Shortly after its 2016 launch, Twitter began to make history. As one of the most popular social media sites, Twitter’s format of giving users the ability to post short messages was fairly novel at the time and has since been adopted in various forms by many other social media sites.
Twitter is used by its millions of users as a source for breaking news, trending memes, new products, and updates from friends.
Many of the most popular social media sites have now been around for several years and most generally run smoothly.
However, with the amount of traffic it gets from its nearly 206 million daily active users, not even Twitter is immune to occasional problems.
Are you experiencing issues or errors while accessing the Twitter social network? Here are some insights as to what causes these eight common issues and steps to resolve them.
Twitter Won’t Load At All
One of the most frustrating Twitter problems users encounter is when it simply won’t load at all.
In this situation, the issue is often due to technical errors on Twitter’s servers. Here are a few ways you can troubleshoot this:
- Check the Twitter servers using a reputable third-party status checker site. You can try DownDetector, Down for Everyone Or Just Me, downrightnow, Is It Down Right Now?, or Report.
- If you are using a VPN, go into your device’s settings and turn it off. If you want to have the protection of a VPN, you may need to investigate an alternate VPN solution, such as PureVPN or a similar VPN service provider.
- Make sure you are using the most current version of the Twitter app, and if you aren’t, update it from your device’s app store.
- From your device’s Settings, clear your media and browser storage to free up space.
- From your device’s Settings, clear your browser cache and cookies.
- Try using another browser or device.
- Delete or uninstall the Twitter app from your device then reinstall it.
- From your device’s Settings, check your internet connection. If you are on WiFi, switch to cellular data or vice-versa.
- If you still struggle to view Twitter pages, we suggest that you visit their support page and report the problem.
Twitter Loads But Won’t Play Videos
Another issue you might experience is when Twitter videos won’t play even when the site or app loads.
If Twitter videos won’t load, here are a few ways to troubleshoot this issue on iOS or Android:
- Check your internet connection. If you are on WiFi, switch to cellular data or vice-versa.
- Delete or uninstall the Twitter app from your device then reinstall it.
- Make sure you are using the most current version of the Twitter app, and if you aren’t, update it from your device’s app store.
- From your device’s Settings, clear your browser cache and cookies.
If you are using Chrome or another browser on a computer and Twitter videos won’t load, here are a few ways to troubleshoot this issue:
- Try using another browser.
- Close and restart your browser.
- Check that Flash is working properly.
- Update your browser to the latest version.
- From your browser’s Settings, clear your cache and cookies.
- From your browser’s Settings, disable hardware acceleration.
- Disable your browser’s plugins.
- If you still can’t play Twitter videos on your browser after trying these solutions above, you can try to download Twitter videos and play them on a computer/iPhone/Android phone using a Twitter video downloader, like TwitterVideoDownloader.com.
Twitter Says I Have An Unread Message But I Don’t
It can be a problem if your Twitter notifications are not working, especially if you rely on it for your day-to-day tasks.
If Twitter says you have a message but you don’t, here are a few ways you can troubleshoot this issue:
- Check Twitter’s server’s status first, as the problem could be with their servers being down at the moment.
- Check the Twitter app’s notification settings and ensure Push Notifications are turned on.
- From your device’s Settings, Turn off Do Not Disturb and/or Silent Mode.
- From your device’s Settings, ensure the Twitter app has the proper settings to send push notifications to your device.
- Make sure you are using the most current version of the Twitter app, and if you aren’t, update it from your device’s app store.
- From your device’s Settings, clear your media and browser storage to free up space.
- Check your internet connection speed at speedtest.net, and if your connection is slow, reset it from your device’s settings.
- If you still struggle to view Twitter pages, we suggest that you visit their support page and report the problem.
Twitter Keeps Crashing
Sometimes Twitter crashes for no apparent reason and then continues to crash.
If your Twitter app keeps crashing, here are a few things you can do to try to fix this issue:
- Close and restart Twitter.
- Power your device off, then back on.
- From your device’s Settings, check your internet connection. If you are on WiFi, switch to cellular data or vice-versa.
- Close/quit all other apps you have running.
- Reset all your device’s settings to defaults. Note that, unlike a factory reset, this will not affect your data so nothing will be deleted in the process.
- Delete or uninstall the Twitter app from your device then reinstall it.
- Make sure you are using the most current version of the Twitter app, and if you aren’t, update it from your device’s app store.
- If your device’s OS has an update available, update your device’s OS.
- If you still struggle to view Twitter pages, we suggest that you visit their support page and report the problem.
Your Twitter Account Was Banned
Sometimes you are unable to use Twitter because you have done something to land yourself in “Twitter jail.” In other words, you have violated Twitter Rules resulting in your account being suspended.
For more info on suspended Twitter accounts and how to address this, below are some steps you can try:
- When you log into Twitter and a prompt requests your phone number or asks to confirm your email address, provide the requested information to remove the suspension on your account.
- Using your account for spammy or abusive behavior could result in the temporary suspension of your account. A temporary account suspension could be in effect for a specific time period. You may also be requested to verify your account information before your suspension is lifted. You can get help unlocking your account here.
- If the above methods fail, you can submit an appeal for Twitter to unsuspend your account. To do this, you must first log into your suspended account, then from a new browser tab, file an appeal here.
Twitter Shows A Black Screen When I Try To Watch A Video or View An Image
If you spend a lot of time on Twitter, you’ve likely encountered the dreaded random black screen when watching videos or viewing images.
This problem can occur any time without any warnings and can be frustrating, to say the least.
In addition to trying some of the tips in the sections above, here are a few more specific things to try when you get a black screen on Twitter:
- Force Quit/Stop Twitter on your device.
- From your device’s Settings, clear your media and browser storage to free up space.
- From your device’s Settings, clear your browser cache and cookies.
- From your device’s Settings, ensure all Permissions are enabled.
Twitter Removed My Post
There may be times that it appears Twitter has removed your post. This likely means the post has been found to violate one of Twitter’s Rules.
In the past, deleted tweets would just disappear, with no explanation as to whether they were removed due to rule violations or on a whim.
Now, users who look at a deleted tweet—and the tweet was deleted at the behest of Twitter‘s moderators—will see a message saying the tweet is no longer available because it violated Twitter’s Rules.
The message will remain for up to 14 days after the tweet was deleted.
Deleted tweets display the same message, regardless of whether they were removed by the user or the moderators.
In either case, any links to that tweet are simply 404’ed, while the tweet itself is no longer visible in the timeline.
Now when users search for a tweet that has been recently deleted, they’ll instead see a message from Twitter that reads out how the Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules.
Twitter Doesn’t Work At All
If Twitter just plain won’t work at all, this is most likely an issue with access to Twitter’s servers.
The best things to try in this situation are the following:
- Try DownDetector, Down for Everyone Or Just Me, downrightnow, Is It Down Right Now?, or Report.
- As with many of the issues above, you can then try to log out and log back in, clear your browser cache, and finally restart your computer.
- If you still struggle to view Twitter pages, we suggest that you visit their support page and report the problem.
I hope you’ve enjoyed and found this information useful.
If you have additional experiences or tips to share related to solving Twitter issues, post in the comments below.
— Sean