OpenAI restores Codex after an outage produces 401 errors
OpenAI says Codex recovered from an outage that produced 401 errors and interrupted agent runs. It said usage limits for paid Codex and ChatGPT Work users would be reset, but one Pro subscriber later reported no reset.
TL;DR
- Codex returned 401 authentication errors during a full outage, a status notice captured by theo's status screenshot called a “401 backend key error,” and thsottiaux acknowledged that the service was down.
- The public incident named Codex Web, the Codex API, CLI, and the VS Code extension as affected surfaces. Recovery was later announced by reach_vb's recovery post and formally confirmed by OpenAIDevs' resolution post.
- Long-running work was interrupted rather than merely delayed: Yuchenj_UW's report described four tasks stuck reconnecting, while a r/OpenAICodex commenter said a recovered refactor had lost its prior thought chain.
- Paid users were promised a usage-limit reset across Codex and ChatGPT Work in thsottiaux' limit-reset post, echoed by reach_vb, though a subscriber's report said two $200 accounts had not received it.
The OpenAI incident page listed four affected Codex components and briefly said API-key login could unblock access. A detailed Windows Codex Desktop report described a ChatGPT-authenticated client, with custom API-key settings absent, receiving an sk-svcac... credential error.
The 401 response
OpenAI's incident page classified the event as a full outage. Its more specific public label was “Codex down due to 401 backend key error.”
The reports covered Codex and ChatGPT at once. BEBischof's error screenshot recorded the same failure, martinbowling asked whether ChatGPT was down too, and BEBischof's follow-up tagged thsottiaux as the errors spread.
An active ChatGPT Work task was also interrupted by the Codex endpoint error in imjustnewatai's screenshot.
API-key login workaround
The OpenAI status timeline recorded elevated errors at 7:03 p.m.; at 7:19 p.m., it said API-key login could unblock access. The published updates described an internal issue and mitigation, without naming the failed system.
Stuck agent runs
One user said four long-running tasks stayed on “Reconnecting forever.”
A separate active-run report said the environment recovered after a refactor, but its preceding thought-chain context did not. Saykudan's post documented the outage in the Codex subreddit as well.
Separate from this event, nicdunz's earlier report described ChatGPT Work randomly losing connection and dropping prompts. OpenAI has not linked that earlier behavior to the September 25 outage.
Restoration
The status-page timeline places identification of the root cause at 7:34 p.m., recovery monitoring at 7:45 p.m., and full recovery at 7:54 p.m.
Around the start of the incident, martinbowling said it had been failing since about 7 p.m. EST, and reach_vb said the team was working to restore it. reach_vb's update and another reach_vb reply then told users service should be back, while testingcatalog reported that it had returned.
OpenAI's developer account later stated that the outage was resolved in OpenAIDevs' resolution post.
Usage-limit reset
thsottiaux said OpenAI would reset usage limits for all paid users across Codex and ChatGPT Work.
Codex already had a “Usage limit resets” panel, which koltregaskes' earlier screenshot described as able to restore a five-hour limit, a weekly limit, or both. The compensation post did not specify which caps would be reset or how completion would appear.
testingcatalog's confirmation said a reset had arrived. One community post later said two $200 Pro accounts had not received a reset, while a $100 account had in a subscriber's report.