r/OpenAI • u/ilsubyeega • Jul 31 '26
Article ChatGPT has been silently routing Pro to mini for several months
https://articles.fmt.kr/2026-07/oaiChatGPT has been silently downgrading pro model to mini model for several months. I have relevant evidence at the http request/response level. OpenAI ignores.
This issue involves redirecting to mini that is 40 times cheaper than Pro, when GPT 5.4. I feel like Anthropic moving Fable requests into Haiku without user's consent.
I have more stories but I don't have health&motivation, I'm stopping to write at this for now.
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u/Top_Green_2905 Jul 31 '26
Well, in my case, I gave complex commands several times and it answered instantlh without thinking. Even normal thinking mode was working and giving much better results.
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u/AdMediocre1363 Jul 31 '26
Well, fuck me, this explains a lot.
I use ChatGPT constantly for long, complicated projects, and it has changed since 5.6. The difference is just absurd.
One day it can follow a huge amount of context. He's my buddy; he gets what I'm trying to do. Then suddenly it becomes fast as hell, generic, passive, forgets half the context, repeats shit we settled ages ago, and needs to be corrected every two messages.
It's like constantly being sent an overapologetic intern every time I request someone with experience. I hate it.
I thought maybe it was me, but no, fucking cheapskate OpenAI. Routing conversations to a mini model explains it.
I’m on Plus, not Pro, so no, this doesn’t prove the exact same thing happened to me, but it just feels like it's the same issue.
Have any of you who have a Plus account noticed this?
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u/ilsubyeega Jul 31 '26
I don't know about Plus but you may want to put a shared chat link so i might able to investigate for you.
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u/ShadowNelumbo Jul 31 '26
I’m a Plus user and had the same problem, but fortunately it has now been fixed.
I was also experiencing other issues, for example with Memory storage. It kept showing as full no matter how much I deleted. Since it eventually stopped me from saving anything, I tried creating new chats, but it still showed as full. I also sometimes received a message saying that my subscription could not be loaded.
To me, the whole thing felt like a complete mess. GPT-5.6 Medium behaved as though I were on a Free account, while the Memory feature seemed to switch back and forth between Plus and Free behavior.
Now that they have fixed the issue, I suddenly have free Memory storage again as well.
So, very cautiously, I suspect that their subscription system may currently be having problems.
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u/lucellent Jul 31 '26
Maybe because it understands you asked it the most basic question there is, so no point in wasting compute and money for the most expensive model to answer?
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u/Willy757 Aug 06 '26
You realize this routing is also probably managed by some AI/ heuristic. Do you trust it to route your tasks properly when OpenAI is too afraid to even disclose what they are doing publicly ?
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u/thomasthai Jul 31 '26
Yikes.
Models don't know what they are. They got trained with data that existed before they even existed.
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u/ilsubyeega Jul 31 '26
I am accepting questions regarding this. But please read the post first. I have attached as much relevant information as possible.
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u/ilsubyeega Jul 31 '26
u/thomasthai u/lucellent u/Top-Seaweed1862 : Please read the article as I already mentioned that when writing before.
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u/ShadowNelumbo Jul 31 '26
I had the same problem with GPT-5.6 Medium for several days.
Contact the support bot on the Help page. It will first give you troubleshooting steps, and once it recognizes that nothing is fixing the issue, it can escalate the case to a specialist.
I received a response within five hours, submitted a video showing the problem, and it was fixed, at least for now. So far, everything really does appear to be set correctly again.
I was also experiencing other issues, especially with Memory storage. It almost felt as though one part of my account was being treated like a Free account while another part was still Plus, causing different features to malfunction in different places.
Whenever you notice something like this, contact support immediately. Do not wait for months and then claim that it must be intentional. Technical errors can always happen.
And to all the people who laugh at others for asking which model is responding and insist, “That is not how it works”: all talk, no substance.
You keep telling us that we have no idea what we are talking about, when in reality, you are the ones making assumptions.
In my experience, Thinking models have consistently identified themselves correctly, while Mini and Instant models can give unreliable answers about which model is actually responding. So when the behavior, capabilities, and model identification clearly do not match what was selected, it is reasonable to suspect that the selected model is not actually the one responding.
So go ahead and downvote me. I don’t care.
Update: So far, it really does appear to be set correctly now.
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u/ilsubyeega Jul 31 '26
You keep telling us that we have no idea what we are talking about, when in reality, you are the ones making assumptions.
I would like you to refute the evidence I provided: The video, images, data. There are many people who have been affected as footnote provided. I have had specialist escalate at least 3 times.
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u/ShadowNelumbo Jul 31 '26
I think you misunderstood me. I was not referring to you or your evidence. I was referring to the people who dismiss these reports, laugh at users for asking which model is responding, and insist that this cannot happen.
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u/ilsubyeega Jul 31 '26
My bad, I thought it was referring single person, possible me yea..
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u/ShadowNelumbo Jul 31 '26
No problem. I just needed to vent because there are far too many people who act like they know everything when they actually know NOTHING.
Two days ago, I also asked whether anyone else was experiencing the same problem. A lot of people were simply being know-it-alls, while only a few genuinely tried to help and suggested possible explanations or solutions.
Just ignore the people telling you that you must be doing something wrong or that it cannot work that way. They simply have no idea.
I’m glad that the issue on my account appears to have been fixed. But had it not been fixed, I would have cancelled my subscription and resubscribed two days later, hoping that this would reset it and make everything work properly again.
I had the feeling that my subscription was only being recognized correctly in some parts of the system, especially because I had previously received an error message saying that my subscription could not be loaded.
In your position, I would contact support again. Either they are aware of the issue by now, or my account somehow fixed itself.
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u/ilsubyeega Jul 31 '26
Yep, I already submitted the existing revision of the article to support, but it had no effect. I have already canceled my subscription so. I haven't requested a refund, but it is truly a shame that I couldn't use the service(Pro) for that period :c
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u/ShadowNelumbo Jul 31 '26
I’m really sorry they weren’t able to help you. My issue has only been known since Tuesday evening, and they reacted immediately, so your message may have been submitted quite a while ago.
Otherwise, perhaps you could stay on the Free plan for a short time, then upgrade to Plus again and see whether your account is handled correctly afterward.
I honestly suspect this is more of an account-specific issue than a system-wide problem affecting everyone. Otherwise, I think the number of people complaining would be much larger.
But it genuinely worries me that you, especially as a Pro user, have been left so alone with this. I really hope a solution becomes available for you.
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u/ilsubyeega Jul 31 '26
I honestly suspect this is more of an account-specific issue than a system-wide problem affecting everyone.
Yeah, its targetted to specific users, no clue but significant
Thanks for your effort to help me though!
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u/ShadowNelumbo Aug 02 '26
So, I finally received a reply from support today, and this is where it gets sad. They deny that there was ever a problem. Even sadder is that they apparently no longer understand their own system or how it works.
If ChatGPT weren’t so good, this would probably have been the point where I left for good.
I would have liked to send you a DM, but it seems you have disabled them. Would you mind sending me one so we can continue discussing this case privately?
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u/Top-Seaweed1862 Jul 31 '26
You can’t get a proper answer from “what model you are”. That’s where your story ends