Well, I got a generic response by the looks of things @momo0505, @hassan164,
To the message that I sent, that I pasted above, this is the reply I have received this morning:
Hello,
â
Thank you for reaching back to OpenAI support.Weâre sorry to hear about the ongoing issues youâre experiencing with ChatGPT. We understand how frustrating this must be. Rest assured, weâre here to assist you.
Here are some steps you can take to try and resolve the issue:
Retry the request again later - this often solves the problem.
Visit our status page to check for any active outages that might be temporarily impacting the service.
Clear your browserâs cache and cookies.
If youâre using a VPN, try disabling it.
Try using an incognito browser or a different internet browser/computer. Sometimes, a security add-in or extension can cause this type of error.
Disable any cookie blockers you might have enabled.
Consider connecting to a different network, such as switching from WiFi to a cellular/mobile network
Even without a reported outage or issues with your network, these errors can randomly occur. While theyâre less common for ChatGPT Plus subscribers, they can still occur from time to time. In most cases, retrying the request later resolves the problem.
If the issue persists, please let us know and include a screenshot or screen recording if possible, as this will help us assist you more effectively.
We completely understand your decision to explore other products, and we genuinely appreciate the time youâve spent using ours. If you have any further questions or need additional support, feel free to reach out. Weâre here to help!
Best,
OpenAI Support
So I have just replied the following, but honestly this is an absolute joke:
Hi,
lol, haha, this is a very condescending and comical reply.
This clearly shows me this is some generic reply and you havenât even bothered to read the thread at all, because not only does it list the issues being faced, but it also highlights everything I have tried, and this includes everything you have suggested and more, so itâs just a pointless reply.
Hereâs the thread link again, not that youâll bother to read it:
[OPEN] ChatGPT Broken (Images, Files, Web Search, Long Msgs, etc.)
I think this is a malicious attempt to get everyone signing up for the new $200 a month plan. I certainly wonât be doing that.
I can see OpenAI being boycotted soon if they donât sort it out. Since I canât use the product, I would however like to be reimbursed for the month, this will make up for the extra cost of me having to fork out for Claude this month.
I have also cancelled my subscription, and this is how it will stay until the issues are remedied.
Yours sincerely,
David
For those who may not be aware, OpenAI have just released a pro plan for $200 a month, where you get unlimited use on the o1 models, and apparently, better models, and better speeds!
Look at the date of the post, and look at the date of when users spiked having issues. Coincidental? I think not!
https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-pro/?_bhlid=612d6ecb4549bf907138a640a762ec0d68365652
A quote and date from their new post:
December 5, 2024
Today, weâre adding ChatGPT Pro, a $200 monthly plan that enables scaled access to the best of OpenAIâs models and tools. This plan includes unlimited access to our smartest model, OpenAI o1, as well as to o1-mini, GPT-4o, and Advanced Voice. It also includes o1 pro mode, a version of o1 that uses more compute to think harder and provide even better answers to the hardest problems. In the future, we expect to add more powerful, compute-intensive productivity features to this plan.
And this is the part of their email reply for me, that basically says, we donât give a toss, keep exploring those other products, not even an offer of reimbursement, nothing:
We completely understand your decision to explore other products, and we genuinely appreciate the time youâve spent using ours. If you have any further questions or need additional support, feel free to reach out. Weâre here to help!
Theyâd soon be the first to panic when everyone cancels and moves to Claude or OpenRouter though.
Iâm glad I cancelled now, Iâll be pushing for a refund, and then thatâs me seriously done me thinks! Stuff paying $200 a month (most likely for the same models weâve been using now for $20, lol. Thatâs most likely why weâve all been put on gpt-3.5-turbo, so it seems so bad in comparison, that they can make the âselling pointâ about the ânew modelsâ being significantly greater.) Nice try!
Cheers,
Gunner
@gunnerjnr Looking at my post, I totally thought they were intentional. Just now, they issued a statement saying that âthe problem of uploading files was solvedâ, but in fact they were not. And itâs not a problem of âuploading filesâ, but a problem of secretly replacing the model!
I can see that it was an email written by ai, but it was a real openai employee who sent me the email. However, you also saw it.
It does look as if itâs by the design doesnât it? You canât help but question it around the timing of the new âpro planâ and the models they mention that are âso greatâ!
âReducing the quality of existing models to improve the performance of new productsâ is indeed a very âsmartâ marketing strategy, but they think they have done it themselves.
The chances are it is likely they use ChatGPT for a lot of customer service responses. Especially as when you read them, they come across that way, and very generic, and the fact they donât take in to account anything we point out or try, only furthers my suspicions.
I hope this message finds you well. I am writing to report an issue Iâve been experiencing with ChatGPT for the past 10 days.
It seems that the system no longer supports reading images or conducting searches on the internet, which was previously possible. I have encountered this limitation recently, and it has affected my experience.
Could you kindly confirm if this is a temporary issue, or if there have been recent updates that have disabled these features? Your assistance in resolving this would be greatly appreciated.
@gunnerjnr
hello sir
Is your chatgpt back to normal at the moment?
Waiting for a fix. This is outrageous, I pay for this product, in the end I get pushed donât understand what. gpt 4o is stupid, gpt 4o with canvas has no canvas, gpt o1 mini and o1 generally took any attempts to use(although 4 days ago gpt o1 mini and preview responded instantly without thinking. and if they were then in 2 seconds, these reflections did not lead to anything and the model gave out nonsense).
Same here. My mail to and from openai:
Dear Abhi,
Thank you for your prompt response and suggestions. Iâd like to clarify our findings regarding the issues weâre experiencing:
We have thoroughly tested all the troubleshooting steps you suggested:
- We have verified that all accounts have identical access levels, yet the advanced features remain inconsistent. Even without changing any settings, these features work randomly.
- Weâve tested with cleared cache, fresh browser data, and incognito mode - none of these affect the functionality of the advanced features.
- Regarding network configuration, we use Cloudflare Warp for secure internet access. Weâve tested with Warp enabled and disabled, and this does not impact the advanced featuresâ functionality.
Notably, weâve observed that:
- The ChatGPT mobile apps (both Android and iOS) work consistently and correctly, suggesting this is specifically a web interface issue.
- When tools are unavailable and image processing fails, we also notice a significant decrease in the modelâs overall performance on complex tasks.
- The issue affects our entire team unpredictably - sometimes all members experience degraded service, other times only certain accounts are affected on the web interface.
Iâve attached screenshots documenting our testing process for your reference.
Could you please escalate this to your technical team for further investigation, as our testing suggests this is a platform-side issue rather than a client-side configuration problem?
Best regards,
Syeako
Their response:
Hello Syeako,
Thank you for reaching out to us and for providing a detailed overview of your observations and testing.
We understand that the advanced features on the web interface are not performing as expected, despite consistent functionality on our mobile applications. Rest assured, this issue has been noted as a known bug, and our engineering team is actively working on a resolution.
We apolgize for the inconvenience caused and assure you that resolving this bug is a priority for our team. Iâve shared your report to ensure your findings are incorporated into the ongoing investigation.
Weâll keep you updated with any progress or resolutions from our engineering team. In the meantime, if you have further insights or encounter additional issues, please donât hesitate to reach out.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.
Best regards,
Saad
OpenAI
I will log in today and give it a try, but honestly, after cancelling my sub and the last emails, I have not used it and moved away to different sources.
I have had no further replies by email from OpenAI since my last reply (above) back to them.
Is it working again for anyone else?
Cheers
Wow! Itâs basically like they just replied to you saying:
âWe donât give a toss, but thanks for reaching out! Unless you sign up for our new $ 200-a-month plan, we arenât interested in helping you!â
My account was back to normal yesterday, and I was using it just fine. But today, the same issue is back. WTF, OpenAI? Do you have some problem with me? I havenât even used my account more than 10 times this month because of this problem.
I am convinced that this will be the reason, @gamuvich
Trying to force our hands to make the switch.
Everything is working perfectly fine on the $200 pro plan. And yes, I think the start of this plan had something to do with all the issues we had on the plus plan .
As a side note, what is more annoying from my perspective is that it renewed around the same time it stopped working, and I canât get a refund for the month, as they just ignore my emails where I mention one, lol.
So, I guess at least I can log in from time to time for the month to see if anything improves, but at present, Claude seems to be doing the job just fine, along with some other tools.
I have since installed the following:
- Ollama - Allows use of free AI models from a desktop console (or you can quickly whip up a workflow in VS Code and node.js to call on the API locally, or even use things like ngrok to serve it and access it in tools like Make, Zapier, Flowise, etc.)
The beauty of Ollama, if you donât want to use the console or set up a project in VS Code, there are plenty of free and opensource web UIâs to make this easy for you, like Msty, OpenWebUI, and many more (just Google it). You can even just call it something like Postman or HTTPie:
- Claude AI
- Open Router - This is great as I can use an API to access a huge amount of models (some free, so there is no charge at all to use them; they even have an âautoâ model, that selects the best model based on the use case). The below image is my use for the past couple of days; as you can see, I have barely had any cost incurred using the auto model; it seems to jump between OpenAI models, Claude and some other lesser-known models:
- OpenAI API - If you prefer OpenAI models and donât mind a little bit of setup, the API seems to function quite well compared to the web interface, so I wouldnât dismiss it completely.
So, in all honesty, I donât know if I will ever renew now, but I thought I would point out some of these for everyone else, as it may indeed help you out while you are all struggling to use ChatGPT, as you can still use it potentially in an indirect way.
Cheers.
EDIT:
I also forgot to mention there are many online sites for AI image generation, but a great free alternative is to use something like ComfyUI and use CivitAI for downloading image models.