ChatGPT Not Working? 11 Fixes for Every Common Error (2026)
ChatGPT not working? Fix blank responses, endless loading, 'something went wrong', network errors and app crashes with these 11 checks, fastest first.
When ChatGPT stops working, the cause is one of three things: OpenAI’s servers, your connection, or your browser and app state. The error messages don’t reliably tell you which, so the fastest route is checking them in that order. Here’s the sequence, quickest checks first, plus what the specific error messages actually mean.
How to fix ChatGPT when it’s not working
1. Check whether ChatGPT is down
Before touching your own setup, check OpenAI’s status page at status.openai.com. Outages and degraded performance are common enough that this one check saves more time than everything else combined. If there’s an active incident, nothing on your end will help; come back later or switch to a backup assistant for the hour (alternatives here).
2. Refresh, then log out and back in
A hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R, or Cmd+Shift+R on Mac) clears the page’s stale state. If responses still hang, log out and back in; expired session tokens cause endless loading spinners and silent failures.
3. Try an incognito window
Open ChatGPT in a private window. If it works there, the culprit is a cached file, a cookie, or an extension in your normal profile, and steps 4 and 5 will finish the job.
4. Disable browser extensions
Ad blockers, privacy extensions, and “AI helper” add-ons regularly break ChatGPT’s streaming responses. Disable extensions and re-enable them in batches to find the offender. Anything that injects content into pages is a suspect; our AI Chrome extensions guide covers which permission patterns cause this.
5. Clear the site’s cookies and cache
In Chrome: Settings, Privacy, Site settings, find chatgpt.com, clear data. This resets the site without nuking your whole browser history, and fixes the stubborn “something went wrong” loop after updates.
6. Turn your VPN off (or on)
VPNs cause two opposite failures: some exit nodes are rate-limited or blocked, producing errors, while some networks block AI sites, which a VPN fixes. Toggle whichever state you’re in. Corporate and school networks are frequent blockers.
7. Test another network
Switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data or vice versa. If ChatGPT works on one and not the other, it’s the network, not you: DNS, a firewall, or parental controls. Changing DNS to 1.1.1.1 or 8.8.8.8 often resolves it.
8. Update or reinstall the mobile app
On iPhone and Android, an outdated app after a backend change produces crashes and blank screens. Update from the store; if it persists, delete and reinstall (your chats live on the server and survive). Android users can also clear the app’s cache first, the same pattern as any crashing app in our app keeps stopping guide.
9. Check your usage limits and plan
Free-tier caps reset after a few hours; hitting one isn’t an outage, and the banner saying so is easy to miss. Plus subscribers hitting message limits on the newest model get dropped to a fallback model rather than cut off, which sometimes reads as “worse answers” rather than an error.
10. Shorten the conversation
Very long chats slow down and eventually misbehave: truncated replies, ignored instructions, spinning. Start a fresh conversation and paste in only the context that matters. This is a model-context reality, not a bug that support can fix.
11. Check your account standing
If you can log in but every request errors, check the email tied to your account for policy or billing notices. Payment failures on Plus quietly downgrade features until resolved.
What the specific errors mean
“Something went wrong”: generic, usually session or extension related; steps 2 through 5. “Network error” mid-response: the stream broke, common on long answers over flaky connections; ask it to continue, or shorten the request. “Too many requests”: rate limit, wait it out; if constant on a VPN, change exit node. “Error in message stream”: server side more often than not; check status first. Endless loading on login: cookies or an aggressive privacy extension.
If you need a working assistant right now
Outages cluster at the worst times. Keeping one backup bookmarked turns a blocked hour into a shrug: Claude and Gemini both run capable free tiers, and Perplexity covers search-shaped questions. Our ChatGPT alternatives guide matches each to a use case, and the free AI tools roundup covers what their free plans include.
FAQs
Why is ChatGPT not responding to my messages?
Most often: an expired session (log out and in), a broken stream over an unstable connection, or a conversation that’s grown too long. If the status page shows an incident, it’s them, not you.
Why is ChatGPT so slow today?
Peak-hour load, an active incident, or a very long conversation. Free-tier traffic also gets deprioritized during heavy load, so slowdowns hit free users first. A fresh chat plus off-peak timing is the practical fix.
Is ChatGPT down right now?
Check status.openai.com for the live answer; Downdetector’s chatgpt page catches the crowd-reported spikes that precede the official acknowledgment.
Why does ChatGPT work on my phone but not my computer?
That isolates the problem to the computer’s browser: extensions, cookies, DNS, or a firewall. Run steps 3 through 7 and it’ll surface, and it’s usually an ad blocker.
