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Twitter confirms outage was caused by 'inadvertent change'

All Twitter can tell us is that 'something went wrong.'

alexsl via Getty Images

Just a day after Twitter got caught up in an outrage cycle over whether or not it should allow leaks to a certain story and Senate Republicans floated the idea of sending a subpoena to CEO Jack Dorsey, the service is suddenly inaccessible for many people. While long-time Twitter users remember when the website’s “fail whale” made regular appearances, it’s usually stable these days, with the last major issue occurring as a result of that security breach in July.

Fatal Runtime Cherror
Fatal Runtime Cherror (Twitter)

Twitter’s API status page now reports the company is “Investigating Irregularity with Twitter APIs,” while the feeds appear to have gone dark around 5:35 PM ET, as noted by outage tracker Down Detector. We’ve contacted the company and will update this post when there are more details available.

The number one question, as always when Twitter goes down, is where we can go to talk about it while Twitter is down? Facebook? Discord? Reddit? Of course, people like Roberto Baldwin may find relief in the silence.

Update (6:40 PM): Per a post on Twitter’s developer forums, staff member Jessica Garson said “Thanks for reaching out, We are currently aware of this situation due to an outage and we’re working on resolving this shortly. A few endpoints seem to be coming back already.”

In a statement, a spokesperson said “We know people are having trouble Tweeting and using Twitter. We’re working to fix this issue as quickly as possible. We’ll share more when we have it and Tweet from @TwitterSupport when we can – stay tuned.”

Twitter’s official status page has also been updated to reflect the incident, and specifically notes “We have no evidence this outage is caused by a security breach or hack. We’re currently investigating internal root causes and will share more soon.”

Update (7:20 PM ET): We haven’t received an official update yet, but at least for some users the service is starting to work again. It’s restored enough that Twitter sent an update from its @TwitterSupport account, saying “Twitter has been down for many of you and we’re working to get it back up and running for everyone. We had some trouble with our internal systems and don’t have any evidence of a security breach or hack.”

Update (8:30 PM ET): According to Twitter Communications, the problem was caused by “an inadvertent change we made to our internal systems.” Everything should be back up and running soon, as many people report the service is working but they don’t have access to saved bookmarks on Twitter.

Update (10/16 12:20 AM ET): Twitter’s status page now lists the issue as resolved, and it appears that Bookmarks are working again as well. Engineering lead Michael Montano explained the issue as part of a planned migration that went awry.