Plus usage is draining while I’m locked out for 5 hours — I’ve now lost 3 entire usage windows

I’m wondering if anyone else on ChatGPT Plus has experienced this, because something very strange has been happening with my usage limits over the last couple of days. I pay $20/month for Plus and I’ve been using ChatGPT heavily while developing a website over the past few weeks. Since Astra came out, I’ve regularly been hitting my 5-hour usage limit. That part, while inconvenient, I understand. There is a limit, I hit it, and I wait. I’ve actually built a routine around it. When I hit the limit, I set a timer for 5 hours so I know exactly when I can get back to development. A lot of the tasks I’m working on don’t finish before I hit the limit, so managing those windows efficiently has become pretty important. The problem is that my usage now appears to be draining while I’m locked out and not using ChatGPT at all. This has happened to me three times in roughly the last two days. Here’s what happens: I hit my 5-hour limit. I stop using ChatGPT completely and wait the full 5 hours. I have no automated tasks running, no agents working in the background, and nothing connected externally that should be consuming usage. When the 5 hours are over, I return expecting to have a fresh usage window. The first time this happened, I typed my first prompt and pressed Enter. ChatGPT didn’t even begin thinking about the prompt. Instead, I immediately received another message telling me that I had exhausted my usage and needed to wait another 5 hours . I checked my usage afterward, and sure enough, it showed that my 5-hour allowance was already gone. What makes this even stranger is that my weekly allowance is also decreasing during these periods. So this isn’t simply the 5-hour reset failing to happen correctly. Something appears to actually be consuming/accounting for usage while I’m not using the service. After noticing this, I started checking my usage before sending any prompt at all whenever a lockout ended. The same thing happened again. And again. At this point I have effectively lost three entire 5-hour usage windows without getting any work done during them. What really concerns me is the weekly usage. Yesterday at approximately 1 PM , my weekly allowance was still above 65% . It is now sitting at approximately 4% . During that period I have not been actively prompting my agents. A substantial portion of that time has literally been spent waiting for these 5-hour lockouts to expire. I don’t have automated tasks running in ChatGPT. I don’t have anything connected to Hermes or another service that should secretly be making requests. As far as I am aware, there is nothing happening on my account that should explain this usage. I already contacted OpenAI support when it happened the first time. I spoke with the support chatbot and I’m currently waiting for a human to review the case. But since opening the support request, it has happened two more times . At this point it has gone beyond an inconvenient usage restriction. I am paying for a subscription with a finite amount of usage, and some of that usage appears to be disappearing while I am specifically prevented from using the product. That means I’m effectively losing part of what I paid for. It has also cost me a significant amount of development time because I structure my work around these 5-hour windows. I wait five hours expecting to continue working, only to discover that the next window has somehow already been consumed and I need to wait another five hours. I’m asking OpenAI to investigate the usage logs on my account and explain exactly what is consuming this usage . I’m also requesting a refund/credit because, assuming the usage meter is accurate, I’ve lost a substantial portion of the service I paid for through no action on my part. Has anyone else experienced this recently? Particularly: Your 5-hour limit expires, but the next window is already exhausted before you use it. Your weekly allowance decreases while you aren’t prompting anything. You return after waiting five hours and immediately receive another five-hour lockout. You’ve seen unusually large drops in weekly usage that don’t correspond with your actual activity. If anyone has experienced the same thing, I’d be interested to know whether support was able to identify the cause or restore/refund the missing usage.