I can't get twitter to work on my cell phone

I tried everything in the threads to which Eridanus linked, and still can't get my phone to work with Twitter.

My country: US
Phone Carrier: AT&T (but I'm on an old plan from before the CIngular merger/buy out)
Twitter number for sms: 40404

sarah:
I recollect reading a post which reported a general problem - and the solution - for US Twitter users on old AT&T/Cingular phone plans.

I'll have to look for this when I'm less tired - perhaps one of you will beat me to it!
I'll let you know here if I find anything, and hope you will do the same.

Meanwhile, I'm giving threads that appear relevant the tags att and cingular.

This reply from crystal is the post about old AT&T phone plans I was looking for.

Eridanus- Thanks! The message from crystal was quite informative. Altho, I'm still confused. People can still send me SMS via my_phone_number@mmode.com. I assume Twitter uses a different protocol for transferring tweets and would like to know *how* ('cause I'm curious) they do it (which is probably beyond the scope of this help request, haha). Do they transfer tweets in bulk to the SMSC? Do you work for twitter? Where do I go to request new features? Because if I could have tweets pushed to an email address (my_phone_number@mmode.com) instead of however they are delivering, that would accomplish my desired result.

sarah:
Twitter send and receive SMS in vast quantities, which must represent a considerable expense since SMS is an important source of income for mobile carriers. Some carriers will make their customers pay; others prefer to attract customers by offering SMS bundles. I've heard that in the US, you generally have to pay even to receive an SMS! (In Europe, we only pay for SMS we send).

As I understand it, short SMS numbers are a special national service negotiated by companies such as Twitter, and individual carriers such as AT&T can choose for themselves which short numbers they support. Here in Germany, short SMS numbers are often used by companies who sell ringtones etc.

Some carriers may fear the SMS load associated with Twitter, and will block its SMS number. Others might support Twitter and advertise this to gain customers.

As I understand crystal's post, AT&T do not support (some or all) short SMS numbers on their old (blue) network (is that identical with Cingular?), perhaps to persuade customers to change to their new (orange) network. It sounds as though AT&T will happily exchange your old SIM for a new one (presumably with the same phone number?) - I've no idea what they will charge for the privilege, however!

I assume you are able to receive normal SMS sent by acquaintances from their cellphones?

If you have a good data plan for mobile internet, you can follow and update Twitter via m.twitter.com, the mobile version of Twitter's website. However, just as with the internet on the PC, you won't be notified whenever an interesting tweet is posted.

My mobile internet costs are small though finite, so I prefer to keep my data traffic to a minimum by using the free cellityTweeter Java application on my phone. There are plenty of alternatives, but that's the one which works best for me.

You can propose a new Twitter feature here on Get Satisfaction.
Just start a new Ideas topic (the light-bulb symbol). If you give it a good title, and some good tags, it's likely to attract other Twitter users - and once enough people follow a topic, Twitter will become interested too.

Whenever you have a very specific problem which needs assistance direct from Twitter, go to http://twitter.com/help/ and enter a support request. You should receive an automatic acknowledgement very quickly, but you may have to wait several days for a human response.

You could submit your idea there too - but then it will only be seen by Twitter, not by other users.

No, I don't work for Twitter (although it sometimes feels like it! ;)
People who work for Twitter - such as crystal - have their icon displayed in a green EMPLOYEE frame.

I'm just a an ordinary Twitter user like you and most of the others who post here. I've received a fair bit of help from some very kind people here on Get Satisfaction; in return, I try to help too. Sometimes someone has a problem I've had; sometimes I recall running across tips I didn't need at the time whilst I was searching for something else.

HI Eridanus!

Thanks again for the thorough reply. On my AT&T plan, I only pay to send SMS; I do not pay to receive. I was able to receive SMS messages from Twitter up until about a year ago. I assumed it was just a problem on Twitter's side, since they were having some growth issues, and I suffered in silence until I couldn't take it any more.

I've never had any problems receiving SMS messages from my friends or from Google, who also uses a short code. But perhaps Google doesn't bulk transfer messages. I wonder if I will be unable to receive SMS from Google in October, as was implied by Crystal's message.

Thanks for the alternative suggestions. Unfortunately, m.twitter.com doesn't really solve ,my problem (as I'm sure you realize), and I don't have a free data plan for my phone, so celityTweeter won't work for me either. I don't want to switch SIM cards, as AT&T Cingular will force me to change plans when we switch SIM cards and I really like my plan.

And upon further reflection, Twitter probably won't listen to my push-to-an-email suggestion since it might only help a tiny subset of their users. I guess I could write a script to retrieve messages from Twitter and email updates from certain people to my_phone_number@mmode.com. I could schedule that to run once every 5 minutes. Or perhaps I could try one of the rss-to-email services out there, although that way I wouldn't get direct messages. Argh, I guess I might write my own script and hope scheduling it too often doesn't interfere with the other things running on my Linux server.

Thanks again!
Sarah

Hi sarah!

Thanks for your kind response!

I was afraid that AT&T's strategy might be to force a plan change on users requesting a new SIM. Sorry none of the alternatives are workable, either.

However, someone has now asked if it's possible to have tweets pushed to an email address. You might like to jump in there:
Is there a way to get Twitter to send an email notice the moment I get an @reply?

All the best,
Eridanus

My SMS tweets stopped a couple weeks ago. They had previously been working fine.

I am in the US, on an unlimited text message plan through Sprint. My phone is the HTC Mogul.

I can receive regular text messages.

I can send Twitters to 40404.

I spoke to Sprint tech support and they made sure that short codes were not blocked, specifically 40404.

I am not getting any messages from Twitter at all

I have deleted and re-added the phone from the device page.
I have sent "on" to 40404 too many times to count, never once have I received the auto response.

I created a new account with the same phone number, same thing.

I can verify the phone by sending back the six letter confirmation code to 40404, i.e., the page changes to show the device options.

Option is set to ON.

Can't even receive direct messages. The people I follow have device notifications set to ON.

I do get all Tweets on the web site.

I have opened a support ticket at Twitter, but in 3 days, I still have yet to get a response, or even an acknowledgment.

RHailey:
It sounds as though you've done all you can, for the time being.

With all the information you've supplied, Twitter should be able to help you.

You should normally have received an automated email confirmation of receipt almost immediately, so I think something is wrong there. Could Twitter's email have been blocked by your - or your provider's spam filter?

Do you at least receive emails of direct messages sent to you (assuming you have this option turned on)?

Once Twitter really have received your support ticket, they will deal with it in sequence. Since they usually have a backlog, it's not unusual to have to wait up to 7 days for yours be processed.

I'm having the same problems. am able to send tweets via 40404, but never get any tweets sent to me. i'm on an iPhone on AT&T so i think i'm on their most recent system. I've tried resetting it multiple times, all the same effect. Also, i get updates from other short number places, like ideeli, so i feel like this is a twitter issue primarily.

Wanted to test twitter on my phone. I have Metro PCS. I'm going to call the company and see if thy will accept your 40404 code. But right now, I seriuosly doubt it will work for my phone. Crap.