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Is DeepSeek not working for you? Here's how you can try to fix it

Some fixes are obvious and some aren't, but they're all worth trying if the AI chatbot isn't working.
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Published onJanuary 29, 2025

Deepseek on a smartphone
Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority

DeepSeek’s rise has been meteoric. In the space of its first week, it flew to the top of the App Store chart and erased billions from the stock values of US tech companies. As impressive as it is, no site or AI chatbot app is immune from the odd outage, and DeepSeek can go down from time to time. If you made the leap from ChatGPT to its latest competitor and you’re now finding that DeepSeek not working, We’ve got several fixes you can try.

Here are the obvious things to try if DeepSeek is down. Click on any of the links below to jump to that part of the article.

Check you’re online

Google Nest Wi Fi Pro router rear view showing ports and power cable
Kris Carlon / Android Authority

It might sound a little patronizing, but an internet outage is often the issue when a website suddenly stops working. It’s also one of the quickest problems to rule out. If DeepSeek is loading slowly or not at all, you should check if your internet connection is at fault.

Try visiting other websites to see if they load properly and checking your connection speed on a site such as SpeedTest. If you’re still experiencing issues, the problem could be with your connection rather than DeepSeek. If you’re on mobile, you could confirm this by switching off your Wi-Fi and trying DeepSeek on your mobile data.

Loss of internet connection could be caused by anything from a technical issue to an overdue bill from your provider.  A good place to start is by resetting your router. If that doesn’t solve the problem, try switching to a different connection on the same or a different network. If you’re still experiencing problems, you can dig deeper with our guides on Wi-Fi not working on your phone, fixing slow Wi-Fi, or mobile data not working.

If you use a VPN, try turning it off to see if this fixes the problem. You don’t need a VPN to access DeepSeek, but we know that Chinese sites are generally alert to VPN use, so it’s possible you’re being blocked because the IP of your VPN server has been flagged by DeepSeek. More generally, there could be a connection problem with the VPN server you’re using. Switching servers may solve this issue, but turning off the VPN altogether is the quickest way to identify if the VPN is the problem.

Check if DeepSeek is down

Ollama DeepSeek on Android
Robert Triggs / Android Authority

Once you’ve confirmed it’s not a network issue on your end, you should check if DeepSeek’s servers are down. Such a huge uptake in the early days of a website or app always brings scaling and other technical issues. We saw DeepSeek go down a couple of times within the first week, and its rival ChatGPT also experienced several issues in the earlier days.

DeepSeek has Service Status page that monitors the service, identifies issues, and provides updates on maintenance. All updates are in English, with some also in Chinese. It’s always possible that the page is part of an outage, in which case there are sites like IsDown and Down Detector that highlight if more users than usual are reporting issues with certain sites, apps, or services. Another way you can investigate is by searching for DeepSeek on social media sites such as X (formerly Twitter) to see if others on the platform are experiencing issues.

Log out and log back in

You sometimes leave yourself logged in to a website until your session times out, and that is not necessarily apparent when you return to the site. DeepSeek is no different, and if it’s not working, your session may have ended without you knowing. If this is the issue, logging out and in again should resolve it.

On the desktop version of DeepSeek, click on My Profile in the bottom left of the screen, then click on Log out. If you’re on the mobile app, select the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top left of the app and then tap your username at the bottom of the sidebar menu. You’ll see the Log out button on the next screen.

Try incognito mode or a different browser

Google Chrome Incognito Mode Youve gone incognito

DeepSeek not working could be a simple case of some incompatibility between your browser and the site. If this is the case, accessing DeepSeek via an incognito window or from a different browser might be a simple fix.

To open an incognito window in Chrome, tap the three-dots icon and select New Incognito tab. iPhone users have to tap on the Tabs icon first and then switch to Private mode. On the Chrome or Edge desktop browsers, click the three-dot menu in the top right and select New Incognito Window or New InPrivate Window, depending on the browser.

Clear your browser’s settings and cache

Alternative browser-related potential causes for DeepSeek appearing to be down are the settings and cache. Cached data includes temporary files, cookies, and stored site settings that help load websites faster, but over time, this data can become outdated or corrupted, leading to problems like loading issues or login failures.

Clearing your cache forces the browser to retrieve fresh data from the website, ensuring you’re accessing the latest version without conflicts from old stored files. Clearing cookies can fix login or authentication problems by resetting stored session data. Find out how in this guide to clearing your cache.

Certain browser settings or extensions are another element that can interfere with how a website functions. You probably already tried another browser on the last step, but you could try disabling extensions to see if that makes a difference. We have a walkthrough on disabling extensions here.

Use the DeepSeek mobile app

Deepseek reasoning
Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority

It isn’t uncommon for a service’s mobile app to be more functional than its browser version at times, and the opposite is also true. If DeepSeek is down for you on one platform, it’s always worth giving the other a try.

Give it a little time

Time is a great healer with respect to physical injuries, matters of the heart, or technical issues with AI chatbots. Whether it’s clear why DeepSeek is not working or you can’t figure out the issue, you might have little option but to wait and see if the problem gets resolved. Go make a coffee or take a walk and check back later.

Try a DeepSeek alternative

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 gemini pop up
Ryan Haines / Android Authority

DeepSeek is most famous for making a storming entry into an already crowded field of high-end AI chatbots, so you’re spoilt for choice. It might be your favorite, but there are a host of alternatives out there, and at least one of them is undoubtedly able to help you tackle whatever task you have in mind for DeepSeek.

We’ve already made our own DeepSeek vs. ChatGPT and DeepSeek vs. Gemini comparisons. We had our views, but the main takeaway is that they’re all excellent options, and there are plenty of others on the market to tide you over if DeepSeek is not working.

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