Is Twitter on profile pages broken? December 18, 2012 9:25 AM Subscribe
Is the Twitter section of the personal profiles broken for everyone, or just me? If it's for everyone, maybe the time has come to eliminate it rather than try to keep it working.
Mine is working but when I have certain add-blockers and cross-site stuff blockers it can sometimes look like it is not working. Are you using anything like disconnect?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:28 AM on December 18, 2012
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:28 AM on December 18, 2012
Looks like the exact domain you need to whitelist is
posted by pb (staff) at 9:29 AM on December 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
widgets.twimg.com.posted by pb (staff) at 9:29 AM on December 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
Twitter is working for me, but facebook has been broken for some time. I think they changed the way the links work or something.
I mean, while we're all here and all.
posted by phunniemee at 9:46 AM on December 18, 2012
I mean, while we're all here and all.
posted by phunniemee at 9:46 AM on December 18, 2012
It appears to be something specific to Firefox as Chrome works fine.
I'll be quiet now.
posted by tommasz at 9:46 AM on December 18, 2012
I'll be quiet now.
posted by tommasz at 9:46 AM on December 18, 2012
Your Facebook link is working fine for me, phunniemee. Can you point out one that isn't working?
posted by pb (staff) at 9:47 AM on December 18, 2012
posted by pb (staff) at 9:47 AM on December 18, 2012
Your Twitter profile is fine for me, tommasz.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:49 AM on December 18, 2012
posted by DarlingBri at 9:49 AM on December 18, 2012
Oh well for crissakes. Now they're all working. Or at least the random 8 or so I just tried.
I swear, like, a few months ago none of them were working for me and it wasn't a signed in/not signed in issue. Silly facebook.
I'll just assume that you back-date magicked it into submission, pb. As usual, good work!
posted by phunniemee at 10:04 AM on December 18, 2012
I swear, like, a few months ago none of them were working for me and it wasn't a signed in/not signed in issue. Silly facebook.
I'll just assume that you back-date magicked it into submission, pb. As usual, good work!
posted by phunniemee at 10:04 AM on December 18, 2012
aaand scene!
posted by boo_radley at 10:15 AM on December 18, 2012
posted by boo_radley at 10:15 AM on December 18, 2012
What does this button do?
posted by Curious Artificer at 10:26 AM on December 18, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by Curious Artificer at 10:26 AM on December 18, 2012 [4 favorites]
Maybe the time has come to eliminate Firefox rather than try to keep it working.
posted by koeselitz at 10:50 AM on December 18, 2012 [8 favorites]
posted by koeselitz at 10:50 AM on December 18, 2012 [8 favorites]
Nothing is wrong with Firefox in this instance.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:58 AM on December 18, 2012
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:58 AM on December 18, 2012
Where did Firefox come from? Yikes.
posted by boo_radley at 10:58 AM on December 18, 2012
posted by boo_radley at 10:58 AM on December 18, 2012
Yeah, if anything's not working here it's that joke I just tried to make. Heh.
posted by koeselitz at 11:05 AM on December 18, 2012 [5 favorites]
posted by koeselitz at 11:05 AM on December 18, 2012 [5 favorites]
Where did Firefox come from?
When two Firefoxes love each other very much...
posted by arcticseal at 12:13 PM on December 18, 2012 [7 favorites]
When two Firefoxes love each other very much...
posted by arcticseal at 12:13 PM on December 18, 2012 [7 favorites]
In a better economy we'd have that joke working.
posted by maryr at 12:14 PM on December 18, 2012 [4 favorites]
posted by maryr at 12:14 PM on December 18, 2012 [4 favorites]
Wow, today I learned they block Friendster at work, which seems... unnecessary, I guess.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:09 PM on December 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:09 PM on December 18, 2012 [1 favorite]
In a better economy we'd have that joke working.
With a viable business model that joke will earn us 3000 each. And everyone of us. 'tis the season...
posted by infini at 2:15 PM on December 18, 2012
With a viable business model that joke will earn us 3000 each. And everyone of us. 'tis the season...
posted by infini at 2:15 PM on December 18, 2012
facebook has been broken for some time.
I've noticed that a lot of facebook links don't work, although I'm buggered if I can find one now. Generally they are ones that have a dot in them (https://www.facebook.com/joe.bloggs) and the dot in the link that Metafilter generates means it tries to make it https://www.facebook.com/joe%20%bloggs or something similar. I can't remember precisely but the % and 20 were definitely in there.
Been like that for a long time, but I haven't come across it in a few weeks (maybe months).
posted by Brockles at 2:33 PM on December 18, 2012
I've noticed that a lot of facebook links don't work, although I'm buggered if I can find one now. Generally they are ones that have a dot in them (https://www.facebook.com/joe.bloggs) and the dot in the link that Metafilter generates means it tries to make it https://www.facebook.com/joe%20%bloggs or something similar. I can't remember precisely but the % and 20 were definitely in there.
Been like that for a long time, but I haven't come across it in a few weeks (maybe months).
posted by Brockles at 2:33 PM on December 18, 2012
I can't remember precisely but the % and 20 were definitely in there.
Ooh, I think that was it.
posted by phunniemee at 2:34 PM on December 18, 2012
Ooh, I think that was it.
posted by phunniemee at 2:34 PM on December 18, 2012
Thanks for the extra info. If you spot a bad Facebook link on the site, let me know and I'll take a look. It could be that someone entered their Facebook URL name in an odd way too.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:41 PM on December 18, 2012
posted by pb (staff) at 2:41 PM on December 18, 2012
For what it's worth my twitter widget usually works but right now shows nothing at all below "drjimmy11's most recent tweet" (FF, Mac). The Vimeo widget also shows no latest video.
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:20 PM on December 18, 2012
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:20 PM on December 18, 2012
(Diabling AdBlock for this site actually fixed twitter. Still no Vimeo vid, but that may be the result of me setting my latest video to private?)
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:22 PM on December 18, 2012
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:22 PM on December 18, 2012
Aaaannnnd now my Vimeo video appeared too. Just took a really long time to load.
Good times.
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:23 PM on December 18, 2012
Good times.
posted by drjimmy11 at 3:23 PM on December 18, 2012
Could be a network issue, drjimmy11. The widgets are loading from those services' servers. So even though the MetaFilter page loads quickly, it might take a while for those to pop in if your connection to those servers is slower—or if they're running slow at that moment.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:08 PM on December 18, 2012
posted by pb (staff) at 4:08 PM on December 18, 2012
Data point: I have disconnect running but twitter enabled on that page and I still can't see twitter (but can see other services). FF 17.0.1 (up to date), Mac.
posted by immlass at 4:47 PM on December 18, 2012
posted by immlass at 4:47 PM on December 18, 2012
Do you have
posted by pb (staff) at 5:03 PM on December 18, 2012
widgets.twimg.com enabled for that page? It's not a twitter.com domain which is confusing. It's one of their static component domains.posted by pb (staff) at 5:03 PM on December 18, 2012
I can't tell, but as of this writing, it's working properly, so I assume it was just a slowdown. Thanks, pb!
posted by immlass at 6:31 PM on December 18, 2012
posted by immlass at 6:31 PM on December 18, 2012
We'll never learn if you keep helping us, pb.
posted by fleacircus at 5:52 AM on December 19, 2012
posted by fleacircus at 5:52 AM on December 19, 2012
PB: This user's facebook link is borked:
http://www.metafilter.com/user/74101
It adds %20 in the url instead of .
posted by Brockles at 7:28 AM on December 19, 2012
http://www.metafilter.com/user/74101
It adds %20 in the url instead of .
posted by Brockles at 7:28 AM on December 19, 2012
Where did Firefox come from?
When two Firefoxes love each other very much...
You can also start with an ordinary fox and a box of matches, but I think it's fair to say that technique is deprecated.
posted by Grangousier at 8:00 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]
When two Firefoxes love each other very much...
You can also start with an ordinary fox and a box of matches, but I think it's fair to say that technique is deprecated.
posted by Grangousier at 8:00 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]
Brockles, that user entered "FirstName[space]LastName" as their Facebook name. When you want to use a space in a URL, you convert that space to
Did they mean to enter a period instead of a space and make a mistake? I'm not sure. We can't assume that's what happened in this case. It could be that "FirstName.LastName" on Facebook is an entirely different person. Someone could drop them a note and mention that their Facebook link isn't working on their profile page and ask them to double-check their Facebook profile URL. But that's not something we can fix for them.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:46 AM on December 19, 2012
%20. Spaces aren't allowed in URLs.Did they mean to enter a period instead of a space and make a mistake? I'm not sure. We can't assume that's what happened in this case. It could be that "FirstName.LastName" on Facebook is an entirely different person. Someone could drop them a note and mention that their Facebook link isn't working on their profile page and ask them to double-check their Facebook profile URL. But that's not something we can fix for them.
posted by pb (staff) at 8:46 AM on December 19, 2012
It's something I have seen a lot and a dot has always been the fix.
I'd be surprised if people were typing out their facebook name rather than pasting a URL, though, no?
posted by Brockles at 9:23 AM on December 19, 2012
I'd be surprised if people were typing out their facebook name rather than pasting a URL, though, no?
posted by Brockles at 9:23 AM on December 19, 2012
Ok, maybe that is it. I wonder if it is a UI issue - my facebook account (I added then removed it) needs a relatively complex first.second.numbers name. Maybe people are just putting in their name and not realising that it needs to be the name facebook uses in their url?
It's not immediately obvious and if people don't go back and check their badge link works they may not know.
posted by Brockles at 9:26 AM on December 19, 2012
It's not immediately obvious and if people don't go back and check their badge link works they may not know.
posted by Brockles at 9:26 AM on December 19, 2012
I'm not sure what you mean by first.second.numbers name. I might be an odd early adopter or something, but my Facebook URL name is a seven-letter string. There are no spaces, periods, or numbers in it.
We're looking at one example here. I'll take a look through our existing Facebook names and see if there's a larger pattern. I think we'll have to be willing to accept some errors in the system, though.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:32 AM on December 19, 2012
We're looking at one example here. I'll take a look through our existing Facebook names and see if there's a larger pattern. I think we'll have to be willing to accept some errors in the system, though.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:32 AM on December 19, 2012
Sorry, that is horrifically confusing it is https://www.facebook.com/firstname.secondname.numbers
That's it. The 'name' was a red herring. I was a reluctant late adopter, whereas I imagine you lot were in there before the ink was dry on the screen...
The method for adding your facebook name is not intuitive, I think. And if you don't have a simple URL it is likely to fail and o maybe it should just be a box that you paste your profile url in, instead. I hadn't looked at it before and assumed it was already one of those so having seen it I think the problem us a user related one (though confusing).
posted by Brockles at 9:46 AM on December 19, 2012
That's it. The 'name' was a red herring. I was a reluctant late adopter, whereas I imagine you lot were in there before the ink was dry on the screen...
The method for adding your facebook name is not intuitive, I think. And if you don't have a simple URL it is likely to fail and o maybe it should just be a box that you paste your profile url in, instead. I hadn't looked at it before and assumed it was already one of those so having seen it I think the problem us a user related one (though confusing).
posted by Brockles at 9:46 AM on December 19, 2012
Looks like about 11% of users with a Facebook profile linked have a space in their Facebook URL name. Which won't work.
Unfortunately, replacing the space with a period won't work either. On the half dozen or so I've tested, the profiles at Facebook do not match up at all with information from the MetaFilter profile.
I'll add some help information about Facebook to the FAQ and then link that from the space where people put in their Facebook username. That's a start.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:51 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]
Unfortunately, replacing the space with a period won't work either. On the half dozen or so I've tested, the profiles at Facebook do not match up at all with information from the MetaFilter profile.
I'll add some help information about Facebook to the FAQ and then link that from the space where people put in their Facebook username. That's a start.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:51 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]
We're also now checking for spaces in Facebook URL Names and not accepting those going forward. If someone enters a Facebook URL Name with a space in it we let them know and point them to the new FAQ entry about how to find their URL Name.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:35 AM on December 19, 2012
posted by pb (staff) at 10:35 AM on December 19, 2012
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
posted by pb (staff) at 9:27 AM on December 18, 2012