Your AI tool stops responding. The page spins, an answer cuts off halfway, or you get a vague error. The first question that comes to mind is simple: is the service actually broken, or is something on my end causing this? It matters, because the fix is completely different. If the service is down, the only sensible thing to do is wait. If the problem is on your side, a thirty second change can get you working again.
The good news is that you do not need any technical skill to tell the difference. You just need a short, repeatable routine. This guide walks through that routine in plain language so you can run it on any AI tool, whether that is a chat assistant, an image generator, or a coding helper.
The quick test
When something goes wrong, work through these five checks in order. Most of the time you will have your answer within a minute or two.
- Check a live status monitor. Open an independent monitor that watches the service and shows whether other people are reporting trouble right now. The live dashboard tracks the major AI tools in real time, so a quick glance tells you if the outage is widespread.
- Open a private or incognito window. Load the same tool in a fresh private window and sign in. This rules out a stale session, a bad cookie, or a browser extension getting in the way.
- Switch networks. If you are on Wi-Fi, turn it off and use mobile data, or the other way around. If it suddenly works, your network was the problem, not the service.
- Try another device or browser. Open the tool on your phone if you were on a laptop, or use a different browser. This separates a problem with one device from a problem with the service.
- Check the provider’s official status page. Most AI companies publish a status page where they confirm incidents. If they have posted an outage, you have your answer and there is nothing to fix on your side.
If the live monitor and the official page are both quiet, but a private window or a different network fixes things, the problem was local. If many people are reporting the same failure at the same moment, it is almost certainly the service.
Step by step: down for everyone, or just you?
Here is each check in more detail, including what a “pass” and a “fail” look like, so you know how to read the result.
1. Check a live status monitor and crowd reports
This is the fastest single check, so start here. An independent status monitor watches a service from the outside and collects reports from real users. When a tool breaks for everyone, the reports spike within minutes, and that pattern is hard to fake. A sudden cluster of complaints is one of the clearest signals that the problem is not yours.
The advantage of an independent monitor is that it does not depend on the provider admitting there is a problem. Companies sometimes take a while to update their own status pages, especially in the first minutes of an incident. A crowd-driven view fills that gap. You can check the status of popular tools directly, for example ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Character.AI. If the monitor shows a spike of reports and a degraded status, you can stop here: it is them, not you.
If you want to understand how these signals are gathered and what they mean, the methodology page explains how status is measured and why a burst of reports is meaningful.
2. Test a private or incognito window
If the monitor is quiet, the next suspect is your browser. Browsers store a lot of information to make sites load faster, and occasionally that stored data goes stale. An expired login session, a corrupted cookie, or a misbehaving extension can break a single tool while everything else works fine.
A private or incognito window is the quickest way to test this, because it loads the site fresh with no saved data and no extensions. Open one, go to the tool, and sign in normally. If it works in the private window but not your regular one, the problem is local: clearing the site’s cookies or disabling extensions one at a time will usually sort it out. If it fails in both, the browser is probably not the cause, and you can move on.
3. Test a different network
Networks fail in quiet, confusing ways. A home router can drop a single service while everything else seems fine. A workplace or school network might block parts of an AI tool. Your internet provider could be having a regional hiccup. None of these will show up on a status monitor, because the service itself is healthy.
The test is simple. If you are on Wi-Fi, switch your phone to mobile data and try the tool there. If you are already on mobile data, connect to Wi-Fi instead. When a tool works on one network but not another, you have found your answer: the service is up, and something between you and it was getting in the way. Restarting your router, or trying again later from a different connection, often clears it.
4. Test another device or browser
If switching networks did not help, change the device. Pick up your phone if you were on a computer, or open the tool on a tablet. You can also just try a different browser on the same machine. The point is to remove your original setup from the equation entirely.
If the tool works on the second device, something specific to the first one is the culprit: an out of date app, a setting, a security tool, or saved data that needs clearing. If it fails everywhere you try, the evidence is now pointing firmly away from your equipment and toward the service.
5. Check the provider’s official status page
By now you probably already know the answer, but the official status page is the final confirmation. This is where the company posts confirmed incidents, maintenance windows, and updates as they work on a fix. If they have acknowledged an outage, there is genuinely nothing for you to do except wait for the all clear.
Keep two things in mind. First, official pages can lag behind reality, so a page that still shows “all systems operational” does not prove the service is fine, especially if a monitor is lighting up with reports. Second, planned maintenance is sometimes announced in advance here, which explains an outage that otherwise looks mysterious.
Reading the signals
Once you have run a few checks, the symptoms themselves often point to the cause. The table below maps common symptoms to the most likely explanation. Treat it as a guide rather than a guarantee, but it lines up with what you will see most of the time.
| What you are seeing | Most likely it is them | Most likely it is you |
|---|---|---|
| Error message on the page | Server errors, “something went wrong”, or capacity messages that many users report at once | Login or session errors that clear in a private window |
| Page will not load at all | Site is unreachable for everyone and reports are spiking | Site loads fine on another network or device |
| It loads but answers fail | Requests time out or stall for large numbers of users simultaneously | Only your account or one browser is affected |
| Suddenly logged out | Provider has posted an authentication incident | Re-logging in or clearing cookies fixes it |
| Very slow but working | Widespread reports of slowness during a known busy period | Slow on your network only, fast on mobile data |
| Works on phone, not laptop (or the reverse) | Unlikely, this points to your setup | Device, browser, or network specific issue |
The single most reliable signal is timing and scale. If a failure starts at the same moment for many people, it is the service. If it is limited to one of your devices, one browser, or one network, the cause is local. Everything in the routine above is really just a way of testing that one question: is this happening to lots of people, or only to me?
If it is a real outage
Suppose you have run the checks and the verdict is clear: the service is down for everyone. The hardest part is over, because you now know that nothing you do will bring it back faster. Here is how to handle the wait calmly.
- Stop retrying aggressively. Hammering refresh or resubmitting the same prompt repeatedly will not help and can make a struggling service slower for everyone. One check every few minutes is plenty.
- Watch the live status, not your inbox. Keep the live dashboard open in a tab and glance at it now and then. When reports fall off and the status returns to normal, you will know it is safe to dive back in.
- Save your work. If you were in the middle of something, copy any text you can still see into a separate note so nothing is lost if the page reloads.
- Have a fallback ready. Outages rarely hit every tool at once. If one assistant is down, another may be working, so it helps to know which alternatives you can switch to for the task at hand.
- Be patient with the recovery. When a service comes back, the first few minutes can be shaky as everyone returns at once. If it feels slow right after an outage ends, give it a little time to settle.
For a fuller plan, including how to keep working while you wait and how to avoid losing progress, see the guide on what to do when an AI tool is down. It picks up exactly where this diagnostic leaves off.
The whole point of this routine is to replace guessing with a few quick, deliberate checks. Most “is it down or just me” moments resolve in under two minutes once you know the order to test things. Start with an independent monitor to see the big picture, then narrow it down with a private window, a second network, and a second device. By the time you reach the official status page, you usually already know the answer, and you can either fix a small local problem yourself or relax and wait out a real outage.
Frequently asked questions
What is the single fastest way to tell if an AI service is down for everyone?
Check an independent status monitor that collects real-time user reports. A sudden spike of complaints means the outage is widespread, not yours. The live dashboard at / tracks the major AI tools so one glance usually answers the question.
Why does the tool work in an incognito window but not my normal browser?
Your regular browser is probably holding stale data: an expired login session, a corrupted cookie, or a misbehaving extension. Clearing the site’s cookies or disabling extensions one at a time usually fixes it, since incognito loads the site fresh with none of that.
Should I trust the official status page or a crowd-based monitor?
Use both, but expect official pages to lag. Companies sometimes take a while to confirm an incident, so a page showing ‘all systems operational’ does not prove the service is healthy. An independent monitor often reflects a problem minutes earlier. See our methodology for how that works.
It works on my phone but not my laptop. Is the service down?
No. When a tool works on one device but not another, the service is up and the problem is specific to the first device: an outdated app, a browser setting, a security tool, or saved data that needs clearing.
The service really is down. What should I do now?
Stop retrying aggressively, keep the live dashboard open to watch for recovery, and save any visible work to a separate note. For a full plan on working through the wait, see what to do when an AI tool is down.