OpenAI Takes Down ChatGPT, the API and Codex Together in a Global Outage With Chat History Vanishing
OpenAI's core services failed worldwide on the morning of July 25, 2026, with the status page acknowledging elevated error rates across ChatGPT, the developer API, and Codex simultaneously. Users hit 503s carrying the internal label `biscuit_baker_service_me_circuit_open`, and — the part that spooked people most — saved conversation history disappeared for many accounts, spawning a 109-upvote/102-comment 'Chats completely gone??' thread on r/ChatGPT alongside a 188-upvote outage PSA. Downdetector peaked around 1,535 reports, roughly 80% against ChatGPT itself and 8% each against mobile and the API. OpenAI moved from investigating to monitoring within about an hour; the correlated failure of chat, API and Codex points at a shared dependency rather than three independent incidents, which is the durable lesson for anyone building on a single provider.
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