[ChatGPT Web][Sep 26–27] All chats intermittently blocked; loaded conversation disappears into error, Pro work blocked #48683

What issue are you seeing?

I am a ChatGPT Pro subscriber. Access to my existing conversations is repeatedly failing during ordinary navigation, and this is now preventing me from completing website development work.

This is still happening on September 27, 2026, after repeated failures on September 26. By approximately 13:14 CEST on September 27, I had spent the morning trying to regain usable access to my conversations. During affected periods, every conversation I try to open is affected.

Symptoms

• ChatGPT shows "Too many requests", with wording about temporarily limiting access to conversations to protect my data.
• It also shows "Kan dit ChatGPT-gesprek niet laden" (Dutch for "Could not load this ChatGPT conversation").
• A conversation can briefly display its existing contents and then replace them with the loading error again.
• Leaving conversations open in separate tabs does not maintain reliable access: already-open conversations also become unusable over time.
• Earlier episodes repeatedly cost approximately 10–20 minutes before chats could be opened again. The problem has continued into the next day rather than staying resolved.

Screen-recording observation

In an approximately 19-second recording from September 27, the contents of the same selected conversation appear twice and are then replaced by the loading error. The URL, sidebar and selected conversation remain present.

The recording contains private conversation content, so it is not attached publicly. It shows the visible UI failure, not an HTTP status code. A failed background refetch or HTTP 429 is a possible explanation, not a diagnosis established by this recording.

Environment and scope

• Surface shown in the recording: chatgpt.com in Chrome on Windows, including a Work conversation.
• Subscription: ChatGPT Pro.
• Timezone for the observations above: Europe/Amsterdam, CEST (UTC+2).
• Exact browser version and web build were not captured.
• I noticed the problem after the recent interface update; that timing alone does not establish the cause.

What steps can reproduce the bug?

The failure is intermittent, so these describe the observed workflow rather than a guaranteed minimal reproduction:

1. Open an existing conversation on chatgpt.com or switch to another existing conversation.
2. During an affected period, observe the loading error or the temporary conversation-access restriction.
3. Retry opening the same conversation: its contents can appear briefly and then disappear into the error again.
4. Try other conversations: during these episodes, all conversations I attempt to open are affected.
5. Leaving previously opened tabs in place does not provide a durable workaround.

What is the expected behavior?

Existing conversations should remain accessible during normal navigation. A user should be able to read and continue ongoing work reliably. Any temporary conversation-access restriction should explain its scope and recovery conditions clearly.

For a paid service, losing access to ongoing work for a second day is unacceptable. Please provide:

• Public acknowledgement and triage of this specific conversation-access failure.
• A supported mitigation for affected accounts.
• A fix status or next update, and an estimated recovery time if one is known.

Additional information

Related reports reviewed before submitting:

• ChatGPT on the web: “Too many requests” blocks chat access and disrupts Work tasks #38503 — temporary conversation-access restrictions during normal ChatGPT web use.
• Conversation history temporarily blocked by “Too many requests” during normal ChatGPT use #38763 — conversation history blocked by the same "Too many requests" message.
• [ChatGPT Web/Android][Sep 24–26, 2026] Frequent conversation load failures, 429 errors, and delayed image attachments #48393 — September 24–26 intermittent conversation-loading failures, including conversations that work and then become unavailable.
• https://community.openai.com/t/could-not-load-this-chatgpt-conversation-for-chatgpt-work-conversations-created-on-chatgpt-com-run-via-the-app-in-the-cloud/1400491
• https://community.openai.com/t/intermittent-conversation-loading-failures-after-new-ui-update-chats-are-searchable-but-randomly-fail-to-open/1400945

This adds my independently affected account and the content-appears-then-disappears observation, with continued impact on September 27. If these reports share a cause, please link this evidence to the active tracking issue and identify that issue publicly.

Please treat this as a conversation-access/UI reliability report. No common root cause with model-message quotas or local Linux desktop startup failures has been established.