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My Twitter account disappeared

9 points by adrusi ↗ HN
I'm hesitant to essentially ask for technical support here on HN, but there doesn't seem to be any way for me to contact twitter about this issue, and normally the public form to ask for support about this issue would be — well, twitter...

Today my twitter account simply disappeared. I found out when keybase notified me that it had found that my existing proof of twitter account ownership had been deleted. I tried logging in and failed to do so, and when I looked at my public profile https://twitter.com/adrusi it 404'd. This is not an account suspension because that would look like https://twitter.com/nero, and it's not a case of a deactivated account because logging in is supposed to automatically reactivate according to twitter's support https://support.twitter.com/forms

I'd be interested to know if anyone here has been affected by this same problem, or if anyone knows a way to contact twitter directly.

Edit: it seems that it I can access it through my linode VPS and my friend can access it through his VPN, but it fails both on my home internet and on my cellular.

30 comments

[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 70.3 ms ] thread
cuonic
Doesn't work for me, have you tried to reset your password, or create a new account with the same email address / username ?
adrusi
Trying to reset my password just tells me that they don't have an account with the specified username, I'm hesitant to try to create an account, that seems like it could cause problems.
slater
Seems to work here (on Comcast biz ISP, maybe your ISP is having difficulties?)
adrusi
Definitely not just my ISP, since it also doesn't work on keybase.io's servers, or on various other people's home networks (but it works on some), or on my cellular, or on a shell I have access to in the Netherlands.
rad999
I have the same problem too. Its saying it doesnt recognise my email address username either.
rose91
I am having this same problem does anyone have an idea as to whats happening? They cant trace an email address or username and its saying there is no account with my username?
adrusi
I created a post that's more likely to get wider attention from the HN audience [1]. So far it's not clear to me what's happening, it doesn't look like there's any kind of ISP or geographic pattern. Just in case though, it would be helpful if you could share your approximate region and ISP.

[1] http://adrusi.com/twitter-experiencing-serious-issues-for-ce...

bluescrn
Mine has just vanished too (twitter.com/bluescrn) in the same way. Searching for 'twitter account disappeared' on Twitter led me here...

I haven't been tweeting anything controversial/ban-worthy, and was reasonably secure (unique randomly-generated password)

(No sign of other personal accounts being accessed, I'm now paranoid about my PC/password manager being compromised... but maybe it's just a Twitter glitch of some kind)

(edit: From my UK-based ISP, I can't see my account or /adrusi. But if I connect from a US IP address, via VPN, I can see both...)

adrusi
Doesn't work on my home internet either, but — like my own account — it works on my VPS.

Was your latest retweet this?

PlayCanvas vs Unity WebGL: http://blog.playcanvas.com/playcanvas-versus-unity-webgl/ … #perfmatters #webgl #javascript #gamedevpic. twitter.com/kns1HD9nzH

Edit:

FYI it looks like you were hellbanned for posting that tabloid link, which is unfortunate. Maybe we can get dang in here to fix that.

I haven't found any geographic pattern, with about 12 samples. If it's a region-based caching issue, it's not with coarse regions.

[dead] bluescrn
Yeah, that was the last thing on my timeline before the glitch

Everything seems OK when logged in via the VPN. Maybe they have some sort of region-based caching/replication going on, and it's gone a bit wrong?

cuonic
This is really weird, trying to create an account returns an invalid HTTP response, Twitter seems to be glitching badly.
adrusi
Can confirm this issue, my browser ended up download an text/html 404 response.
taebunny
Mine has also vanished twitter.com/tavsankacis and I'm from Germany
roddamon
Just searched on google and found this page with exact same problem. Twitter find no account with my email or phone. What is happening?! :(
adrusi
Can you share your approximate geographic location, along with which ISP you use and your twitter handle?
roddamon
Sure. I'm living in Turkey and my ISP is Turk Telekom.
theformalmouse
Hi, I appreciate you highlighting this. I was quite worried receiving an e-mail from Keybase about this, nut looks like others are having the same problem :(
theformalmouse
...However it seems to be working in the US strangely? Used Pingdom Tools to see what happens and it seems to be showing up correctly, but tried it from Sweden and a complete different story.
taebunny
My account vanished about two hours ago too!! I was so confused, I really hope I can find some answers (maybe on here even)
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
udomoody
EDIT: Just reappeared Same here my twitter account just disappeared.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
theformalmouse
Mine has reappeared: @theformalmouse. ISP: BT, in the UK. Keep an eye, everyone elses may come back :)
taebunny
Mine reappeared too.. but now it's gone again? D:
[dead] adaorakaycee
Omg mine has disappeared aswell!!! Apparently you're supposed to give it a day
taebunny
I have updates: https://twitter.com/rabbitsescape/status/762416396290719748 I can now search and find my main-twitter...but that's what it looks like right now. "this user does not exist"; I can't follow my account via my back-up one.. UPDATE: I DIDNT SIGN OUT ON MY TWITTER MOBILE, I TWEETED AND IT WORKED?? I tried it multiple times, but out of ~10 tweets only 3 got published...

(I still can't login though..)

taebunny
Nevermind, it's gone again ((((:
adrusi
Looks like they have mostly begun to reappear, mine included.

Here's some data I've collected about the distribution of the problem:

        Germany                 unknown         personal        affected
        USA                     Pingdom         business        unaffected
        Turkey                  Turk Telekom    personal        affected
        unknown                 Comcast         business        unaffected
        USA                     Keybase         business        affected
        Catonsville, USA        Internet2       business        unaffected
        Newark, USA             Linode          business        unaffected
        New Orleans, USA        unknown         personal?       unaffected
        DC, USA                 Verizon         personal        affected
        Maryland, USA           T-Mobile        personal        affected
        United Kingdom          British Telecom personal        affected
        Maryland, USA           Verizon         personal        affected
        Boston, USA             unknown         personal        affected
        United Kingdom          unknown         personal        affected
        USA                     unknown         business        unaffected
The only pattern I see is that all business networks other than Keybase are unaffected.

Edit: I still can't log in though, successful login redirects me to the homepage (which is different from what happens when I enter the wrong credentials) without logging me in.

serje
you can add here Romania RDS personal not working Romania Romtelecom personal working

also i can see both accounts on romtelecom and none on RDS