OpenAI outage on November 11, 2026
Measured window 22:51 UTC to 08:33 UTC on November 11, 2026, 9 hours 42 minutes. Worst status observed: critical.
Incident at a glance
| Service | OpenAI |
|---|---|
| Date | November 11, 2026 |
| StatusBird first saw it | 22:51 UTC |
| Vendor posted an incident | Not published |
| Recovery observed | 08:33 UTC |
| Duration | 9 hours 42 minutes |
| Worst status observed | critical |
| Non-operational readings | 291 |
All times UTC. StatusBird polls OpenAI every 2 minutes from its own infrastructure, so the true start and end sit within 2 minutes of the times above.
Was OpenAI down on November 11, 2026?
Yes. StatusBird recorded OpenAI as critical from 22:51 UTC until 08:33 UTC, a measured 9 hours 42 minutes. 291 consecutive checks came back non-operational.
What caused the OpenAI outage?
The cause has not yet been published by OpenAI. StatusBird measures availability from outside the vendor, which shows when a service stopped responding normally but never why. This section is updated if OpenAI publishes a root cause.
How long was OpenAI down?
9 hours 42 minutes, measured from the first non-operational reading at 22:51 UTC to the first reading that cleared it at 08:33 UTC. StatusBird counts a service down from the first reading it fails, not from the moment the vendor admits it, which is why this number can be larger than the one on the vendor's own incident report.
Timeline, in UTC
| Time (UTC) | Event |
|---|---|
| 22:51 UTC | StatusBird records its first non-operational reading |
| 22:54 UTC | A second consecutive non-operational reading confirms the outage, alerts go out and this page is published |
| 08:33 UTC | StatusBird records the first reading that clears the outage |
Who and what was affected
Any store that calls OpenAI during checkout or fulfillment had requests failing inside this window. The orders worth checking are the ones placed between 22:51 UTC and 08:33 UTC.
How StatusBird detected it
StatusBird recorded its first non-operational reading for OpenAI at 22:51 UTC, polling the vendor's status endpoint every 2 minutes from its own infrastructure. No incident had been posted on OpenAI's own status page when this page was written, so the times here are StatusBird's observations rather than a restatement of the vendor's report.
Method: StatusBird reads OpenAI's published status endpoint every 2 minutes and records every reading. Availability figures count major and critical only. The full method is at statusbird.io/methodology.
Lessons for merchants
- Write down the window. Most vendor SLA credit claims need the exact start and end, and reconstructing it later from memory rarely works. This page is that record.
- Pause paid traffic while the thing that takes money is failing. Spend keeps running while conversion is zero.
- Stop any job that retries against the failing service, so a backlog does not fire twice on recovery.
- Tell your support team what to say before the tickets arrive, not after.
The longer version, with the checks specific to this service, is in the OpenAI outage playbook.
Frequently asked questions
Was OpenAI down on November 11, 2026?
Yes. StatusBird recorded OpenAI as critical from 22:51 UTC on November 11, 2026, for a measured 9 hours 42 minutes.
How long was OpenAI down?
9 hours 42 minutes, measured from the first non-operational reading at 22:51 UTC to the first clear reading at 08:33 UTC. Readings are taken every 2 minutes, so the true start and end sit within 2 minutes of those times.
What caused the OpenAI outage?
The cause has not yet been published by OpenAI. StatusBird measures availability from outside the vendor, which shows when a service stopped responding normally but never why. This section is updated if OpenAI publishes a root cause.
How was this OpenAI outage detected?
StatusBird recorded its first non-operational reading for OpenAI at 22:51 UTC, polling the vendor's status endpoint every 2 minutes from its own infrastructure. No incident had been posted on OpenAI's own status page when this page was written, so the times here are StatusBird's observations rather than a restatement of the vendor's report.
Was my store affected?
If your store calls OpenAI during checkout or fulfillment, the requests to check are the ones made between 22:51 UTC and 08:33 UTC on November 11, 2026. Orders created in that window without a matching downstream record are the usual casualty.
Monitor OpenAI with StatusBird
This page exists because StatusBird was already watching. It checks OpenAI and the rest of the stack an online store runs on every 2 minutes and sends an SMS, email, Slack, Teams or Discord alert the moment a reading goes non-operational, which on this incident was 22:51 UTC.