Twitter’s latest glitch is logging out desktop users without warning – and not letting them back in

By William On May 2, 2023

Twitter inexplicably logs desktop users out of their accounts and refuses to let them back in.

This is the latest in a long line of glitches that have plagued the platform since Elon Musk took over as CEO last year.

The platform suffered a number of outages in March, with users unable to send tweets or view photos, and the billionaire himself admitted that the site was “so brittle.”

In February, it was hit by a “number of internal and external” issues, meaning users were told they had reached their tweet or follow limit without actually doing so.

Coincidentally, that was the month Musk laid off 200 employees, reducing Twitter’s workforce to less than 2,000.

Twitter inexplicably logs desktop users out of their accounts and refuses to let them back in. This is the latest in a long line of glitches that have plagued the platform since Elon Musk took over as CEO last year

The problem seems to have mostly gone away on its own as Down Detector received the highest number of problem reports around 9pm last night

He began cutting Twitter staff last November, sending 3,700 of the initial 7,500 employees home.

Musk defended the decision at the time, saying, “There’s no choice if the company is losing more than $4 million a day.”

There are currently no incidents reported on Twitter API status pagebut this is contrary to what users experience.

Last night a user tweeted, “Literally got logged out while logging in. This place is falling apart.’

Another added, “As the editor of a website dedicated to fashion, I love being logged out of desktop Twitter 2 hours before the Met Gala starts and not coming back in.”

Twitter has yet to acknowledge the latest outage and is responding with just a “poop” emoji to a request for information from The edgeas has become customary under the Musk regime.

However, Twitter user @RecDTRH claims the glitch is because the platform is “giving people a corrupt cookie.”

“Clear your cookies and try again,” they wrote.

The problem seems to have largely gone away on its own, as Down Detector received the highest number of problem reports at around 9pm BST last night.

Down Detector receives network status updates from a variety of sources, including social media and reports submitted on its website.

One frustrated user wrote, “I was literally logged out while I was logging in. This place is falling apart’

Logging everyone out may have been a way to prevent a hack that caused a user’s ‘legacy’ blue check to work again in the future (stock image)

Yesterday, many Twitter users started implementing a hack that allowed them to get their “old” blue check mark back after losing it last month.

Legacy badges were the badges placed before Musk’s takeover of the platform and let people know that a public interest account was authentic.

Now a tick simply indicates that an account will pay up to £11/month for the Twitter Blue subscription service, as all old subscriptions have been removed.

However, users found that they could go to ‘Edit Profile’ and click ‘Save’ to bring back their outdated check, but this only worked until they refreshed the app.

Logging everyone out may have been a way to prevent this hack from working in the future, or the two could be unrelated.

Since becoming CEO of Twitter, Musk has pushed for Twitter Blue as a way to boost the site’s revenue, and getting rid of old taps was one way to do that.

When Twitter Blue first rolled out, users took advantage of the fact that they could essentially buy a blue tick and started impersonating famous people and companies.

This forced the world’s second-richest man to halt the verification process, but not before concerned advertisers withdrew their contracts.

In March, he admitted that his platform is now worth less than half of what he paid for it, but he has since confirmed that the company is “roughly even.”

THE LONG ROAD TO ELON MUSK’S TWITTER TAKEOVER — AND THE CHAOS THAT FOLLOWED

Musk’s takeover of Twitter all began on April 4, when Musk announced a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, becoming the company’s largest shareholder.

The world’s richest person then agreed to join Twitter’s board, only to hesitate at the last minute and offer to buy the company for $54.20 a share.

Twitter accepted the offer later in April, but the following month Musk said the deal has been put on hold pending a bot account review.

His lawyers subsequently accused Twitter of failing to comply with his requests for information on the subject.

The acrimony led Musk to tell Twitter on July 8 that he was ending the deal, and four days later, Twitter sued Musk to force him to complete the acquisition.

Twitter accused Musk of buyer’s remorse, arguing that he wanted out of the deal because he believed he had overpaid.

On October 4, Musk performed another U-turn and offered to complete the deal as promised. He managed to do so a day before a deadline to avoid a trial.

Since taking ownership, Musk — who also runs Tesla and SpaceX — has wasted no time making significant changes to Twitter, including firing top executives and dissolving the board of directors.

He also confirmed that he will charge Twitter users $8 a month to have a blue check next to their account name, calling the current lords and peasants system “bulls**t.”

Musk previously considered a $20 per month blue tick verification fee, but appeared to be cutting the cost after criticism from horror author Stephen King, among others.

Musk has also indicated his intention to form a content moderation board with “widely diverging views.”

“There will be no major substantive decisions or account recovery before that council meets,” he said.

He also reportedly brought more than 50 of his Tesla employees, who mostly worked on the electric car company’s autopilot team, to review and work on the code for Twitter.