What should I check first when Claude is not working?

Open Anthropic's official status page at status.claude.com. If the issue is on Anthropic's side, there is nothing you can do but wait for recovery — and you should know that before spending time on other troubleshooting.

Where is the Claude status page?

It is at https://status.claude.com/. It shows the live status of each service (Web, API, Claude Code, etc.) plus past incident history.

What does "this is taking longer than usual" mean?

The servers are busy. Wait a few minutes, or refresh the page and resend. If it keeps happening, try a less busy time of day.

How often does Claude have outages?

Major outages happen a few times a month at most, but shorter degradations (slower responses) are more frequent. The status page incident history shows the pattern.

Claude Won't Open or Respond? A Troubleshooting Playbook • Zenken AI

“It was working fine a minute ago, and now Claude just stopped.”

It happens. Generative AI is useful, but a server hiccup or a network issue can take it offline without warning.

This article walks through what to check first and then gives you symptom-by-symptom fixes. In most cases, identifying the cause is most of the work — the fix is straightforward once you know what’s wrong.

First step: check Anthropic’s status page

When Claude misbehaves, there is exactly one thing to do first:

Open status.claude.com.

It is Anthropic’s official live status dashboard:

Indicator	Meaning
All Systems Operational	Anthropic is fine — check your own setup
Degraded Performance	Servers are congested — wait and retry
Partial Outage	Some features are down — wait for recovery
Major Outage	Service-wide outage — wait for recovery

How to read the status page

Each Claude service is listed separately:

claude.ai — browser and app chat
platform.claude.com — developer console (formerly console.anthropic.com)
Claude API (api.anthropic.com) — used by integrations and internal business systems
Claude Code — the CLI for developers
Claude Cowork — autonomous-task feature in the desktop app
Claude for Government — government and public-sector service

A green check next to your service means Anthropic’s side is healthy. Yellow or orange means there’s an incident.

What to do when there is an incident

If the status page is reporting an incident, there is nothing you can do. Anthropic engineers are on it. Wait for recovery.

The Subscribe to Updates link at the bottom of the page emails you when status changes
Past incident history shows roughly how long similar outages have lasted
For major outages, Anthropic’s official X (Twitter) account usually posts updates

Status is green but Claude still won’t work

If the status page is “All Systems Operational” but Claude isn’t working for you, the issue is on your side. Walk through the symptoms below.

Symptom 1: page won’t load or stays blank

Likely causes and fixes

① Stale browser cache

Press Ctrl + Shift + Delete (Windows) or Cmd + Shift + Delete (Mac)
Clear “Cached images and files”
Reopen claude.ai

② A browser extension is interfering

Ad blockers and VPN extensions sometimes block Claude’s traffic.

Open claude.ai in an incognito / private window (Ctrl + Shift + N)
If it works, an extension is the culprit
Disable extensions one at a time to find which one

③ Outdated browser

Claude uses modern web APIs. Use the current version of Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox.

Symptom 2: messages won’t send or you get an error

“Unknown network error” / “Network problem”

A network issue.

Confirm other websites (e.g. Google) load
If they don’t, reconnect to Wi-Fi or restart your router
If they do, and you’re on a VPN, try turning the VPN off
If you’re on a corporate network, ask IT whether the firewall is blocking claude.ai

“Unexpected server error” / “Internal Server Error”

A transient issue on Anthropic’s side.

Wait 10–30 seconds and resend
If that doesn’t work, refresh the page (F5 or Ctrl + R)
If still no luck, wait 15–30 minutes

“This is taking longer than usual. Retrying shortly.”

Servers are busy. Just wait.

Closing the page may discard the in-progress reply
If you see this repeatedly, try off-peak hours (early morning or late night in your local time)
Asia-Pacific business hours overlap with U.S. nighttime, so they are often less crowded

“Failed to send message”

Check whether your message is too long (per-plan input limits are documented in Claude Usage Limits Explained)
If you have an attachment, try sending the text alone first
Open a new chat and try sending there

Symptom 3: Claude’s reply stalls or freezes

Generation cuts off mid-sentence

Click the “Continue generating” button if it appears
Otherwise, send the message “please continue”
If it keeps happening, break the request into smaller pieces

Very long replies (thousands of words) can stall mid-generation. Splitting the request — “give me the first of three points” and so on — is more reliable.

Whole UI is frozen / unresponsive

Wait about 5 seconds
Refresh the page (F5)
Close the tab and reopen claude.ai in a new tab
If you’re on the desktop app, quit and relaunch

Symptom 4: hit a usage limit

If you see “limit reached” or “Rate limit exceeded”, you’ve hit your plan’s usage limit — not an error per se.

Plan	Approx. limit	Reset window
Free	~15–40 msgs / 5 hours	5 hours (rolling)
Pro	~45 msgs / 5 hours	5 hours
Max 5x	~225 msgs / 5 hours	5 hours
Max 20x	~900 msgs / 5 hours	5 hours

What to do

Wait — limits reset on a rolling window
Switch model — if you hit the cap on Opus 4.7 / 4.6, switching to Sonnet 4.6 or Haiku 4.5 may keep you going
Upgrade — if you hit limits often, see the plan comparison

For full per-plan details, see Claude Usage Limits Explained.

Symptom 5: desktop app won’t launch

“Failed to start Claude workspace”

Fully quit the app (right-click the taskbar / Dock icon → Quit)
Restart your computer
If still broken, uninstall and reinstall the latest version from the official download page

App opens but won’t sign in

Check your internet connection
Try signing in to claude.ai in your browser
If browser sign-in works but the app doesn’t, the app’s cache may be stale — reinstall it

For installation walkthroughs see Claude Desktop App Guide.

Verification email isn’t arriving

Check spam / promotions
Confirm there’s no typo in your email
Wait a few minutes, then click “Resend”
If you signed up with Google originally, use Google login

“This account is not supported”

Claude isn’t available in some countries. Turn off any VPN and try again
Confirm you meet the age requirement (18+)

If none of the above help

Contact Anthropic support.

Go to support.claude.com
Use the chat icon in the bottom right or click “Submit a request”
Including the following speeds up resolution:
- Your plan (Free / Pro / Max etc.)
- Exact error message text (a screenshot is even better)
- Environment (browser + version, or desktop app)
- When the issue started

Summary: troubleshooting flow

When Claude isn’t working, run through this list in order:

Check status.claude.com — wait if there’s an incident
Confirm your internet is working — try other sites
Clear browser cache / try incognito
Wait and retry — could just be congestion
Still broken? Open a ticket at Anthropic support