How do I tell an outage from my own rate limit?

The error text is the fastest tell. Rate limiting says you have reached a usage limit and usually names a reset time. An outage produces connection errors, 500-series responses, or timeouts with no mention of limits. The second tell is other people: if status.openai.com is clean and your colleagues are working normally, it is your account, not the service.

Does Codex still have a 5-hour limit?

On Plus and Business, yes. OpenAI suspended the Codex five-hour limit on 12 July 2026 and restored it for Plus on 25 August 2026. Its pricing page (checked 30 September 2026) lists a five-hour limit for Plus and Business, says Pro plans currently have none, and says weekly limits may also apply. This matters for diagnosis: a Plus user capped this afternoon is usually waiting hours, while a weekly cap can mean days. /status shows which limit you hit and when it resets.

Where can I see my own Codex usage and reset time?

Running /status inside Codex prints a snapshot at that moment. It answers the question once, which is the problem: you have to remember to ask, and by then you have usually already been cut off mid-task. SessionWatcher keeps the same figures in the Mac menu bar or the Windows taskbar and warns you at 70% and 90%, so you find out before the limit stops you rather than after.

Why does Codex say I am rate limited when I have barely used it?

Weekly caps are plan-dependent and shared across your usage of the whole week, not the current session. A heavy day on Monday can leave you capped on Thursday after a few short prompts. Seeing the weekly figure climb through the week is what makes this predictable instead of surprising.

Codex Status: Is Codex Down Right Now?

Name: SessionWatcher Demo – Monitor Claude & Codex Usage in macOS Menu Bar
Uploaded: 2026-02-27T00:00:00+00:00
Duration: 30 s
Description: See how SessionWatcher tracks AI coding tool usage, token limits, costs, and the 5-hour rate limit window directly from your macOS menu bar. Zero configuration, works in 10 seconds.

Codex is up

OpenAI reports no problem with Codex right now.

LiveChecked Oct 4, 14:49 UTC

Codex WebOperational
Codex APIOperational
CLIOperational
VS Code extensionOperational

If Codex has stopped working for you anyway, the cause is almost certainly your own usage limit, not OpenAI.

Source: status.openai.com, OpenAI’s official status page. Refreshes every minute while this page is open.

The panel above is OpenAI’s own reading of Codex, taken from status.openai.com, not a measurement of ours. Below: how to tell an outage from your own limit in thirty seconds, and the incidents OpenAI has published recently.

That is the common case, and it is worth saying plainly: real Codex outages do happen, but they are usually over within hours. Hitting a weekly cap is ordinary, happens to heavy users every week, and produces the same “it stopped working” feeling.

Telling the two apart in thirty seconds

The error text is the fastest tell. Rate limiting names a limit and usually a reset time. An outage gives you connection failures, 500-series responses, or timeouts that never mention limits at all. If the panel above is clean and other people are working normally, it is your account.

Know which limit you are waiting on. OpenAI suspended the Codex five-hour limit on 12 July 2026 and restored it for Plus on 25 August; Pro plans currently have none. So on Plus or Business you can hit either the five-hour limit, which clears within hours, or a weekly one, which takes longer. /status tells you which. The details are in the Codex 5-hour limit, explained.

Recent Codex incidents

The last incidents OpenAI published that named Codex, newest first. Outages happen, and they usually end within hours; a weekly cap does not.

Elevated errors across ChatGPT, Codex, and the API including the Agents API
Sep 29, 17:52 UTC · resolved after 5 h 21 min
Degraded
Issues with Codex
Sep 25, 22:58 UTC · resolved after 56 min
Major outage

Why a weekly cap catches people out

A weekly limit spends down across the whole week rather than the session in front of you. A heavy Monday can leave you capped on Thursday after three short prompts, which is exactly when it feels like a fault rather than a limit. The figure that would have warned you is visible the whole time – you just have to think to look at it.

Running /status inside Codex prints that snapshot. It works, and it answers the question once. The catch is that you have to remember to ask, and most people only think to ask after they have already been cut off in the middle of something.

Common questions

Is Codex down right now?: The live panel at the top of this page shows OpenAI's own status for Codex Web, the Codex CLI, the Codex API and the VS Code extension, read from status.openai.com and refreshed every minute. If OpenAI reports no incident for Codex, the problem is almost certainly local: a rate limit you have hit, an expired login, or a network issue on your machine. Genuine Codex outages are usually short; hitting a weekly cap is common and lasts until the window resets.
How do I tell an outage from my own rate limit?: The error text is the fastest tell. Rate limiting says you have reached a usage limit and usually names a reset time. An outage produces connection errors, 500-series responses, or timeouts with no mention of limits. The second tell is other people: if status.openai.com is clean and your colleagues are working normally, it is your account, not the service.
Does Codex still have a 5-hour limit?: On Plus and Business, yes. OpenAI suspended the Codex five-hour limit on 12 July 2026 and restored it for Plus on 25 August 2026. Its pricing page (checked 30 September 2026) lists a five-hour limit for Plus and Business, says Pro plans currently have none, and says weekly limits may also apply. This matters for diagnosis: a Plus user capped this afternoon is usually waiting hours, while a weekly cap can mean days. /status shows which limit you hit and when it resets.
Where can I see my own Codex usage and reset time?: Running /status inside Codex prints a snapshot at that moment. It answers the question once, which is the problem: you have to remember to ask, and by then you have usually already been cut off mid-task. SessionWatcher keeps the same figures in the Mac menu bar or the Windows taskbar and warns you at 70% and 90%, so you find out before the limit stops you rather than after.
Why does Codex say I am rate limited when I have barely used it?: Weekly caps are plan-dependent and shared across your usage of the whole week, not the current session. A heavy day on Monday can leave you capped on Thursday after a few short prompts. Seeing the weekly figure climb through the week is what makes this predictable instead of surprising.

SessionWatcher

Stop guessing whether it is you or them

Native app for the Mac menu bar and the Windows taskbar. Track Claude, Codex and 18 more tools' usage, costs, and rate limits in real time.

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