503RADARINCIDENT ARCHIVEMETHODOLOGY
LIVE · CONFIRMED

OpenAI outage — August 21, 2026

Unexpected logouts for some ChatGPT web users

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has a confirmed disruption, detected on August 21, 2026. 503Radar’s sensors raised the first signal at 08:53 UTC, 11h 14m before the official status page acknowledged impact.

Key facts

DetectedAugust 21, 2026 · 08:53 UTC
Confirmed20:08 UTC · lead time 11h 14m
ServiceChatGPT
Official recordhttps://status.openai.com

Timeline

  1. 08:53Z

    Detected · Signal

    12 crowd signals for ChatGPT on OPENAI crossed the signal threshold.
  2. 20:08Z

    Confirmed · Official

    An official OPENAI status-page notice corroborated the event — 11h 14m after detection.

How this was detected

1 independent evidence class for chatgpt on OPENAI. 12 crowd reports across bluesky (single platform — not corroborating), z=+2.0σ vs the cell baseline. Official notice confirms it, 11h 14m after the crowd.