SMS stopped

Just got two track alerts via sms. Will post again if I receive more.

Have lost sms again despite sending ON several times.

Re-verified my phone just now and received a track alert, but I don't seem to be getting regular tweets even though people I'm following have posted updates.

Also, my number of Received SMS (in the sidebar) has been stuck at 0/250 since verifying.

Anyway, there seem to be a lot of new threads that talk about this sms problem. I'm tagging the recently created ones with 'sms-may2008' to make them easier to find.

Just noting that I started to receive sms again around an hour ago, even though I hadn't just sent ON.

I don't know if I'm missing any tweets, though, since I haven't had a chance to compare what I actually received vs. what I should have received.

Still no joy, I've deleted and registered my iPhone, that worked fine, but still no tweets by SMS. Is this a UK / O2 thing or is it wider than that? I've notice that after sending ON via SMS I manage to get 1 tweet but then stops again.

Yeah no tweets go to my phone at all now... so sad. Twitter, please be my friend again.

No joy on my iPhone either. friends on Orange having problems as well.

Yeah and it happened all of a sudden... kinda strange. Been using Twitter for almost a year with no problems.

OK, fixed, I just removed my phone and added it again. Woohoo!

It wont last, i have done that 6 times now, it works for a bit the stops again, if you also notice your sms count on your twitter page does not change, there is a problem with twitter and it needs sorting out as its really annoying, seems to be a UK thing, I am on vodafone

Heck, I'm in the US and I haven't been able to receive any tweets from the start. I can update from my phone just fine, and it says sms is on, but nothing ever comes through. I'm on att/cingular. No love for me.

Hi, I am having the same issue on O2 UK.

i don't even get email updates, im updates or sms updates. i have to go to my account to see the updates.

Same problem as you guys/gals, O2 on an iphone and I'm not getting any.

Same problem here with Optus in Australia using the +44 UK number. Everything was working fine until last Saturday, which whould be Friday US time. I've sent 'On' twice now but still no SMS reminders.

Yea, mine doesn't work anymore either.

Yea, mine doesn't work anymore either.

I have just started receiving DMs via SMS again as of about 30mins ago, so hopefully the problem is sorting itself out. SMS updates have never stopped working for me (Australia, 3)

I've been receiving tweets for the past 15 hours. They started coming in again on May 6 Tue around 8pm GMT+8 (or May 6 Tue 5am PST).

I find that I'm getting everything that I'm supposed to get -- Track alerts, Updates from people I'm following, and Direct Messages.

However, I'm sure the problem isn't completely fixed because I just checked my "Received SMS" in the sidebar and it reads 0/250.

I use the +44 Twitter sms number. I'm in the Philippines.

Still quiet for me.

Me too!

Me too! I tried everything, no sms...
I'm in France, my carrier is Orange and my phone is a Nokia.
I use the +44 number.

I'm having the same problem - on the Telstra network in Australia.

Problem seems to been sorted, at least for me. SMS's started coming through again late last night and are still coming through this morning.

Still no joy for me this morning.

Well, my sms has stopped again.

Last one arrived May 6 Tue around 9:30pm PST.

Yeah. Stuck in Sweden, myself. I use the +44 number as well. No SMS for me. Haven't gotten any tweets for days and days! Tried starting over with my settings. I received one Twitter SMS update. Then nothing again.

A couples of sms start coming in a few hours ago. No other updates yet. Hope it's gonna back to work.

Me too, for several days now, nothing seems to put it right permanently. Am on Orange in the UK

All of us in Thailand too !!!

having same prob on Orange (Romania). i dunno if the carrier is indeed to blame, tho. i have a guess it's twitter's fault as well, with so many crashes and overloads in the last couple of weeks...

Same here, on Telcel, at México, i only recieve direct messages...

Im not receiveing anything, anyone from México?

Seems to be working again for me on O2 in the UK

In France with Orange, seems to be working again for me. Thanks.

Yes, it's also working for me too.

Plus my "Received SMS" counter isn't stuck at 0/250 anymore.

Wahhhh! Mine isn't working, and I just joined... I have yet to receive one. Ah, how sad for me.

just delete your device from twitter ('delete and start over'). it should work fine after readding the device.

In my case, I sent ON to Twitter (which I had been doing every now and then since this problem first started), and this time, it stayed ON.

( Globe Telecom in the Philippines using the UK gateway )

@gutzanu: the problem is I'm tired of doing that every week. one of these times, I tried and it happened that my device got "blocked" by the system or something. I wasn't able to confirm my phone #, as the confirmation code wasn't received by Twitter when sent from phone. was a weird situation. hope they fix the bugs, or else...

I too sent 'On' and it seems to have stayed on for me (Optus in Australia through the UK gateway). Twitter had reset itself to sending all messages though instead of my previous option of just direct messages. The SMS sent counter is now climbing again as well.

I found that if you do not send a message to twitter using the SMS service for a while it "pauses" your SMS updates until you post an update using SMS

@womanchild i didn't experience this yet. hope i don't! :)

I've had this numerous times - removing my phone and re-adding it fixed it in the past.

My tweets have been coming through OK for the last 12 hours, I will update if it stops working again.

The problem is back ! The service went back to normal for a few hours and now nothing, no sms! In France on Orange.

Mine is still okay as of 2 mins ago. Globe Telecom/Philippines.

( If I didn't know any better, I'd say the sms outage is continuously moving around the world )

Just got a DM on my Phone (Orange, France)! Yay! (it has been down for some days)

tried to restart SIMS but phone won't allow me to txt to that no

Service came back yesterday, but has gone again now

Mine doesn't work anymore either. I'm in Australia and have previously had no problems at all.

Mine stopped too - I'm in Netherlands on +31 mobile number (KPN). Last twitter SMS received was just before midnight my local time on May 1st - since then nothing. Looks like a major glitch or Twitter has lost it's SMS rights to non-US numbers

I didn't get sms for a week. I'm in Thailand +66 and my received sms is still 0.

I have the same problem in Denmark on Sonofon/BiBoB.

I'm in Thailand and the sms updates started coming back since May 7 afternoon (local time) after sending an update from my mobile.

Hope things are getting back to normal to you all.

I did send 'on' to a twitter number. It seems to revive my SMS updates and the counter is ticking. I told my friends who had the same problem in Thailand and it also worked out for them.

But why?

I didn't receive any SMS for many days. Tried everything: re-adding my phone, making sure IM updates were off, sending ON, unchecking/re-checking SMS updates boxes... Nothing worked.

Then I sent a status update by SMS, and immediately I started receiving texts again! Following day the texts stopped coming in, so I sent another update by SMS, again they started working.

The evidence is circumstantial, so perhaps I'm wrong or maybe there's more to it than that, but for me at least updating my own status by SMS cures the problem.

I can live with having to update by text once per day, if that really is going to cure the problem long term; I just wish Twitter or whoever their SMS providers are would make the rules clear to us.

I'm on '3' in the UK and using the +44 number.

I follow @zybernav and @ohhohe and it now works. I just need to send "on" via sms by 9 baht via truemove and click "save" in devices setting to get sms only direct messages.

The exact reason is still unknown but workaround is good enough.

My sms's are still working, but now my GFs have stopped. her twitter account is sunwin.

I solved it. Went into my twitter settings, deleted my mobile number, then re-entered mobile number and re-authenticated it with an SMS. Works fine now. Must have had something to do with the db outage I guess

I solved it. Went into my twitter settings, deleted my mobile number, then re-entered mobile number and re-authenticated it with an SMS. Works fine now. Must have had something to do with the db outage I guess

Mine also started to work after I sent an update via SMS. I suppose Twitter makes SMS notification hibernated when there is no update via SMS(this seems to be important! nothing happened when I updated via Web) for a certain period of time.

I have deleted and re-added my mobile but it stops after a few hours - its annoying!

I had this problem too. O2, UK, pay as you go.

I deleted and started again with my phone last week -- worked for a couple of days but then sometime Saturday or Sunday it stopped.

Seems to go wrong at the weekend, which is annoying because that's when I'm away from the web and need SMS the most! (And can't get to web to do the delete & start over thing.)

It's interesting that the problem was solved for so many people by simply sending a tweet. In my case, it was always by sending ON or by re-verifying my phone.

if there's a problem at twitter.com in the application side, sending ON will not solve the problem.

i've done so many times lately since the internal server errors, and what did i learn from it ? i learned patience...

if sending ON or deleting then enrolling your phone only works for a short time, wait a few days. to be safe, try again after a week and see if the twitter developers have fixed the problem...

when i sent ON to twitter a few days ago, the phone notification stayed on this time, and until now it's still working. i suppose they've fixed the application problem. :-)

the service is free, who am i to demand more than what they can provide ?...

AND again, the same is for me:

Poland, phone-carrier/operator: Play

For an experiment, I've started following myself, and have not recived any updates till now.

I've just sent an e-mail with this problem direct to them. When I recive anything, I'll paste it here.

I deleted and re-saved my number. Despite sending the notification code, I didn't get re-registered. No updates/DMs for me... On Orange, Romania.

See Crystal's interim reply in
http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/to... for the most comprehensive and useful explanation I've discovered so far.

Crystal and Jack from Twitter are following that topic, so I'll post this there too.

As I currently understand it:

1. SMS updates are very easy to turn OFF, from wherever you like (Web, phone, ...).

2. Twitter automatically turns SMS updates OFF whenever one of their their SMS fails to trigger a prompt confirmation of delivery from your phone network, for any reason at all. Your mobile service provider may have a temporary problem, your phone's battery needs charging, your phone can't get a signal, it's busy reorganising its memory, or whatever.

3. When Twitter goes down, SMS updates will probably go OFF too - and may very occasionally (though more probably not) go back ON when Twitter returns.

4. The only way to turn SMS updates ON is to send a classical SMS from your phone to the relevant Twitter No. (the international No. +447624801423 in my case) - quite expensive for some people. I'm certainly not going to do THAT 30 times a month! Using a 3rd. party app. running on your phone isn't enough: Twitter wants a "genuine" SMS to confirm SMS is working for your phone.

This classical SMS needn't be an ON message: a normal 140-character update will tell Twitter that SMS is working on your phone and turn SMS updates ON (until the next hiccough turns it back OFF).

For what it's worth:
I sent ON (to +447624801423) yesterday, immediately received Twitter's SMS confirmation, and received all 9 expected SMS updates over the next few hours.
Today, however, I've received nothing (should have been 2 SMS so far) - result of last night's downtime? Or were SMS updates affected by this? :-

"Given an overflow of IM traffic, we're going to shut off IM services for the night while things recover. We'll keep you updated!"
[blog link: http://blog.twitter.com/2008/05/too-m...]

5. For some people even this classical SMS isn't enough: they have to delete & re-register their phone to persuade SMS updates to work again for a few hours. This is risky, because sometimes a deleted phone won't re-register.

6. *** A lot of us would be a lot happier if Twitter could get the ON command to work from the Web. ***

7. Twitter could wait longer (e.g. two successive non-confirmations of delivery) before automatically turning SMS updates OFF. (Might be cumbersome to implement, though: introducing an extra database of pending c-of-d's with a counter for each user).

8. I'd really like to recommend Twitter to my friends - but at present this SMS problem makes Twitter just too fiddly for non-geeks to be bothered with.

I'm on ATT as well, and everything was working fine, until I upgraded my phone. I can still tweet out, but nothing comes in. I went through the whole, "remove-add-verify" thing. I've sent "on" more times than I can count. And still, nothing. So sad!! I heart Twitter, I'm going through withdrawals!

I didn't have a single problem in the UK nor in France for the first 8 months I lived here. However SMS updates have stopped working all together. Someone help please...

Receiving SMS updates isn't available via the UK number anymore. It was just costing Twitter too much. I think it's possible to still send updates just not receive.

that sucks. is there a work around? Do you know of any international number that does work reliably?

Justin:

Yes, dacary is correct in all points:
all Twitter SMS from +447624801423 stopped on 13th. August 2008
- though it's still possible to send SMS updates to that number.

However, Twitter is trying to set up some new national numbers. A few days ago, crystal from Twitter stated:

Not everyone is aware of this, but getting international numbers in place and ready for use is no small project. It takes time to get new numbers for international use set up in other countries. There are many steps that have to be taken by many different entities to get the proper international permissions to obtain phone numbers. Following that, multiple entities must then build the infrastructure with which to support the numbers. Carriers in every country are different and there are numerous small projects within the larger project. All of this means it takes awhile to get everything in place. In this case, the time it's taking is the bad news.

The good news is, we should have local numbers ready very soon. We're also in the process of bringing our India short code up to speed as well. We're working on getting international numbers to you guys as soon as possible, and have been on task since the initial announcement was made. Thanks for your patience in the meantime!

Some time ago I suggested some interim alternatives in this post about Twitter's old international SMS number.

I included lots of links; please follow them!

If enough of you indicate your support for any ideas you find useful, Twitter may get interested too.