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Widespread Twitter 2FA issue “We cannot send a text message to this phone” error

35 points by robtaylor ↗ HN
Lots of reports users locked out of accounts due to 2FA codes not being sent, error appears wrong ( We cannot send a text message to this phone number because its operator is not supported) as Twitter is not even firing the code. UK and India users mainly surfacing for problem.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%20We%20cannot%20send%20a%20text%20message%20to%20this%20phone%20number%20because%20its%20operator%20is%20not%20supported&src=recent_search_click&f=live

Do NOT reset passwords without removing phone first or you will be logged out totally without a way in.

14 comments

[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 39.0 ms ] thread
sturza
Sounds dramatic, i get that the consequence is unacceptable(not able to login to a social network), but not sure it deserves the drama. I’m not trying to be insesitive.
WallyFunk
I registered several Twitter accounts over the years and each time I was prompted to provide a phone number so they could verify the account (they typically send out a verification code via SMS to confirm).

But a year ago I setup an account and I still haven't been prompted to provide a phone number. This is some weird anomaly in Twitter's systems, and I'd love to know if there's some set of behaviors or steps I took to not get that prompt.

I have a phone number on standby in-case they ask for one, but I'm kind of enjoying not having to provide one since phone numbers are linked to meat-space identities and I enjoy my new found 'anonymity', although Twitter probably has other ways besides phone numbers to learn who you really are, so it's more a pseudonymous account.

jhoelzel
at this point im basically waiting for a twitter scandal where a whistleblower developer comes forward and explains how twitter now has created its own bots and are actively faking conversations through chapgpt :D
pilsetnieks
ChapGPT:

> Hello there, old chap! I'm an AI model, but I'll tell you what, I'm no ordinary one. I may not be human, but I've got a bit of personality, I'll tell you that much. I can process information faster than a supercomputer and I can learn just about anything you throw at me. I may not have a pulse, but I can still give you a right good run for your money. So don't go underestimating me, old chap, I may be made of circuitry and code, but I'm still a force to be reckoned with.

Actually written by ChatGPT. It does appear to have trouble with Cockney rhyming slang, though. Maybe we'll have to resort to shibboleths like those in the future to discern people from AI.

Stranger43
And now it starts, this is exactly the kind of issue everyone was predicting to start happen when Musk fired half the company and started pushing the remaining staff towards the door, and more or less in the timeline expected.

Somehow some routine task related to the integration with the service that sends out 2fa authentication codes was not done, it could be non-technical like an forgotten/missed bill payment, or some technical bug/change that broke the integration.

drstewart
Worse bugs than this have occurred at fully staffed companies like Github, Google, or Facebook, so why is this the end of the world?
Stranger43
It's not the end of the world(or even twitter) unless the reason they missed a payment is that twitter is insolvent, it's merely a indication that twitter isn't bound for new greatness anytime soon.

The likely scenario for pre-musk twitter is a slow decent towards irrelevance which frankly might not be a bad thing for society. And the way it's likely to happen is death by a thousand cuts as the roughly 250million(mostly non-us based btw) non celebrity users of twitters start to be annoyed with the twitter experience and drift towards different sources for casual entertainment.

drstewart
>it's merely a indication that twitter isn't bound for new greatness anytime soon.

So what was the indication when Github's database was falling over daily last year?

>The likely scenario for pre-musk twitter is a slow decent towards irrelevance which frankly might not be a bad thing for society. And the way it's likely to happen is death by a thousand cuts as the roughly 250million(mostly non-us based btw) non celebrity users of twitters start to be annoyed with the twitter experience and drift towards different sources for casual entertainment.

You're conflating product issues with technical issues now.

Stranger43
The product is the technical execution when your twitter.

Big changes causing downtime will always happen what will kill a company is a string of low level annoyances that just keep getting worse especially if the company don't really have a product other then "convenience" to sell.

leros
I worked tangential to a service like this. Every month or so we had to update a library that would verify phone numbers as new phone blocks were setup by providers. It was a huge pain in the butt. If we missed upgrading, we'd inevitably start getting customer complaints that their phone wasn't being accepted.
kace91
> And now it starts

No, now it ends.

(sorry, couldn't resist)

gunlab99093
Twitter problem fix we cannot send a text message to this phone number because itz operator is not supported . Please problem fix