# Cloudflare Error 1016 “Origin DNS error” on api.openai.com at 2026-01-07 11:43 UTC

**URL:** <https://community.openai.com/t/cloudflare-error-1016-origin-dns-error-on-api-openai-com-at-2026-01-07-11-43-utc/1371280>\
**Category:** API\
**Tags:** chat-completion, cloudflare\
**Created:** [January 8, 2026, 9:26pm UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/cloudflare-error-1016-origin-dns-error-on-api-openai-com-at-2026-01-07-11-43-utc/1371280 "2026-01-08T21:26:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rgralhoz](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/openai1/user_avatar/community.openai.com/rgralhoz/32/264246_2.png) [@rgralhoz](https://community.openai.com/u/rgralhoz)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 9:26pm UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/cloudflare-error-1016-origin-dns-error-on-api-openai-com-at-2026-01-07-11-43-utc/1371280/1 "2026-01-08T21:26:23Z")

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Hi all,

I encountered a repeated **Cloudflare Error 1016 (Origin DNS error)** when calling the OpenAI API from AWS West Coast servers.

**Details:**

- Time (UTC): 2026-01-07 11:43:06
- Local time: 3:43 AM PST
- Endpoint: [https://api.openai.com](https://api.openai.com) ;
  - more specifically:
  - `client.chat.completions.with_raw_response.create(…)`

- Cloudflare Ray ID: 9ba3320ebd16ff0a
- The response was **HTML (Cloudflare error page)**, not JSON.
- This happened ~30 times within a short 2min window.
- Calls before and after were normal.
- It appears to have happened **outside any documented incident** on [status.openai.com](http://status.openai.com).
  - (No, it’s not the current incident on [Increased error rate for ChatGPT and API for prompts with images](https://status.openai.com/incidents/01KEFMJWBHC4JBGJWMXNQTSTH6); I did not use images)
  - I also read this old thread on a different issue w/Cloudflare: [API access failed (showing cloudflare block page)](https://community.openai.com/t/api-access-failed-showing-cloudflare-block-page/506015)

**What I think happened:**  
Cloudflare edge node(s) failed to resolve the origin DNS, resulting in an undocumented transient failure. The official status page didn’t show an incident at this morning timeframe.

**Steps taken:**

- I opened a support ticket via Help Center (after talking to their AI Chat in [https://help.openai.com/en/articles/1000499-troubleshooting-api-errors-and-latency](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/1000499-troubleshooting-api-errors-and-latency)).
- Provided timestamp, Ray ID, and details.

**Questions:**

1. Has anyone seen similar Cloudflare DNS errors with the OpenAI API?
2. Does this match known edge / regional DNS issues not tracked on [status.openai.com](http://status.openai.com)?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![\_j](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/openai1/user_avatar/community.openai.com/_j/32/766292_2.png) [@\_j](https://community.openai.com/u/_j)\
**Post date:** [January 8, 2026, 11:35pm UTC](https://community.openai.com/t/cloudflare-error-1016-origin-dns-error-on-api-openai-com-at-2026-01-07-11-43-utc/1371280/2 "2026-01-08T23:35:32Z")

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> [@rgralhoz](#):
>
> Cloudflare Error 1016

The likely cause: the edge worker (rate limiter etc) that runs on Cloudflare had a DNS server outage, failing to lookup a resource (like "get api\_key’s active status, etc), and is configured in reverse-proxy because OpenAI doesn’t want Cloudflare to be their complete DNS host, then maybe some name change propagation issues for a short while?

> **[Fetch API in CNAME setup - Known issues](https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/platform/known-issues/#fetch-api-in-cname-setup)**
>
> When you make a subrequest using fetch() from a Worker, the Cloudflare DNS resolver is used. When a zone has a Partial (CNAME) setup, all hostnames that the Worker needs to be able to resolve require a dedicated DNS entry in Cloudflare's DNS setup....

It is good to report, but likely net monkeys doing changes with unavoidable impact done in the middle of _their_ night.