Error code: Out of Memory
The message
Error code: Out of MemoryWhat it means
Your browser killed the ChatGPT tab because it used up the memory it's allowed. It's the browser's error, and on ChatGPT it mostly comes from very long conversations.
What to do
Reload with Ctrl+Shift+R (Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac), close other tabs, and carry on in a new chat. If one conversation crashes every time you open it, report it to OpenAI Support with the chat link.
In Chrome this replaces the whole ChatGPT page with the sad-face crash screen. Edge, which is built on Chromium, reports the same error code on its own crash page.
Aw, Snap!
Something went wrong while displaying this webpage.
Error code: Out of MemoryAll three lines come from the browser, which is telling you the tab died. We read the strings in Chromium's source, as of its September 25, 2026 main branch, to see what "Out of Memory" is attached to.
What the browser is telling you
Each tab runs as its own process. On Windows, when a tab's memory allocator can't get more memory, Chromium ends that process with a special code (0xE0000008, which a comment in the source says was picked because 0x00000008 is Windows' "not enough memory" error). The crash screen turns that number into the text Out of Memory. The Reload button just starts the page again.
If it crashes again straight away, Chrome on Windows changes the title to "Not enough memory to open this page" and suggests "Try closing other tabs or programs to free up memory." It's the same problem.
Why ChatGPT hits it
Long conversations. A March 2026 report on OpenAI's GitHub described one chat whose page reached about 1.7 GB in Chrome, took over 30 seconds to open, lagged when typing, and crashed after the user pasted around 500 lines of code. Worse, the chat then wouldn't reopen from bookmarks or history. An OpenAI account replied in July that GitHub was the wrong place and pointed to Support.
An older forum thread (May 2024) had people crashing every few chats in Edge. One of them recorded Chrome's memory climbing while GPT-4o streamed a reply, and found that a normal refresh or "New chat" didn't bring it down but Ctrl+F5 did. In another thread the person said ChatGPT was the only thing open, so this isn't always about having forty tabs.
How to get going again
- Hard refresh: Ctrl+Shift+R, or Cmd+Shift+R on a Mac. OpenAI's own troubleshooting page lists it, and plain F5 may not free the memory.
- Close other heavy tabs and programs, especially if the crash screen tells you to.
- Move to a new chat. OpenAI's help page says to "Start a new chat if the conversation is long or has many turns." Ask the old chat for a summary first if it will still load, then paste that in.
- If one conversation crashes every time, open ChatGPT from the home page instead of the chat's link, then report it to Support with the conversation URL.
Not the same as "Memory full"
ChatGPT has a feature called Memory, which saves facts about you between chats, and it can fill up. When it's full ChatGPT shows a notice in the chat and the page keeps working. An OpenAI forum moderator explained the difference in 2024: that "memory" is "the information you carry over from one conversation to the next instead of working memory from your actual device", and the fix is deleting saved memories in settings. Deleting memories won't help with the browser error, and closing tabs won't help with that one.
Other lines the same feature prints
Match yours against these if the one at the top of the page is not quite it. They come from the same code and mean related things.
Aw, Snap! Something went wrong while displaying this webpage. Error code: Out of MemoryNot enough memory to open this pageTry closing other tabs or programs to free up memory.