Why ChatGPT's fan-out queries went missing in September 2026

Published 6 November 2026. Updated 6 November 2026.

ChatGPT's fan-out queries went missing because on 14 September 2026 ChatGPT stopped saving their text in the stored conversation. It still searches and still saves the pages it fetched and cited. The query text now travels only in the live answer stream, where it is wiped again before the answer finishes, so any tool that reads a saved chat or the finished stream shows zero queries.

Our guide to how ChatGPT, Claude and Grok search the web explains where those queries come from. This page records what broke: what changed in the data on 14 September, what a saved conversation still holds, how to tell why your own tool shows nothing, and the ways to get the queries back. It draws on ChatGPT conversations we captured on 9 and 14 September 2026 while fixing Only Fan Out.

What changed in ChatGPT's saved conversations on 14 September 2026?

The search steps stayed and their contents went. We compared two saved conversations captured five days apart, both from ChatGPT's thinking model answering a request for local business recommendations in Singapore.

In the saved conversation	9 September 2026	14 September 2026
Search steps (web.run calls)	3, each holding its search lines	2, each holding one empty text part
Query text	17 queries: 7 business, 7 web and 3 image	None, under any field
Pages fetched	Saved, with URL, title and snippet	Saved, with URL, title and snippet
Pages cited	Saved	Saved

Before the change, each search step held its searches as short lines, one per search, giving the kind of search, the query and a freshness window in days. That format was new too. Suganthan Mohanadasan documented it in late August in his read of ChatGPT's rebuilt search tool. After 14 September the same steps are empty. We walked every field in the 14 September file, result URLs included, and none of them holds a query.

Has ChatGPT hidden its queries before?

Yes, several times in 2026, and each time in a different way. A tool that broke in March broke for a different reason from one that broke in August or September, which is why a fix from one month often fails the next.

When	What changed	Reported by
From March 2026	The query field came back empty with GPT-5.3 as the default model, was gone under GPT-5.4 and reappeared under GPT-5.6 in August	Little Green Agency
Early August 2026	search_model_queries renamed to search_queries in some answers	Suganthan Mohanadasan's tracker
16 to 20 August 2026	The JSON search call and the search_queries field replaced by search lines inside the web.run step, still saved with the conversation	Suganthan Mohanadasan
14 September 2026	Query text removed from the saved conversation and wiped from the search step during the live stream	Our own captures

Where do ChatGPT's queries appear now?

They appear only in the live answer stream, and only for a moment. In the streams we recorded, the queries arrive in one of two ways: as a search_model_queries list attached to the search step, or as search lines written into the web.run step a few characters at a time.

In the second way, before the answer finishes, a later event in the same stream replaces the web.run step's content with an empty text part. A tool that waits for the finished message, or rebuilds the stream into its final state, ends up with the same empty step the saved copy has. To keep the queries, a tool has to copy the text as it passes.

Some turns from the thinking model never send the text at all and show only a label such as "Searching 6 websites". Our walkthrough for finding ChatGPT's queries in Chrome DevTools shows how to spot that case in the raw stream.

What does a saved ChatGPT conversation still tell you?

Everything about the pages survived the change, so an old chat still answers questions about sources.

• How many searches ran, because each web.run step is still there with no text in it.
• The progress labels ChatGPT showed, such as "Searching the web" or "Searching 6 websites".
• One site icon for each domain in the search results.
• Every page fetched, with its URL, title and snippet.
• Every page cited in the answer.

Our 14 September capture held 78 fetched pages and 15 cited ones, with 7 pages in both lists. That is enough to see which of your pages ChatGPT read and which it used, as our post on fetched vs cited sources sets out. What you lose is the link from each page back to the query that found it.

Why does your tool show zero ChatGPT queries?

Match what you see to a row below. Each row points to a different cause, and only the first is the 14 September change.

What you see	Likely cause	What to do
Sources but no queries, on chats from 14 September 2026 onwards	The tool reads the saved conversation	Use a tool that reads the live stream, and record as you send
No queries on chats saved between late August and 14 September	The tool only looks for search_model_queries or search_queries	Read the search lines inside each web.run step instead
A count of searches with no query text	ChatGPT sent no text for that turn, or the reader missed it before it was wiped	Open DevTools before you send and search the raw stream
Queries for part of a long answer, then nothing	ChatGPT moved the rest of the answer to a second streaming request	The reader has to follow that second request too
No search steps at all	ChatGPT answered without searching	Ask something that needs current facts

How do you get ChatGPT's fan-out queries back?

Record them as the answer arrives. No tool can recover them afterwards.

1. Record while you send. A stream reader such as Only Fan Out lists each turn's queries as the answer comes in. Our post on how to see what ChatGPT searched compares the methods that still work.
2. After an extension update, reload any open ChatGPT tab, because an old tab cannot talk to the new version.
3. Treat older chats as sources only. A chat saved since 14 September 2026 never held its query text, so no tool can read it back. Asking ChatGPT afterwards to list the searches it ran only produces new guesses, as Aiso's guide to ChatGPT's fan-out queries warns.
4. Use the API for research into how this kind of search behaves. OpenAI's web search guide for developers says a search action in the Responses API "will usually (but not always)" include its queries. Those are searches the API ran for your prompt, separate from the ones ChatGPT ran in your conversation.

What did Only Fan Out change to read them again?

Version 1.3.0, submitted on 14 September 2026 and now live on the Chrome Web Store, reads ChatGPT's live stream as the answer arrives. It also:

• keeps query text that a later event in the stream wipes out;
• follows an answer that ChatGPT moves to a second streaming request;
• keeps a partial stream if ChatGPT cuts an answer short;
• stops the later re-read of the saved conversation, which has no queries, from replacing the ones already captured.

When ChatGPT runs searches without sending their text, the side panel says so, for example "ChatGPT ran 2 web searches but did not include the query text in this response", and leaves the query list empty. The extension reads only what ChatGPT already sends to your tab, and the Only Fan Out home page lists everything it captures.

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