So, as just about everyone on Twitter was talking about today, the possibility of a Twitpocalypse was upon us. The site tracking the possible failure of certain third-party Twitter apps not built to handle the signed integer limit, believed the crisis would happen tomorrow early in the morning (in the U.S.) — but Twitter pre-empted the problem by triggering it today instead, so all hands would be on deck to attack the problem. And it worked.
“As planned, we averted the twitpocalypse with a deploy this afternoon,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone tells us. Excellent news. But there is one small temporary casualty of the problem, Twitter Search has been paused for about an hour, I’m told. But it should be caught up and back to normal soon, says Stone.
So, everyone can calm down, for now. Just like the Y2K bug that much of the world freaked out about a decade ago, the Twitpocalypse came and went with nary a problem.
Update: As a few commenters have noted, and I’ve just confirmed, the popular Twitter app, Twitterrific, is completely broken right now due to API errors — at least the iPhone version. Some reports have said TweetDeck is facing similar problems.
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did anyone really panic?
Will the world survive? Can we live that long without twitter search?
Anyone called Bruce Willis to help us?
Twitteriffic API’s are ****’in up.
Too bad… i loved the image of the dead bird. Nice!
I’ll miss it : (
yes, we survived and we will survive again.
Glad all went well. They hype was getting a few of my twitter pals nervous. Ah, twitter withdrawal averted. A good thing.
i been calm hr, bp normal
I have to agree, was anyone really panicing. I for one have gotten rather used to twitter’s instability in the relatively short time since I became an active member
Anyone notice how ALL the top three stories on top of TC today are about Twitter?
What gives TwitterCrunch? Why don’t you guys start a new site covering Twitter only so that the rest of us who are tired of it can read TC without aggravation?
Seriously, give us an option to FILTER OUT all the Twitter crap. Please! I can’t take it anymore and I’m visiting TC less and less because of it.
Steve
Agreed. Pathetic.
Techcrunch is a blog about technology and startups, correct? Twitter is a massively popular and successful startup, it makes no sense for them not to report on it. If you dislike such stories, ignore them
Exactly.
Keep em coming. The majorty are interested. It’s just the small noisey group that keep complaining.
Report on it, fine. Just don’t report every little sniff, this is silly!
Massively successful? How much money did they make?
Oh, that’s right. They made none.
NEXT!
PS: Most people don’t give a crap about Twitter. Only self-promoters care about it (look up Harvard study).
Many may not actually give a crap (or any more polite second thought) including me, but still use it and most don’t complain either.
As for making money, why is every one SO OBSESSED with the money? it’s one of the lesser important things that techcrunch keeps an eye on for us.
I’d complain about not being able to see all my tweets in time, but that’s not a really big deal.
~Steve
oh good, now they have time to create a business model!
MG (why are you hiding your real name anyway?), do you think the world as we know it has a slimmest chance of survival if Twitter’s datacenter is bombed beyond recovery?
Crisis averted? Twitterific is busted!
Indeed. Updated.
I will be ranting about this “Twitpocalypse” charade tonight on “Twitter Time Live” – tune in @ 10 PM ET to The Cockroach at http://bit.ly/766pV
By the way, even if this whole thing did go down, how many people would it really affect anyway – only folks using outdated Twitter apps, which can’t be a huge number, right?
I have to agree with “dipeek”; does this mean they are actually going to make money or are the going to borrow more like Facebook?
That would be an interesting article. Why does Facebook, which has a gilzillion users, have to borrow more money?
Anyone got an answer?
Ah….duh!
Wish some Adult Supervision would happen at Twitter….everyone there is a kid with little experience and knowledge blowing each other in the bathrooms.
I’ve heard that quite a bit, that fellatio is rampant in their south-park offices.
Ev and Biz give and get all the time under the desk.
Tech guys are no good….spend too much time in theory and have little practice. No QA / Staging / Prod Holy trinity, just shoot from the hip idiocy.
yawn.
I helped with this story. Im a totally cool typsta. Good Lookin Too.
Who cares ?
Twitteriffic’s response
http://iconfact.../permalink/2129
Nice. Thanks Ted.
yeah because the world would have really missed out on hundreds of “long day, going to bed now” tweets
I’m using TweetDeck, and I haven’t had a problem at all…I read a bunch of tweets about Twitteriffic, though. My Tweet Deck’s fine though…
Thanks for the update.
does that mean there has been 2,147,483,647 tweets?
No, it means that there has been _no more than_ 2,147,483,647 tweets.
I believe Nambu is broken, too. But due to the twitpocalypse? not sure.
http://search.t.../search?q=nambu
Picture of the bug in action – http://i41.tiny...com/2mfb4wp.png
Twitter is a good handy service. I, myself, am a moderately active user. But, anyways, I don’t think a small glitch deserved two large posts. Maybe the writer can weigh the importance of things and then write.
And I don’t think anyone was panicking. Who cares if my twitterfox breaks for some time? Its not the end of the world! Too my hype for a small thing.
just because twitter isn’t making money itself doesn’t mean twitter isn’t making people a lot of money, so while it might not effect your pocket, there are already a number of people using twitter to fuel their business.
Glad they fixed it, I can’t imagine the world without Twitter…
http://twitter.com/john____doe
I wondered what everyone was going crazy about. Silly me and my TwitterFox add-on. We’re doing fine and don’t understand what all that fuss was about. :/
Tweetie’s search and trending features have stopped working – could it be because of the Twitpocalyse? Twitter search is working once again, and Tweetie does show which topics are trending but you can’t search any of them.
I can confirm that my Twitter application (Comindwork-Twitter integration) was broken due to this issue (as well as all of the .Net applications which rely on Twitterizer library).
I rushed to fix it and managed to do it in a matter of minutes. Thus, I think “Twitpocalypse” effect will be fixed by all Twitter clients today.
The best Twitter trending news site ever! @ http://bit.ly/trendz They said TweetDeck is screwing up and we won’t know until Saturday evening.
Twitter is a good handy service.
I think a nice change. http://www.face...com/hamiaydogan
Hey guys..
I’m not techy so if I’m wrong set me straight.. actually this is more of a Q.
Since the limit has been reached.. Tweets are now negative…. correct?
So will they turn around and go back to positive once they reach zero??
Or does this “Twitpocalypse” happen again??
heh, im having a problem with tweet deck right now!
yes i was sure it was going to be me more titanic like, had chips and coca cola ready, but…it was averted, and the next time will be when?lol
Software developers should keep themselves up-to-date. Otherwise, they can face similar problems always…