product until this year. So I guess that’s something 
Quick update from my side for everyone following this thread. After I shared the detailed repro info and sample chat URLs, support asked me to capture and share HAR files so they can inspect network activity. I sent them HAR captures (one from an older chat showing the retroactive impact, and another from a new chat created after the issue started). After that, they asked for a laptop screen recording specifically on the web/desktop browser, and I’ve shared that as well, including switching models in the recording to show it’s not model-specific and that it reproduces across chats.
About OpenAI’s approach so far: based on the email replies I’ve received, it doesn’t look like they’re pretending this feature never existed. Instead, they’re actively collecting diagnostics (HAR + exact page URLs + screen recording) and the language they’ve used reads more like an investigation that should lead to action, not a brush-off (At least in my email interactions, they haven’t told me “this was never a feature” or tried to deny that it existed.). For example, they’ve said things like they’re “looking into this,” asked for artifacts “to review the behavior more closely and determine the next steps,” and one of the key lines I got earlier was essentially “rest assured, your issue will be reviewed and responded to.” So while I totally get why people are frustrated about the lack of a clear public status update (and I’m frustrated too), the wording from support does suggest they’re treating it as something they intend to properly review and respond on, not just close out with a generic reply.
I’m saying this as someone who’s also suffering from the same issue, not to defend OpenAI- just sharing what the process looks like from the support side.
I genuinely think continuing to post reproducible details here helps. If we keep the thread active with clean info (what devices, whether retroactive, whether search still surfaces old variants, etc.), there’s a higher chance this gets prioritized sooner. Even if they decide to change how this works going forward, at minimum the versions/paths we already created in past chats shouldn’t effectively disappear without notice. Many of us built workflows around those message versions (referencing “version 1” etc.), and we’ve paid for this service expecting stability in core UI like this. So please keep sharing your observations- especially the retroactive part-because that’s the most damaging piece.
I completely understand that 81 comments are already a lot, and it’s been about 22 days of everyone sharing the same pain here, so I’m not asking anyone to spam the thread. At the same time, if a new person joins and adds a small “same issue” with their device/browser, or if people already following the page post short updates when something changes, it can still help keep the thread visible and useful for the team. And just to be clear, sharing updates here isn’t us begging OpenAI for a favour or asking for mercy; it’s us collectively standing up for a basic feature we relied on, and many of us have paid for this service and shouldn’t be denied something this fundamental, whether we continue the subscription or not.
The message version navigation arrows (eg, < 1/2 >) have completely disappeared from both the desktop website and the mobile app on my account (Plus plan) about 2 weeks ago as well. This affects all chats, including older conversations where these arrows were previously visible.
Verified that a second account (free) I own does have the arrows, confirming this is an account-specific server-side issue.
Cleared browser cache and cookies. Tested across multiple browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Opera). Tested on the desktop website and mobile website. Futile attempts since it’s clearly not an user-end issue.
This bug or “experiment” has locked away important work data. Currently, I can see that older versions of my messages exist (they appear in search results), but I have no UI method to navigate to or view them.
It’s infuriating. I was patient until now, but I can’t believe this hasn’t been resolved yet. I just sent a message to support and the chatbot said it will escalate to a specialist. Well, it’s the least I can do, the more reports they get, maybe they actually put some effort into fixing it or at least rerolling the “experiment”. I never signed up for this.
My communication with the support team has been similar. I have been in contact with them since February 21 (about 36 hours after the problem first occurred), responding to follow-ups as soon as I receive them. The issue was escalated to their “specialist team” on March 1, but the response I received on March 6 did not resolve the problem. After a few additional exchanges, it was escalated again, this time to their “specialist Support Engineering team” on March 10. I am still awaiting a response from them.
While they acknowledge the issue, I am not sure how much progress is being made toward resolving it. Unfortunately, it does not appear to be a widespread problem, so it may take some time to address. Hopefully, I am wrong.
Support update for everyone here: OpenAI support asked me to share the exact community thread link I was referring to where other users are reporting the same behavior. I replied with this thread’s title (“ChatGPT web update removed message version arrows (Cannot access edited message history)”) and shared the link, along with the current stats (around 4.1k views, 267 likes, 45 participants, 83 comments). I also pointed out that OpenAI posted once on Feb 20 asking for details (model/platform etc.), many people replied, but there hasn’t been a follow-up update on the thread since then, which is a big reason users feel ghosted. I requested them to please ask the team to post a brief status update here acknowledging it as a bug/regression and that they’re actively working on a fix (even without ETA), because that kind of clear acknowledgement would reduce frustration a lot. This email was sent by me yesterday.
On one specific alternate account, I cannot go back to edit or even reroll old messages. This is back when it was using 4.0 for messages, but on other accounts where I had chats with 4.0 or older models I can still edit. It’s a very very weird bug. I don’t even know what to look up for help.
It has been over a week, and I still have not heard back from the “specialist Support Engineering team”. I sent a follow-up a few hours ago asking if any progress has been made on resolving the issue.
Following up on this, I did just get a message back from support and the engineering team. Not the AI support, the actual customer service.
“We confirmed that the version selector or arrow controls previously used to move between regenerated or edited responses are not available in the current ChatGPT web experience for affected accounts. This is expected behavior at this time.
We understand this may change a workflow you previously relied on. Support cannot restore the previous 1/2 or arrow-based version history UI on an individual account, and we do not have a timeline to share for any future changes.”
In what world is this acceptable for any kind of service? I’m done. Absolutely infuriated. If this is a legitimate UI update they’re testing, it’s the worst one yet.
Hi everyone, I’m starting a fresh thread because the existing one (“ChatGPT web update removed message version arrows (Cannot access edited message history)”) has a lot of reports, but we still don’t have a clear product-level answer.
Support also has now sent a flat confirmation(to me as well on personal email) that changes the framing from “bug” to “expected behavior.” Quoting their email:
“We’ve confirmed that the version selector or arrow controls previously used to move between regenerated or edited responses are not available in the current ChatGPT web experience for affected accounts. This is expected behavior at this time. Support cannot restore the previous 1/2 or arrow-based version history UI on an individual account, and we do not have a timeline to share for any future changes.”
This raises serious questions that need an OpenAI response:
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Why is this feature still available for some accounts but not others? If this is a feature flag/cohort rollout/A-B test, what are the criteria for who is “affected”?
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Is this a permanent deprecation of version history navigation, or a temporary rollout state?
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Retroactive impact: older chats that previously had 1/2 arrows/edit history navigation are now missing it, breaking workflows where people referenced “version 1” etc. How do users recover/access those past variants?
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Export only includes the currently visible version, so “copy before regenerate” isn’t a fix for retroactive loss. Will OpenAI provide an export/recovery option that includes stored variants, or an alternative UI?
I’m not posting this to spam or attack anyone. I’m posting it because thousands of users have relied on this workflow, and removing it unevenly (some users still have it) without a clear statement or recovery plan is not acceptable.
If you reply, please include:
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Do you still see 1/2 arrows? (yes/no)
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Is it retroactive for you (old chats too)?
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Web/desktop/mobile + browser
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Does search surface old hidden text that you can’t navigate to?
OpenAI team: please answer directly here whether this is intentional or a regression, why access is unequal across accounts, and what the remediation plan is.
I’ll add the link to the older thread here for reference: “”
And I’ll post the link to this new thread once created: “”
Above is the link to the new thread I posted: “Support Can’t Restore 1/2 Version Arrows — Why Do Some Accounts Still Have the Version Selector (Paid Users Affected)? Paid Users Losing the Message response Selector”. If you’re facing the same issue, please drop your experience and device/browser details there too, so it stays visible and OpenAI is pushed to give a clear answer and response. We’re not wasting money here, this isn’t free, and the work we built around version history isn’t useless—so the retroactive removal and unequal access needs a proper explanation and resolution.
I experienced this problem specifically after they started phasing out their legacy models, and I can absolutely confirm that I no longer see the arrows or the history of my prompts since they removed 5.1.
I work on several writing projects and lore bibles, and this change HAS DESTROYED MONTHS OF WORK for me. I can’t maintain the same workflow as before—it forces me either to branch the chats (which is completely inconvenient, as it would flood my projects with hundreds of separate chats) or to revert to the old method of copying different versions of my prompts, answers, and model changes into a document file.
I was already considering canceling my subscription after they removed the legacy models (a decision I frankly found absurd), but now I see very few benefits to continuing my subscription.
Well, I have gotten the same response to my ticket as well. Sent them the screencaps, then the HAR file, and they finally replied this today:
“We understand you are reporting missing version arrows for regenerated or edited messages on your Plus account, while the feature is still available on free accounts.
We can confirm this is expected behavior, and our team is actively rolling back this feature. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out. We are here to help.”
I don’t know how many of you are also aware of the silent “update” that rolled out yesterday/today (depending on your timezone, March 19) that has the web version of ChatGPT (android app is unaffected as of now) to be able to only edit your most recent message in the conversation, and you can only regenerate the last assistant response. All the messages before the last can’t be edited or regenerated, pretty much how Gemini works.
I think this is connected to why they removed the navigation arrows. If you can’t regenerate/edit older messages, then there’s no risk of losing your work and needing the arrows, so it feels like a safety net for their arrow removal.
Anyway, absurd reasoning on their part, it’s a downgrade of functionality without an apparent motive, except the fact that maybe they don’t want people to waste their compute power on regeneration?
So Paying customers are being used as guinea pigs for a downgraded experience, nice, I always liked to pay more to get less.
If it’s about usage, just lock it behind paid plans, say “Plus plan gets access to navigation arrows” or “Pro plan gets access to 1000 pointless regenerations”.
Nevertheless, OpenAI, please publish change logs or deprecation notices before removing core workflow features. Even a banner a week in advance would let us adjust. Or better yet, give us time to cancel our subscription and move to a company that respects its users.
This is atrocious.
Even Grok, or Deepseek have those arrows, and this AI can’t even keep them? Absurd.
Yeah, I can’t edit older messages anymore. And It’s even more detrimental to my work and workflow.
Supposedly (but not officially declared) the new edit restrictions are because OpenAI summarizes / truncates long conversations on the backend, and editing previous messages requires it to rollback the summary.
But this makes ChatGPT as an app effectively useless. The ability to edit and pick between responses is a basic fundamental part of AI interaction.
What happens if I need to update code requirements mid-conversation, or want to choose from several creative writing responses? It’s all broken now. I won’t consider resubscribing until they offer full edit capabilities again. Why would I keep paying for this?
I have opened a thread requesting this change to be reverted – Restore the Ability to Edit All Messages . I will submit a complaint to the support team in a few hours, including links to various resources showing that people are unhappy with the change. Hopefully, this will encourage them to reconsider.
Exactly. As a writer, I use it to help me to organize my ideas and lore bible, but without this feature, it will be useless…what’s the difference between me doing it the traditional way on a document anyway? I’m pretty bummed.
Thanks for your initiative, I left my humble view and like to boost it (hopefully).
I also have a Plus account and have been affected by this issue of missing version arrows. its very frustrating. i was willing to put up with it, but with the most recent update i now can no longer go back and edit older messages (yet remain able to edit most recent message at least) at all, which is highly disruptive to my workflow where i am expected to use this for my job. very confused at why this happened and why they cannot partially restore a previous build while working out the error. very confusing! very unfortunate! my free account does not contain these bugs, as experienced by other users as well. hope this gets resolved soon.
(idly wondering if this is something like… integer overflow? or… heavy use users only? is everyone on here a very frequent chatter? I have millions of words in a year, most of which contained behind version history of edits of chats, so perhaps this density of use caused the problem… but that is wild speculating).
Yeah honestly, if that theory is even remotely true (that heavy usage / lots of versions caused this), then that actually makes the situation worse, not better.
Like okay, removing a UI feature… fine, companies do experiments, rollouts, whatever - that part we can understand. But if the reason is that we have more data, more edits, more branches… then you’re basically saying the data exists on your servers, but we’re being restricted from accessing it. That’s the real problem.
Even now, export doesn’t solve anything - it just gives a flat version of the chat. All those branches, edits, regenerated paths we actually worked on are just… not there. If they can’t restore the UI immediately, at least give us some way to access our own data - like a proper JSON/HTML export that includes version history. Honestly, if that existed, many of us wouldn’t even push this hard for the UI to come back.
Because at the end of the day, this isn’t just “usage data” - this is our actual work. The more we’ve used it, the more input we’ve given, the more intellectual effort is in those branches. And saying “we can’t fix it” while still holding that data on the backend just doesn’t sit right.
Openai please atleast show some courtesy and professionalism, it’s already more than a month and we cannot access our own data, which is breaking our workflow alot, above all no medium or time provided us to store these branches on our side… and the biggest sour is it is being discriminatory, available for some while not for others, is even more frustrating. It is not as as is it is retroactive. We are just asking you for work around, a pdf or a downloadable and readable file, that all we are asking for, it already more than a month please at minimum give some way to us so that we can access our data.