If ChatGPT keeps spinning, shows “Something went wrong,” or refreshing doesn’t help, it’s most likely an issue with your network, browser cache, or account session. Below is a set of ChatGPT troubleshooting steps organized from most to least common—following them usually restores normal operation quickly.
First, confirm two things: service status and account session
Before starting ChatGPT troubleshooting, open status.openai.com to check whether there are service disruptions; if the official service is in an outage period, repeatedly refreshing will only make it lag more. Then log out and log back in once to refresh the session token; many “system errors” are actually caused by an expired or abnormal old session.
Endless loading / page won’t load: prioritize fixing the browser environment
For this kind of ChatGPT troubleshooting, try opening it in an incognito window first—this quickly rules out extension and cache issues. If it works in incognito, clear this site’s cache and cookies in your normal window, and temporarily disable ad blockers, script managers, and privacy/anti-tracking extensions. If it still doesn’t work, switching to a different browser engine (for example, from certain Chromium shell browsers to Chrome/Edge) often works immediately.
Messages won’t send or “Network error”: check the network and request size
When you see messages like “Network error” or “Error in message stream,” the focus of ChatGPT troubleshooting is the stability of your network path: first switch networks (Wi‑Fi/cellular/hotspot), then disable any proxy or security-software rules that may block WebSockets. Next, shorten your input—especially when pasting very long text, code blocks, or lots of tables at once, which is more likely to break; sending in segments is usually more reliable than repeatedly retrying.
“Conversation not found” or model unavailable: start with session and permissions
If you see “Conversation not found,” don’t rush to assume the record is gone: refresh the sidebar under the same account, search for the conversation title, or create a new chat and then return to the original link—this often restores it. If a model is unavailable or a button is grayed out, that’s a “feature degradation” scenario within ChatGPT troubleshooting; switch back to the default model and reduce concurrent actions (for example, asking questions in multiple tabs at the same time). If none of the above works, keep a screenshot of the error along with the time it occurred, browser version, and network environment, and submit a ticket through the Help Center—this can help identify account-level restrictions or anomalies more quickly.
