Key Points:
- Google News Outage: Users globally experienced access issues with Google News across all platforms.
- OpenAI Downtime: ChatGPT faced significant operational problems, with users unable to receive responses.
- Verizon Interruption: A brief but notable service disruption affected Verizon customers.
On Friday morning, users faced widespread disruptions when attempting to access Google News and ChatGPT. Reports from DownDetector revealed that Google News encountered significant issues, with complaints skyrocketing from 5 at 7:46 am EDT to 1,241 by 8:31 am EDT.
Users visiting the Google News website were met with an image of an upside-down ice cream cone and a message stating, “Uh-oh, something went wrong. Please try again.” Despite reports that services had stabilized by 9:50 am EDT, isolated issues persisted, such as a user in Florida still reporting problems at 11:30 am EDT. Conversely, in Massachusetts, the app functioned normally.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT also faced a surge in complaints, rising from 3 at 7:01 am EDT to 66 by 12:16 pm EDT. Users like Lisa McCoskey reported being stuck on a gray upload button, rendering the AI chatbot unusable. Most complaints (76%) were related to the ChatGPT service, with the issues more pronounced on the website (22%) than the app (2%). Outage maps showed that cities like New York, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco were heavily affected. Nonetheless, the service appeared to be running smoothly on devices like the iPhone 15 Pro Max in Massachusetts.
Adding to the day’s disruptions, Verizon experienced a brief outage the previous evening, with complaints peaking at 12,416 at 6:45 pm EDT. Most users (60%) reported mobile phone usage issues, while others cited no signal (25%) and mobile internet problems (15%). The carrier has since resolved these issues, but the interruptions caused notable inconvenience.
These incidents highlight the vulnerability of digital services to unexpected outages, impacting millions of users globally.
