What to do when an AI chatbot stops working

Most “outages” turn out to be one of a handful of ordinary problems. Work down this list before you give up on the afternoon.

1. Find out if it is everyone or just you

Check the service on our status page and on the provider’s own status page. If either reports a problem, you can stop troubleshooting and wait. Providers normally update their status page as they investigate and fix it.

2. Try a different route in

If the website is failing, try the mobile app, or the other way round. Try another browser, a private window, or a different network such as mobile data in place of Wi-Fi. A fault that disappears on another route tells you where the problem sits.

3. Remove the usual suspects

Switch off any VPN, ad blocker or browser extension and reload. Corporate networks and some VPNs trigger bot-protection loops that look like an outage. Sign out and back in, and clear the site’s cookies if the page keeps looping.

4. Check you have not hit a limit

Usage caps, message limits and slow-down modes are easy to mistake for a fault. Look for a banner or message about limits, a paused feature or a model that has become unavailable on your plan.

5. Do not hammer it

Repeatedly resubmitting a long request during an outage can leave you with duplicates and, on some plans, use up your allowance. Copy your prompt somewhere safe, wait a few minutes, then retry once.

6. Keep a fallback

If you depend on one assistant for work, keep a second one signed in. Services tend to fail at different times, so a spare is a cheap piece of insurance. For anything urgent, have a plan that does not need an AI at all.

If you have been through all of this and the provider reports nothing, read why a service can be up but broken for you.