back to article Twitter topples over

A failed upgrade left the world Twitter-less for several hours last night. The service has now been restored, although users might be getting messages in a mixed-up order for an hour or two. A message on Twitter's blog blamed the failure on "the failed enhancement of a new approach to timeline caching". An update at 11.51pm …

COMMENTS

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  1. Smallbrainfield
    Paris Hilton

    Rest of planet shrugs

    I wonder how many tw*ts disappeared up their own arseholes without an outlet?

    Paris because there isn't a 'meh' icon.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Classic Web 2.0

    "Hey, we thought of some neat new things to do in software."

    "Cool, take it live immediately!"

    "Shouldn't we, you know, test it first?"

    "BUUUUHHHHHHH."

    1. Duncan Hothersall
      Thumb Up

      Releasing is the new testing

      That's what all the cool developers say.

      1. Code Monkey

        Me too

        But I was never cool

  3. jake Silver badge

    When you have no roots ...

    ... you tend to fall over.

    Anyone who has grown squash knows what I'm talking about.

  4. Liam Pennington
    Flame

    Tw**t

    Those of us who don't mind a bit of live-tweeting events like the World Cup or the XBox Kinect launch or other such life-affirming events do get out the house when Twitter falls down! It has been failing more often these past few weeks, one wonders if the servers really can cope with so many 140-character opinions on the oil spill, ConDem governance, Big Brother, the World Cup....

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    How is this news?

    Twitter's always down, who cares if the reason is different this time?

  6. TeeCee Gold badge
    WTF?

    'Ang on.......

    Wasn't the world supposed to stop turning or something?

  7. Jimboom
    Happy

    as the baby in dinosaurs once said

    againagainagain

  8. Ball boy Silver badge
    Coat

    Better title?

    "Twitter twatted"

    'tis all I have to say

  9. Gene Poole
    WTF?

    Really?

    I didn't even notice.

  10. Rogerborg

    Big deal

    What kind of pathetic saddo wastes their time writing pointless messages on random intartubes sites?

    1. Mark Sourbutts
      Thumb Up

      ha ha ha ha

      That made me laugh...

    2. Tony S
      Coat

      @Rogerborg

      Look in the mirror.....

  11. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Up

    "left the world Twitter-less for several hours..."

    ... and exactly how much of a damn did the majority of the world give...?

  12. Chris Shaw
    Coat

    Even better title.

    Twitter down the Sh*tter.

  13. Doshu
    Megaphone

    Oh no!

    The interblags devoid of mindless chatter?

    Now how will i know who's pooing right this instant??

    <grabs head> - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

  14. Mickey Porkpies
    FAIL

    Disgusting!

    I pay nothing for this service and rely on it to provide mindless pointless disinformation.

  15. fran 2
    WTF?

    can someone translate please

    "the failed enhancement of a new approach to timeline caching"

    1. Spicy McMarsbar

      RE: can someone translate please

      "We fucked up"

    2. IndianaJ

      Interpretation :

      "Quick someone, think of some technobabble."

    3. heyrick Silver badge

      @ fran 2

      Spoiler for the plot of the final (double) episode of Dr. Who?

  16. Chris King
    Coat

    Translation for @fran 2

    "We tried to get clever with a site upgrade. It broke."

    Unfortunately, putting your paw in the air and saying "Oops, we screwed up" is *so* Web 1.0.

    Yes, it's the one with the copy of "Social Networking Means Never Having To Say Sorry" in the left pocket... Thanks.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    crap

    If all your program does is let a small number of mentally ill people post 140 bytes of data to a database and you still can't get it to run stable for more than a week, maybe you should pack your shit up and go back to the circus because computer programming evidently was not the right career move for you.

    Any programmer worth his salt could write a working version of twitter in about half a day. Fortunately no programmer worth his salt WOULD work on an idea so inherently b0rked from the onset as Twitter.

    "so you mean there's a 140 character limit on all messages?"

    "that's right"

    "but that's not enough to do anything useful with"

    "precisely, our market research shows that people are not comfortable with thinking. We actively discourage it by making reasoned argument quite literally impossible. That way the feeble minded will return to our site compulsively for the positive social reinforcement they receive when they disseminate small meaningless chunks of data - and we can sell prime advertising space."

  18. GumboKing
    Megaphone

    HMMMMMMMMMM...

    Actually the update was to replace tweet distribution by internet with tweet distribution by vuvuzela, which more appropriately matches the mind numbing background noise of useless tweets.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    Here come the retarded trolls...

    Hey, word on the web is that it's full of shit content - no, really!

    Just take a look at the typical retarded posts above, from people who really haven't a clue how to leverage technology - nah, much easier to just deride it - that takes no thought, invention or common sense.

    Or perhaps they just don't have any friends?

    It must be a sad existence being so unbelievably negative and narrow minded - to consider oneself too far above the rest of us to even consider doing something as silly as using Twitter.

    Far better to hide behind anonymity and make witty (or should that be twitty?) snide remarks at something they are incapable of understanding.

    Leverage, it's all about how *you* use technology, not how others use it!

    There's countless totally shit blogs out there, unimaginable amounts of dross gets splattered all website article comments, people while away hours talking BS on chat channels of all types.

    And what of it?

    Humans like to talk, meaningless banter is what we do well - and inbetween that meaningless banter, perhaps a gem, a diamond in the rough, an incredibly useful link.

    Oh, and that killer feature - where you can choose who you want to follow, god damn, what will they think of next? You mean you can filter out the shit? Well fuck me sideways in the hallway - what a concept.

    Hey - perhaps you could follow Twitter users who post about your favorite subjects - wow, what an incredible idea- the fact that you may get some useful comment or link - crazy talk!

    No, sod this community spirit - who needs it, lets just sit in dark corners of the web and shit over everything we don't agree with - we don't understand it, it's got to be shit, we're so angry about it, we'll post exceptionally stupid comments on Register because it makes us feel clever and cool.

    Yeah man, no ways would we ever be seen dead actually making a positive comment about something that's popular - if it's popular, it's got to be shit, right?

    Ah wibble to the lot of you trolls above, bunch of sad sad losers.

    As for me, fuck it, I don't care, I use Twitter, I'm a Twitter Twat and proud of that - I'm human, I talk shit, just look at all this dross I've just splattered across this page!

    Wibble Wibble Wibble Wibble.

    I'm going to tweet about it right now, in 140 characters, with a link & a tag.

    1. heyrick Silver badge

      @ Matt 89

      "I talk shit, just look at all this dross I've just splattered across this page!"

      I think that is one of the main criticisms of Twitter. You, because El Reg doesn't have an insane arbitrary limit, were free to vent your rage at the Twitter Haters. Two screenfuls of it, on a netbook machine. Twitter, meanwhile, offers 140 characters. To say more, you have to cheat, write it elsewhere, and tweet a link. Well, shit, you could just provide an RSS feed and skip tweets. People can "follow" those they like, or things that interest them. There is so much dross around it is unlikely to be neither easier nor harder to find something that interests you on Twitter as on the real web. With more words. Actual words. In coherent order.

      Expressed as a tweet, this could be: "Matt 89 ++ grrr!, /me < grrr!. Meh." Doesn't quite have the same effect...

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Boo Hoo

    These TWITS need to get a life.

  21. the bat
    Headmaster

    someone ssling shot the birdie!

    someone ssling shot the birdie! Twweeettee!!

  22. Eeep !
    FAIL

    You report this when there are people starving in the world ?

    Filler article wasting world resources :(

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      This is..

      A technology stupidity site, not a world famine bulletin, you twat.

      We know the world sucks, but the register isn't about fixing that, it's about pissing and moaning about technology. Thanks for playing.

      Back on topic- "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU..."

  23. Nerd King
    FAIL

    Twatter

    I've not always been a fan, but sometimes Twitter is a truly fabulous tool, not what people claim it is (ie people saying they're having a crap). I was in Thailand for the red shirt crisis (a bunch of nutters going round bangkok throwing grenades, firing AK47s and blowing shit up basically). Twitter was amazing, as the local media was a bit restricted, but people on the ground (many of whom I ended up meeting in person) were able to keep me posted on what was going, where the latest grenades were fired, where to avoid in Bangkok, etc. Generally anything accurate got retweeted and anything bollocks got buried, and you could get info and opinions from both sides of the conflict. It was utterly invaluable at a time when the whole country was in crisis (and we all know how it ended up when the bastards set most of Bangkok on fire). Twitter's reliability is an issue, but to suggest that it is without value is bollocks.

    1. Gotno iShit Wantno iShit
      Thumb Up

      As a rabid, foaming at the mouth twatter hater....

      .... I have to confess you make a damn good point Nerd King. It's still total bolx in 99% of situations. But credit where it is due, I shall note henceforth that Twitter has two very useful functions:

      2) It helps disseminate news is a fast moving environment.

      which I add to the already known:

      1) It helps to identify the B Ark candidates.

  24. Mr Jolly
    Big Brother

    @theregister RT #twitter

    I was just going to say, would anyone actually miss Twitter (apart from Stephen Fry) if it were to be unavailable for an extended period of time.

    But then I remembered that it played an important role in last years recent Iranian protests and may do again another time, so while it may be 99.9% pure #crap and repeated spam - it does have an occasional good use.

    Less than 1 second ago via the web.

  25. pan2008

    hehe

    What's twitter running on? linux, ruby and apple. That says it all it will carry on failing.

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