I’ve been dealing with a persistent platform failure for over a month now, and I know I’m not the only one. ChatGPT-generated file download links—specifically anything using the sandbox:/mnt/data/ path—are completely non-functional across .docx, .pptx, .zip, and other formats.
Here’s the situation:
I’ve tested across browsers, devices, and network environments
I’ve submitted multiple support tickets
I’ve directly emailed OpenAI support and CC’d leadership (including Brad Lightcap, Mira Murati, and Logan Kilpatrick)
I’ve received no technical explanation, no ETA, and no fix
The issue has remained completely unresolved for weeks
This isn’t just a minor inconvenience—it breaks a core feature for professional users who rely on file generation and download. The most frustrating part? No one from OpenAI has provided a real update. Support continues sending placeholder responses like “we’re investigating.”
I’ve documented every failure with timestamps, and I’ve spoken with other users experiencing the same. This is not isolated.
If you’re also affected, please comment to confirm. We need OpenAI to:
Acknowledge the issue publicly
Provide a root-cause explanation
Offer a workaround or ETA
Commit to better reliability and transparency moving forward
Thanks for your time—and to those at OpenAI who are genuinely trying to help, we’re counting on you to surface this where it matters.
I appear to be experiencing the same recurring issue. I had ChatGPT compile critical data and structure it into a PDF for a sponsorship and funding report. After stepping away for a two-week vacation, I returned to find that the file was inaccessible. The system repeatedly shows messages such as “file not found” or “Code interpreter session expired.”
As our organization pays for this tool, these disruptions are concerning. If access to our generated data cannot be maintained and this results in a financial impact to our organization, we may need to explore whether recouping costs from Chat GPT is legally possible.
Has anyone else encountered this issue, and if so, how have you resolved it? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
It is still broken, it seems pretty pointless to pay for a service that is just utterly broken and does not seem to get any attention/communication around fixing.
This is a developer community: a space for developers building apps with OpenAI APIs and tools to have technical discussions with other developers. The ChatGPT team doesn’t monitor this forum.