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ChatGPT on the web: “Too many requests” blocks chat access and disrupts Work tasks #38503
Description
What version of the Codex App are you using (From “About Codex” dialog)?
During the original August 14 occurrence, ChatGPT desktop 26.810.41047 (build 6570) was also open on the same account. The visible “Too many requests” conversation-access modal described in this issue has since been isolated to ChatGPT on the web (chatgpt.com) in Chrome.
What subscription do you have?
ChatGPT Pro ($200/month), the Pro tier with 20x higher usage allowance than Plus under OpenAI's current Pro tier documentation.
What platform is your computer?
macOS 26.6.1 (25G76)
arm64
Browser surface: Google Chrome on chatgpt.com.
What issue are you seeing?
Original report — August 14, 2026
During normal ChatGPT use, ChatGPT on the web can temporarily lose access to chats and display this modal:
Too many requests
You’re making requests too quickly. We’ve temporarily limited access to your conversations to protect your data.
Please wait a few minutes before trying again.
This is highly disruptive and does not appear to be an ordinary model-usage limit. The restriction affects access to chats themselves.
At the time of the original occurrence, the same account was signed in to both the ChatGPT desktop app and chatgpt.com. That originally raised the question whether activity across both surfaces might contribute to the restriction, but that has not been established as the cause.
The problem is especially serious for Work tasks. When access to the relevant chats is temporarily restricted, Work tasks that depend on that conversation context can be interrupted or left without reliable access to the context they depend on.
Feedback/diagnostic reports were submitted from the affected account. Public identifiers from those submissions are intentionally omitted here.
A screenshot of the original modal was captured at approximately 2026-08-14 2:04 AM America/New_York.
What steps can reproduce the bug?
The exact minimal trigger is not yet isolated because the behavior is intermittent.
- Sign in to ChatGPT on the web in Chrome.
- Use chats, projects, and Work tasks normally and navigate between chats.
- At some point, the “Too many requests” modal can appear and temporarily block access to chats.
- Waiting eventually restores access, but the behavior can recur.
I am not intentionally performing bulk, scripted, or high-frequency requests.
What is the expected behavior?
- Normal use of ChatGPT on the web should not temporarily block access to chats.
- Navigation between chats and projects should continue to work during normal interactive use.
- Conversation-access requests should avoid unnecessary duplication and should respect appropriate retry/backoff behavior when temporarily limited.
- Work tasks should receive a clear temporary-failure state rather than continuing without reliable access to required conversation context.
- The UI should distinguish a temporary chat-access restriction from model or subscription usage limits.
Update — August 15, 2026
The issue recurred on 2026-08-15 at approximately 2:34–2:35 PM America/New_York.
During this recurrence, the same modal appeared in two different chats within the same Chrome browser session, including a chat in a project and another regular chat. The restriction was therefore not confined to a single chat or project.
Surface clarification: during this August 15 recurrence, I observed the modal only in ChatGPT on the web. I did not observe this modal in the ChatGPT desktop app.
This recurrence confirms that the behavior is not a one-time event. Screenshots were captured. Chat titles, project names, local paths, account-specific identifiers, feedback identifiers, and private content are intentionally omitted from this public report.
This issue does not assert a specific HTTP status code or backend endpoint for the browser modal without browser network evidence.
A separate issue, #38632, tracks a different desktop-app symptom where the app explicitly displayed Request failed with status 429 while chatgpt.com remained usable. That desktop error should not be conflated with the browser conversation-access modal tracked here.
Activity
github-actions commentedon Aug 14, 2026
Potential duplicates detected. Please review them and close your issue if it is a duplicate.
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[-]Account-wide conversation-history 429 appears in macOS app and chatgpt.com during normal use, disrupting Work tasks[/-][+]Too many requests — “You’re making requests too quickly. We’ve temporarily limited access to your conversations to protect your data.” disrupts Work tasks[/+]northflux2 commentedon Aug 15, 2026
Completely agree this 429 error in normal use, on paid accounts well below any usage limit is extremely frustrating and can only be considered a bug.
[-]Too many requests — “You’re making requests too quickly. We’ve temporarily limited access to your conversations to protect your data.” disrupts Work tasks[/-][+]ChatGPT on the web: “Too many requests” temporarily blocks access to chats during normal use[/+]omarpinarecords commentedon Aug 15, 2026
Browser-only recurrence — August 15, 2026
At approximately 2:34–2:35 PM America/New_York, the same “Too many requests” modal appeared twice in ChatGPT on the web in Chrome while navigating between two different chats.
Screenshots were captured showing the browser behavior.
This report is based on the visible ChatGPT UI behavior. I am not asserting a specific underlying HTTP status or endpoint for this occurrence because I did not capture browser network diagnostics for it.
The separate desktop-app symptom that explicitly displayed
Request failed with status 429is tracked in #38632. Related browser report: #38763.[-]ChatGPT on the web: “Too many requests” temporarily blocks access to chats during normal use[/-][+]ChatGPT on the web: “Too many requests” blocks chat access and disrupts Work tasks[/+]theyonatan commentedon Aug 20, 2026
this is very annoying!
Happens way too often and there seems to be no way of disabling it other than waiting.
bumping this, I would expect there to be a way to unlock or bypass via a code to email or two auth confirmation.
I work in heavy bursts, sometimes less sometimes a lot more.
kendonB commentedon Aug 20, 2026
Also seeing this in a fresh browser session
my list of chats isn't displaying so this could be chat enumeration hammering the server
Optikmike commentedon Aug 21, 2026
I've been seeing this bug since 5.6 was released, not that it's related but simply as a timeframe. Over the last week it has worsened and now ChatGPT is almost unusable, every single time I open a chat or send a message I get this message. Just opening the ChatGPT app on my phone causes it to display "Too many requests". I've enabled MFA, logged out all my devices which I'm not actively working on, and my requests are actually minimal lately, yet I still get "Too Many Requests" as soon as I wake up and access ChatGPT for the first time in the morning. Using the Pro 20x plan.
danialbka commentedon Aug 21, 2026
im receiving this problem also. what's going on. im using codex as per normal
jnousis commentedon Aug 21, 2026
I keep getting this message all day since yesterday and it's very frustrating. Nothing has changed in my usage pattern. Using the Pro 20x plan.
10 remaining items
Raoulwe commentedon Sep 3, 2026
I’m seeing the same problem. The protection appears to be overly aggressive: it does not seem to react to the actual number of tokens used or whether the paid-plan usage allowance has been reached. Instead, it appears to be triggered by having multiple ChatGPT web tabs open and running parallel processes, even when overall usage is well below the limit. This makes normal multi-tab workflows unreliable. Also on pro plan like initial ticket
SIMON-WORLD commentedon Sep 7, 2026
Adding another recent reproduction from ChatGPT Web in Microsoft Edge on 2026-09-07.
I saw this about 3–4 times today during normal interactive use. In the most recent occurrence, I had multiple ChatGPT conversations open in Edge. Once the “Too many requests / temporarily limited access to your conversations” message appeared in one chat, switching from chat A to chat B showed the same restriction there as well, so it was not isolated to a single conversation.
The restriction clears after waiting, but after resuming normal use it can recur later (roughly on the order of 1–2 hours in my observations).
I was not intentionally running scripted or bulk requests. Multiple chats were open at the time, but I have not established that this is the trigger.
I did not capture browser network evidence for this occurrence, so I am not asserting that a specific endpoint returned HTTP 429.
bsbofmusic commentedon Sep 16, 2026
New reproduction — September 16, 2026
I am still seeing this issue frequently on ChatGPT Web during normal interactive use.
Environment
chatgpt.comObserved behavior
Expected behavior
Normal manual use of multiple conversations should not trigger a conversation-access lockout. If the backend does need to throttle, the client should use bounded backoff, avoid unnecessary duplicate/retry requests, preserve conversation state, and clearly distinguish this condition from model/subscription usage limits.
Please treat this as another current reproduction confirming that the issue is still present as of September 16, 2026.
mvdbosch commentedon Sep 16, 2026
I am also having this issue. Seeing that it isn't being fixed. Is there a workaround possible?
7flash commentedon Sep 17, 2026
Same issue, totally destroys my daily workflow.
karitet commentedon Sep 18, 2026
Adding a cross-platform observation that may be related.
On Android I encountered the same visible error:
Too many requestsEnvironment:
1.2026.251This was not scripted, automated, or bulk usage.
The error appeared while using Work and prevented normal continuation of the conversation.
I realize the original report here concerns ChatGPT Web, so I am not assuming this has the same root cause. I am adding the Android reproduction because the visible failure mode is the same and it occurred during the same period of broader Work instability.
siruijiang3 commentedon Sep 20, 2026
Same issue, especially ChatGPT Web, chrome browser on desktop.
mvdbosch commentedon Sep 21, 2026
In addition: Problem seem to be occurring when copy/pasting content in the ChatGPT client and or scrolling and switching between chat conversations. It doesn't appear to be a AI Model related limit or quota, but more an app related bug.
wefalltomorrow commentedon Sep 24, 2026
For a paid tool this is absolute dogshit, it makes ChatGPT unusable half the time.
tapperwijn89 commentedon Sep 27, 2026
Adding another affected Pro account, still blocked on September 27, 2026 (Europe/Amsterdam).
I am getting the same "Too many requests" / temporary conversation-access restriction during ordinary navigation. During affected periods every conversation I try to open is affected. The failures repeatedly cost 10–20 minutes and have continued into the next day; website development work is currently blocked.
There is also a visible UI failure beyond the sidebar: an existing conversation briefly renders its contents and then replaces them with "Could not load this ChatGPT conversation", with the same URL and conversation still selected. Keeping tabs open does not preserve access.
I documented the symptoms and the screen-recording observation in #48683. No HTTP status was captured in that recording, so I am not asserting a confirmed backend cause. Please include this account's September 27 impact in triage and provide a public update on a mitigation or fix.
DovieW commentedon Oct 11, 2026
Does Claude have this issue? This is bad enough that I might switch. This coming from a diehard OpenAI fan
wefalltomorrow commentedon Oct 12, 2026
Claude is even worse sadly.
0xC0FFEE commentedon Oct 14, 2026
Hit me today and I lost hours of work because of this :(. Conversation will no longer load too. :(
DovieW commentedon Oct 14, 2026
Doing "sign out of all devices" fixed it for me. Logged back in to a bunch of things, hasn't come back yet over a full day. Seemed to instantly do the trick. I had 28 devices logged in.
https://chatgpt.com/settings/security?view=sessions
DovieW commentedon Oct 14, 2026
I think I narrowed down the issue to my Codex login with OpenClaw