DeepSeek offers full usage credits after nearly five-hour chatbot, API outage

DeepSeek offers user refunds after suffering another major outage

DeepSeek has apologised and promised compensation after its chatbot and API services went offline for nearly five hours, disrupting access for users.

The Chinese artificial intelligence firm will issue users a full refund for any consumption between October 8 and October 14, according to a notice posted on its application programming interface (API) platform.

The refunds will be provided in the form of credits, covering usage during the specified period.

Services restored after nearly five hours

DeepSeek’s namesake chatbot and its API services for the V4 Pro and V4.1 Flash models went offline on Thursday morning.

The disruption affected users globally, before the services were restored over four hours and 50 minutes later at around 1pm.

The outage covered both the chatbot and API access, making the incident significant for users relying on DeepSeek’s services through its application and developer platform.

The company’s apology and refund offer followed the service interruption, with the compensation limited to consumption during the dates listed in its notice.

Users reported error messages

Some users turned to social media to share the error messages they encountered while trying to use DeepSeek during the outage.

One of the messages reported by users read: “server temporarily unavailable”.

Source: South China Morning Post