Title:
Critical Error – ChatGPT Browsing Tool Returns False 500 Errors on Valid URLs
Summary:
The ChatGPT browsing tool returns false “500 Server Errors” when trying to re-access valid, functional URLs. These are not legitimate server errors, but failures within OpenAI’s own browsing infrastructure—likely due to timeout length (my guess), proxy issues, or rate limits—misreported as external faults.
Live Repro Case (May 11, 2025):
- User shares a Flipboard article:
My 8 Foolproof Methods to Check If a Social Media Post Is AI or Not - Assistant accesses and analyzes it successfully.
- 20 minutes later, user requests follow-up on the same article.
- Assistant calls open_url() and returns: emphasized text
Error from browse service: Error calling browse service: 500 - User manually confirms the page is 100% accessible via all standard browsers.
This is a false negative and a logic error: the browsing layer is broken, not the target page.
Why This Is Critical:
This doesn’t just fail—it lies about the nature of the failure. #NotGood
- Users are misled into thinking external websites are broken.
- It erodes assistant credibility when it contradicts earlier behavior.
- There’s no fallback: cached content, retries, or honest error reporting.
- It kills session continuity in research, writing, and fact-checking tasks.
- The assistant acts blind but pretends informed—a fatal UX sin.
User Predicted This Weeks Ago:
“I would suspect you are getting these errors due to a low timeout threshold or error masking from an internal browser tool. It’s your own backend choking and calling it a 500.”
Requested Fixes:.
-
Add retry logic and longer thresholds before triggering failures.
-
Allow fallback to recent cached content if the page was
successfully opened earlier in the same session. -
Implement honest error messaging: distinguish true
HTTP 500s from internal timeouts or proxy failures
This is not a minor flaw—it’s a systemic integrity breach that breaks
long-form workflows and insults the intelligence of users who verify
failures manually. Needs escalation and resolution.