Twitter has long had an official Facebook application that allows users to update their Facebook status with tweets. It’s quite useful for those of us who don’t want to have to spend all day updating multiple services with the same messages. The app has over 250,000 monthly active users. But if you’re not already one of them, I have bad news: You’re not allowed to use it.
For the past several days, anyone who has tried to install the app has been greeted with the following message:
Error while loading page from session test
There are still a few kinks Facebook and the makers of session test are trying to iron out. We appreciate your patience as we try to fix these issues. Your problem has been logged – if it persists, please come back in a few days. Thanks!
A few days? Try a week now. And it seems that despite the issue being “logged” neither side seems to care much about fixing it. And what the hell is “session test”?
Well, it turns out Session Test is actually another Facebook application created by someone called “Bob McTest” — a Facebook profile with two friends and a crazy picture (below right). Session Test has 45,373 monthly active users and 182 fans, despite awful reviews (because as far as I know, all it does is block this Twitter app). Humorously, when you try to install Session Test, you get the same Session Test error message.
At first, I assumed this was some kind of test application Facebook created to log errors, but it says clearly on the page, “This application was not developed by Facebook.” So why is a second app popping up when you try to install the Twitter app? It may be some kind of exploit. When we contacted Facebook about it, they said they would look into it.
On the Sessions Test page you’ll find some rather humorous reviews and discussions from users who are pissed off about not being able to install the Twitter app. The Reviews area for example features messages like, “Steady errors for weeks now… Way to go… update: another week, still nothing….” and “errors!!!!!!!!!! f@ck!!!!” But you won’t find any kind of response from either side there.
And the Discussions area is even better. One thread called “I hate you” features a bunch of annoyed would-be Twitter/Facebook users. Another thread called “TWITTER” features more of the same. Finally, someone made a thread just to point out other apps created to workaround the problem, but really, it’s pretty ridiculous that neither side has even responded to any of this.
One user links to a Get Satisfaction thread also talking about the issue. But again, no response from anyone on either side. I know Facebook and Twitter may not be on the best terms right now following Twitter’s rejection of Facebook’s offer to buy the startup late last year. And the subsequent moves Facebook has taken to become more Twitter-like. But it’s the users of both services who are getting angry here.
After I reached out to both sides about the issue, both said they would look into it. Facebook doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem on their end as VP of Communication and Public Policy Elliot Schrage told us, “this is a question more appropriately posed to Twitter — they built the app!” But it seems pretty clear that one app is exploiting another one, which would seem to be at least partially Facebook’s problem. Meanwhile, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone tells us that he’s looking into it.
It seems hard to believe that neither side would even be aware of the issue, but then again, given that the two seem to be competing more and more, an app that allows you to use one of the services rather than the other is probably not at the top of the priority list for either side.
And the app still works for the users who had it installed before this issue arose. But if you try to change your username or password, you will get the error message as well.
This popped up a couple of days ago, it seemed like maintanence stuff, its not affecting me so much, just my friends trying to use it too.
I love my set-up, I tweet into twitterfox which sends to twitter which sends to facebook and then any comments on both end get sent back to my email. Lovely.
I actually fell for their “maintanence” line.
I wasted so many minutes clicking, re-clicking and re-visiting their apps page. I guessed the session test maybe for a day and waited the next day, and the next. Everything was a waste of time.
You should have posted this yesterday itself MG. A bit late.
Thats the same setup I have. Works great. I never update my Facebook status anymore because that doesn’t flow back to Twitter.
Speaking of exploited, it would seem with all the sites popping up with one click access spoofing and having passwords sent from bogus sites would be an issue, have not been in the depths of eiter twitter or facebooks api or app agreement – seems a security button or something. Would be needed, have not seen one, I know they were talking about verified accts from users how about the pop up sites we enter our twitter usernames and passwords to?
And now it will be a payments platform holding your credit card/bank account info?
exactly, i’ve come to trust sites like twitpic, but i’m pretty sure i could throw a web 2.0 looking site up in 30 minutes that looked similiar and tweet to others to try it out, we need a verified site certificate for new site accts like an ssl seal or something of that nature. Sure the scammers will slap those on, but at least the consumer has the opportunity to click it and see if it’s legit.
Actually, it has been like this for several months. I was trying to help a couple of my friends hook up their Twitter to their FB. I think that was back in March and that was the message we kept getting. Doesn’t look like anyone wants it fixed.
Interesting, some people have told us it’s been going on for longer too, but I’ve only seen evidence for the past week. Have any proof you want to share?
This thread is from March…see the comments
http://drupal.org/node/419540
Ahh you guys saw my FB status – maybe they’ll get it fixed soon. And I thought it was just me
@parislemon I reported the problem of being unable to add the twitter application in facebook on June 6th. I can forward you the email if you want. DM me your email address on Twitter and I’ll send you the details including the Twitter Ticket #.
I reported the problem via the support link on the FB app page as well as through Twitters support pages. I just got a generic twitter support email where they solved my issue and so I gave up. I liked the functionality of the selective twitter app better so didn’t bother to pursue resolution.
Oh and this wasn’t a “It’s B0rked” ticket; it was very specific as documented that I tried it on multiple browsers with 2 OSs and two FB accounts with no luck.
MG – Have you ever written a line of code? Do you understand how software development works? Does it occur to you that Facebook couldn’t care less about this, and that this is merely an adjunct feature for Twitter?
You’re completely useless: you spend your time bleating about matters of no import while somehow managing to convince the powers that be that you have Real Opinions of Real Merit. In all seriousness, you’re much more enjoyable to read than Steve Gillmor: you get to the point in half as many paragraphs, but that still doesn’t mean you have anything useful to say.
Much love,
Aaron
You could just say yawn..boring article.. kind of reaching for a story… but that is ok… which is why TC needs to get a video blogger.. does anyone else think it is silly in this video driven age they don’t have a tuber do a guest spot once a week… there are some interesting personalities out there… and man they could use some spice… no offence but Mike is the best writer they have and he barely writes anymore…
learn how to spell.
Found one spelling error. Couldn’t be a typo: c is pretty far from s.
American/British spelling differences.
We Canadian kids got caught in the middle, to this day I don’t know how to spell “practice/practise”.
go stick your head in a blender.. I grew up on msn.. and I was having sex so I was tired during English class…
Hey Aaron,
I’m going to the store later and I know you need some tampons, do you use regulars or supers?
Seems like its gonna take a while for this issue to be resolved since both parties are blaming each other. I use Spnbabble to send my messages to all of my social networking profiles like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed etc. If anyone wants to try, go to http://spnbabbl...itepronews.com/
Selective Twitter is great cause it let’s you chose which updates you want posted on Facebook by simply adding #fb at the end of specific tweets. As far as I can tell I haven’t had any problems with this…yet!
It broke when I changed my Twitter username. As a workaround, I’ve been using selective twitter app on FB. I just put in #fb in my tweets if I want them sent to Facebook too.
yeah, there’s a lot of love out there for selective twitter.
May I also suggest http://tweetpo.st as another alternative. In addition to the same functionality as Selective Twitter, it also changes @ mentions to real names, posts links to your wall (instead of status), and allows you to selectively exclude tweets.
(Full disclosure: I designed it
)
“Lovely” is the word. My whole life is interconnected because of this app. Plus my traffic is going thru the roof. So it’s pretty important that they fix it for others, I reckon.
MG: looks like Twitter has known about this since 4/9:
http://help.twi...5/entries/31112
(Unless that ticket refers to a different problem than the current one.)
Yeah, pretty sure this is something different. That’s just about posting updates.
I tried selective twitter and the tiny subtle differences it had from a regular status annoys me. I also don’t like having to put a hashtag in twitter.
I just want the old one back…why did i change my username..?!
We have still not been using Facebook to gain traffic. Our profile will be in the works soon, but it would be nice to have this program available when the time comes.
…
If the “session test” application really isn’t associated with Twitter, it’s likely they somehow got a hold of the Twitter app’s secret_key.
With that key you can make API calls on behalf of the app, and also update certain app properties (such as the URL to direct to upon installation of the app).
-Mike
Or, the creator of the Twitter app on Facebook wasn’t made by an employee of Twitter.
You do realize that anybody can make an app on Facebook called Twitter. In fact, I can go on there right now and make a new app on Facebook called “Twitter” and hook it up just as Bob McTest’s app was hooked up.
This article is pretty much the most retarded thing on the planet.
Yep, I got this error just the other day. Thought it was fishy.
I thought it was just me… thanks for the update… i miss that feature not working
SCHEFF
Could this be related to ongoing issues in creating applications on the FB side?
If you like twitter and you have a mac the best possible solution is actually here: http://www.tweet-r.com/
Are you sure “session test” isn’t just a name Facebook uses when communicating with the application API to test whether a session works?
I don’t think that error is referring to an application called session test at all.
Yes it is.. I’ve had this error for the past couple of weeks..
http://twitpic.com/8qr2p
another great well researched blog posting that talks about twitter!!!!!!!!!! yah!!!!!!!
wth? this article contains a number of inaccuracies:
- the ‘Kinks’ message is a generic message that pops up when an application host does not respond correctly
- the ‘twitter’ app, upon install does a false redirection to apps.facebook.com/session instead of http://apps.fac...twitter/session (try it, it works)
- Poor Bob has nothing to do with it. Twitter’s ingenious engineers did it again
crap. it’s http://apps.fac...twitter/session
That’s what I thought.
finally someone posts about this! twitter is a piece of trash. i’ve been emailing their support about this and all they do is send back automated replies. seriously making a facebook app is quite easy. you would think they could hire like a summer high school intern to fix it for them but no!
igniguy is right – the only problem here is that the URI you’re forwarded to after installing the Twitter app mistakenly forwards you to the session test application. Manually visiting the correct URI works fine. I just installed the Twitter app for the first time to test this out and watched what happened with the network traffic to confirm. No exploits in this particular case.
That’s weird. I just pointed someone to it last night and they signed up for it and successfully used it.
I just changed my display name on Twitter and also decided to take my website’s Twitter account and connect it to my website’s Facebook page instead of my personal Facebook page.
Bad move in hindsight since I now am running into the issue described in the post when I try to link Twitter to Facebook. I wasted about 2 hours doing different things to no avail yesterday.
Just use selective twitter, that’s what i’ve done!
they are not gonna do anything about twitter from the looks of things! Urgh!
With tweetdeck allowing you to post to facebook, who needs that twitter app?
The ability to post your feed to a page has been broken for even longer. Here’s a work around, pull the RSS from twitter into notes. Only problem is, it doesn’t update on any kind of a predictable schedule.
I had the same issue until I found out the Twitter application was added to your list of Facebook applications (even after seeing that error page). Check the application tab at the bottom left and click on, “Twitter” from the pull up menu. Once I clicked on it, it asked me to log in to Twitter.
There are hundreds – if not thousands – with this problem, and all of them are VERY annoyed. Some of us even suspect that Facebook is sabotaging Twitter during its newfound popularity.
>>>> Read the comments on Twitter by searching for #FBTWITFAIL and post your own! Spread this around until they pay attention! <<<<
dude just go to http://apps.fac...twitter/session
OMG thanks igniguy! http://apps.fac...twitter/session
The session test app is mine. It seems Techcrunch deleted my last comment, I’m guessing because they don’t believe me.
Facebook has shut down the Bob McTest account, so I can’t prove anything through that. So, for proof, here’s a bunch of the emails that came from people complaining about the session test app: http://imgur.com/BvbV4
The bug has nothing to do with me, or malicious intent. The session test app had the url apps.facebook.com/session – twitter were redirecting to that instead of apps.facebook.com/twitter/session – that’s it.
The photo is of my sister in an 80s one piece ski suit. Used for all my test accounts because it’s hilarious.
right ..! Thats the same setup I have