Troubleshooting the OpenAI Connection
Overview
If your chatbot says “The chat assistant is temporarily unavailable”, the cause is almost always your OpenAI account: no credit, or a key that was deleted. WPiko Chatbot checks the connection and tells you exactly what’s wrong and how to fix it.
Where to See the Problem
- Dashboard: the status changes to “Needs Attention”, and Attention Required explains the problem with a button to fix it.
- Setup & AI → API Key: shows the connection status. Click Test connection to check again (it sends one tiny test message).
- The chatbot itself: when you chat while logged in as an admin, you see the real reason and a link to fix it. Visitors only see your friendly error message.
- Manage & Tools → Debug Log: technical details for each failure.
Messages and How to Fix Them
| Message | What it means | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Your OpenAI account has no credit | The key works, but the prepaid API balance is empty. A ChatGPT subscription doesn’t count. | Add credit (for example $5) in OpenAI’s billing settings, wait a few minutes, then click Test connection. |
| OpenAI rejected your API key | The key was mistyped, deleted or revoked, or its project was archived. | Create a new secret key in OpenAI and save it in Setup & AI → API Key. |
| Your OpenAI account cannot use the selected model | Some newer models require organization verification. | Verify your organization in OpenAI, or choose another model in AI Configuration. |
| OpenAI refused the request | The key’s project doesn’t have permission. | Check the key’s project permissions. It needs access to the Responses API. |
| OpenAI is rate-limiting this API key | Too many requests or tokens per minute for your usage tier. | Visitors can retry in a moment. New accounts have low limits that rise automatically with use. Consider User Limits. |
| OpenAI took too long to answer | Usually temporary. | If it keeps happening, lower the reasoning effort or choose a faster model. |
| Your server could not connect to api.openai.com | Your host blocks outgoing connections. | Ask your hosting provider to allow outgoing HTTPS connections to api.openai.com. |
| OpenAI is having problems right now | An OpenAI server error (HTTP 5xx), not caused by your settings. | Wait and check OpenAI’s status page. |
| OpenAI could not process the request | A setting isn’t accepted, for example the model or reasoning effort. | Review AI Configuration and the Debug Log. |
Requests that fail because the account has no credit aren’t retried, so visitors get the error message straight away instead of waiting.
Other Common Issues
- “Your chatbot is not visible on your site yet”: turn on the floating chatbot (the Dashboard has a button) or add the
[wpiko_chatbot]shortcode to a page. - Visitors don’t see the chatbot but you do: no API key is saved yet. Until then it’s shown only to admins.
- “Conversation storage is unavailable”: the conversations database table is missing. Check the Debug Log, and try deactivating and reactivating the plugin.
