As much as I talk positively about ChatGPT at times it can be difficult to use.
For example lately it has shown more errors. I use it everyday both personally and professionally and I will see at least once “Network error try again”. Now this didn’t used to happen and I even got a different laptop with a newer WiFi card so I doubt it is the computer at fault. In addition it shows the full bars and is 20 feet away from the WAP. That is Wireless Access point people.
Now maybe a month ago I was doing some research for a meeting I was going to have in two hours. I knew the answer I just wanted to give the customer some documentation. I had done some work and got it almost perfect. Then it showed the Network error above and since refreshing the browser often fixes that problem I did that. Once I did that, the entire chat disappeared from the left side and I felt sick.
I needed that report and since I had spent so much time on it I felt frustrated. I didn’t know how to troubleshoot this. How can you deal with data that just disappears in ChatGPT? The left sidebar where the chat shows its name disappeared and I hadn’t deleted it. I tried refreshing again and nothing.
I thought perhaps I could recreate the work but due to the time limit I wasn’t sure that I could get it done in time for the meeting. Pressure! In frustration I closed the tab. I was angry at ChatGPT for having this error and ruining my work. Then after I realized that this wasn’t going to help me, I reopened a new tab and when it came back up the tab was showing and my data was there!
I was so grateful that it worked. I also realized something. That if I am working on researching something I can’t trust that ChatGPT will save my work. So now if I get something really good then I save it to a Word file or other platform just to backup my work. I won’t put myself at the mercy of ChatGPT again. If something failed once it will fail again, and I won’t let that happen and be unprepared.
Mostly you can trust ChatGPT to work, but when it doesn’t, you should plan ahead and do your work before you need it.