Users Report Anomalies in GPT-5.2 Pro’s Extended Thinking Mode — Loading Bar Missing

Users Report Anomalies in GPT-5.2 Pro’s Extended Thinking Mode — Loading Bar Missing

A growing number of users are reporting an unexpected behavioral change in OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 Pro model, specifically in its Extended Thinking mode. Instead of the familiar multi-second loading bar that traditionally signals the model’s deeper reasoning process, responses are now appearing almost instantaneously — leading to widespread confusion and speculation about whether the feature is broken, deprecated, or undergoing a silent upgrade.

The issue was first flagged on the r/OpenAI subreddit by user /u/devMem97, who noted that after multiple tests across different chat contexts — both inside and outside of project folders — the model no longer displayed the ‘Pro’ loading indicator. ‘I tried it several times yesterday in several chats... and again today,’ the user wrote. ‘It responds immediately without the usual loading bar.’ The post has since garnered over 1,200 upvotes and dozens of corroborating comments from users experiencing the same phenomenon.

While the absence of a visual loading bar might seem trivial, it carries significant psychological and functional weight for power users. The loading animation served not only as a visual cue that the model was engaging in multi-step reasoning but also as a trust signal: users interpreted its presence as evidence that the AI was performing complex cognitive tasks rather than delivering a surface-level response. Its disappearance has prompted concerns among developers, researchers, and enterprise users who rely on Extended Thinking for tasks requiring accuracy, contextual depth, and logical consistency — such as code generation, data analysis, and academic research.

Interestingly, OpenAI has not publicly acknowledged any changes to GPT-5.2 Pro’s behavior. Neither the company’s official blog nor its developer documentation has been updated to reflect a modification in how Extended Thinking operates. The GitHub repository for GPT-3 (https://github.com/openai/gpt-3), while not directly related to GPT-5.2 Pro, remains a reference point for many developers tracking OpenAI’s model evolution. However, it contains no information on GPT-5.2 Pro, which is not open-source and is only accessible via OpenAI’s proprietary API and ChatGPT interface.

One plausible explanation is that OpenAI has silently optimized the underlying inference pipeline, reducing latency without altering the model’s reasoning depth. This would align with recent industry trends where AI firms prioritize user experience by minimizing perceived delays, even if the computational workload remains unchanged. In such a scenario, the loading bar — once a necessary visual buffer — may have been deemed redundant and removed to enhance perceived speed.

Alternatively, some speculate that the Extended Thinking mode may be experiencing a bug, either due to a rollout error or a misconfiguration in the backend routing system. If the model is bypassing its reasoning layer entirely, users could be receiving standard GPT-4-level responses masquerading as ‘Pro’ outputs — potentially undermining the value proposition of the paid subscription tier.

As of now, OpenAI has not responded to inquiries from media outlets. The lack of transparency has fueled distrust among some segments of the user base. ‘If they’ve improved it, why not say so?’ commented one user. ‘If it’s broken, fix it. But don’t just make us guess.’

For now, users are advised to test the model’s output quality against known benchmarks — such as multi-step math problems or complex logical puzzles — to determine whether the reasoning capability remains intact despite the missing loading indicator. Developers monitoring API response times may also find clues in latency metrics, which could indicate whether the model is truly processing faster or simply skipping steps.

The incident underscores a broader tension in AI product design: the balance between transparency and efficiency. As models grow more sophisticated, users may need to rely less on visual cues and more on verifiable performance metrics. Whether this change is a feature or a flaw remains to be seen — but for now, the silence from OpenAI speaks volumes.