6 ms·

Does anybody else get an error every time you click a link to twitter? Edit* To be clear it seems to be browser independent. I use firefox on my mac and safari

Does anybody else get an error every time you click a link to twitter? Edit* To be clear it seems to be browser independent. I use firefox on my mac and safari on my iphone and it seems every time I click a link to twitter I get an error and have to refresh the page.

jabsters 5y ago
Yup. I add ?t=20 to the end of the url and that fixes it most of the time.
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  Why does this work? I get similar issues on reddit as well. I had assumed this was them trying to push me onto the app. Is it actually a safari bug?
  - flatiron 5y ago
    Passing in nonsense parameters usually just busts the cache.
  - smithcoin 5y ago
    I have been getting errors on reddit lately when I click any comment section not logged in. Something along the lines of "repeated errors on <<site>>" and the page is white.
masswerk 5y ago
I get regularly errors with Safari on M1, the engine is apparently too fast for Twitter.
Etheryte 5y ago
Same here, oddly enough it seems to work fine in incognito, despite the setup being identical, enabled extensions and all.
klyrs 5y ago
It's a gentle reminder that twitter is bad for your health and best avoided.
- FabHK 5y ago
  And it can't deliver 280 characters without JavaScript, because HTML can't deal with text, presumably.
ArchOversight 5y ago
It's due to some javascript not running correctly when you open the link in a new tab. Refreshing the page works to load the content.
maxk42 5y ago
Twitter restricts traffic from certain referers [sic]. Turn off referer reporting in your browser and try again - should work fine. Alternatively, copy / paste the URL into your browser in a new tab and watch as magically the link works.
Jayschwa 5y ago
I had this problem too and I started using https://nitter.net https://nitter.net mirrors to "fix" it. A nice side-effect is that Nitter's UI is much less bloated.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  This. Note that numerous of the Nitter instances are themselves rate-limted or blocked by Twitter, though I've found several that work reliably. Disabling JS on Twitter helps ensure I remember to use Nitter ;-)
dhruvrrp 5y ago
Go to about:serviceworkers (for Firefox, not sure about safari) and remove anything related to twitter. That should fix this (till the next buggy service worker)
- rasz 5y ago
  Nah. I have completely disabled service workers and it still happens.
matsemann 5y ago
I got 181 upvotes on my comment about the same problems here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24906211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24906211 So lots of people experience it, it's a long thread of examples. I can never load a twitter link on the first try no matter the device. This one took 5-6 refreshes to show up. Wonder why it hasn't been fixed for over a year. Surely they know about the problem?
tyingq 5y ago
Note that it's only when you click from here. If you cut/paste the url into a new tab, it works every time. I don't know if it's a Twitter bug with requests that have the Referer set, or a deliberate thing with HN as the Referer.
mdoms 5y ago
I'm having trouble finding the source, but this has been happening for a long time and, unbelievably, it happens by design. Twitter intentionally errors out tweets linked from third parties under some conditions in order to evade techniques used to fingerprint users. Essentially if I control a certain number of Twitter accounts and I have the handles of some of my own website users, I can selectively block those each of those users from different twitter accounts. In the background of my web site I can attempt to load tweets from all of my accounts and time how long these requests take. Because blocked accounts load much faster than actual tweet threads I can statistically identify the users of my website by the combination of fast-loading tweets. The errors you get loading tweets not directly referred from Twitter is a consequence of Twitter attempting to circumvent this.

jabsters 5y ago

Yup. I add ?t=20 to the end of the url and that fixes it most of the time.

spywaregorilla 5y ago
Why does this work? I get similar issues on reddit as well. I had assumed this was them trying to push me onto the app. Is it actually a safari bug?
- flatiron 5y ago
  Passing in nonsense parameters usually just busts the cache.
- smithcoin 5y ago
  I have been getting errors on reddit lately when I click any comment section not logged in. Something along the lines of "repeated errors on <<site>>" and the page is white.

masswerk 5y ago

I get regularly errors with Safari on M1, the engine is apparently too fast for Twitter.

Etheryte 5y ago

Same here, oddly enough it seems to work fine in incognito, despite the setup being identical, enabled extensions and all.

klyrs 5y ago

It's a gentle reminder that twitter is bad for your health and best avoided.

FabHK 5y ago
And it can't deliver 280 characters without JavaScript, because HTML can't deal with text, presumably.

ArchOversight 5y ago

It's due to some javascript not running correctly when you open the link in a new tab. Refreshing the page works to load the content.

maxk42 5y ago

Twitter restricts traffic from certain referers [sic]. Turn off referer reporting in your browser and try again - should work fine. Alternatively, copy / paste the URL into your browser in a new tab and watch as magically the link works.

Jayschwa 5y ago

I had this problem too and I started using https://nitter.net https://nitter.net mirrors to "fix" it. A nice side-effect is that Nitter's UI is much less bloated.

dredmorbius 5y ago
This. Note that numerous of the Nitter instances are themselves rate-limted or blocked by Twitter, though I've found several that work reliably. Disabling JS on Twitter helps ensure I remember to use Nitter ;-)

dhruvrrp 5y ago

Go to about:serviceworkers (for Firefox, not sure about safari) and remove anything related to twitter. That should fix this (till the next buggy service worker)

rasz 5y ago
Nah. I have completely disabled service workers and it still happens.

matsemann 5y ago

I got 181 upvotes on my comment about the same problems here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24906211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24906211 So lots of people experience it, it's a long thread of examples. I can never load a twitter link on the first try no matter the device. This one took 5-6 refreshes to show up. Wonder why it hasn't been fixed for over a year. Surely they know about the problem?

tyingq 5y ago

Note that it's only when you click from here. If you cut/paste the url into a new tab, it works every time. I don't know if it's a Twitter bug with requests that have the Referer set, or a deliberate thing with HN as the Referer.

mdoms 5y ago

I'm having trouble finding the source, but this has been happening for a long time and, unbelievably, it happens by design. Twitter intentionally errors out tweets linked from third parties under some conditions in order to evade techniques used to fingerprint users. Essentially if I control a certain number of Twitter accounts and I have the handles of some of my own website users, I can selectively block those each of those users from different twitter accounts. In the background of my web site I can attempt to load tweets from all of my accounts and time how long these requests take. Because blocked accounts load much faster than actual tweet threads I can statistically identify the users of my website by the combination of fast-loading tweets. The errors you get loading tweets not directly referred from Twitter is a consequence of Twitter attempting to circumvent this.