[ChatGPT Web] Archived Chats pagination can stall at offset=30, causing intermittent “Something went wrong”

Product / surface

• ChatGPT Web (chatgpt.com)
• Chrome on macOS
• Settings → Data controls → Archived chats
• Observed: August 17, 2026

What issue are you seeing?

The Archived chats manager intermittently fails to load and displays:

Something went wrong...

with a Retry button.

The failure is transient. In the same browser session, the Archived chats list can load normally, then fail again a few minutes later without any user action that should change the underlying archived conversations.

Browser Network evidence materially narrows the failure: the first archived-conversation page succeeds, while the next pagination request can remain pending with no bytes transferred.

Observed sequence

1. At approximately 1:27 AM ET, open Settings → Data controls → Archived chats.
2. The manager displays Something went wrong... and a Retry button instead of the archived-chat list.
3. A short time later, reopen/retry the same manager.
4. The archived-chat list loads normally.
5. At approximately 1:36 AM ET, open the same manager again.
6. The same Something went wrong... failure returns.
7. The manager later loads correctly again in the same browser session.

This fail → recover → fail → recover sequence makes the issue materially different from a permanently empty archive or intentional deletion state.

Browser Network evidence

During a failing occurrence:

• conversations?offset=0&limit=30&order=updated&is_archived=true returned HTTP 200 in about 1.19 s with a response of about 2.5 kB.
• The immediately following request conversations?offset=30&limit=30&order=updated&is_archived=true remained Pending with 0 bytes transferred during the failure state.
• Other ordinary page requests completed normally.
• The account WebSocket remained connected with status 101.

This suggests the failure can occur specifically when requesting the next archived-conversation page after the first 30 results.

This evidence does not yet establish whether the stall originates in the backend response path, client-side request cancellation/state, or another intermediary.

Steps to reproduce

1. Sign in to ChatGPT Web in Chrome on macOS.
2. Open Settings.
3. Open Data controls.
4. Open Archived chats.
5. Observe that the panel may display Something went wrong... with Retry instead of the archived-chat list.
6. Retry or reopen the same panel later.
7. Observe that it may load normally.
8. Reopen it again later and observe that the same failure can recur.
9. In DevTools → Network, inspect archived-conversation requests and observe whether the first page succeeds while the next pagination request remains pending.

The exact trigger is still intermittent, but the pagination boundary is now a concrete diagnostic signal.

Expected behavior

The Archived chats manager should reliably return the current archived-chat list and all subsequent pages whenever Settings → Data controls → Archived chats is opened.

If a pagination request fails transiently, the UI should recover on Retry and expose enough error state for diagnosis rather than replacing the retained archive with a generic Something went wrong... state.

Actual behavior

The same Archived chats manager alternates between:

• loading the archived-chat list normally; and
• showing Something went wrong... with Retry.

During at least one failure, the first archived page returned successfully while the next page request stalled.

No evidence currently indicates that the archived conversations themselves were deleted.

In-product feedback

The same behavior was submitted through the ChatGPT Web /feedback flow after filing this issue.

The Web feedback submission completed but did not display or return a Feedback ID, so there is no Feedback ID to include here.

Why this matters

The failure makes archived conversations appear inaccessible and creates uncertainty about whether the archive is intact. Because the same list can recover and fail again minutes later, and because the first archived page can succeed while later pagination stalls, this appears more consistent with an intermittent archived-list retrieval/pagination/state defect than with user-driven deletion.

Related reports checked

I searched the public openai/codex tracker before filing and did not find an exact ChatGPT Web report for this Archived chats manager failure.

Related but distinct reports include:

• #30312 — Archived chats page empty while archived local threads still exist; Codex Desktop/local-state report.
• #35805 — Windows desktop app does not display cloud archived chats while Web does.
• #38943 — ChatGPT Web Recents visibility changes with pin/sidebar organization state; separate sidebar/history rendering defect.

Those reports suggest a broader history/archive visibility failure family, but none is the same reproduction as this intermittent ChatGPT Web Settings → Archived chats pagination/error state.

Requested investigation

Please inspect the Web Archived chats manager request/render path, including:

1. is_archived=true pagination after the first 30 results;
2. the offset=30 request path;
3. retry/backoff behavior;
4. session/auth refresh interaction;
5. client cache/state invalidation;
6. client cancellation or request lifecycle handling;
7. transient backend response stalls; and
8. whether the UI can expose a recoverable pagination error without making retained archived conversations appear unavailable.

If the issue reproduces again, the next useful diagnostic is the final status, Timing, Response/Preview, or cancellation reason for the stalled offset=30 request.