It’s been a rough couple of days for those who rely on third-party Twitter clients such as Tweetdeck, Twitlert, and Tweetbot for their daily dose of the web’s 280-character-limit musings. Many of these applications have stopped working without warning, leaving users with no idea as to why it happened or what to do next.
The first reports of the issue came on February 11th, as users began to notice that their beloved third-party clients had suddenly stopped working. The issue appears to be related to an expired security certificate, but Twitter has yet to provide an official explanation.
Naturally, those who have grown accustomed to using third-party Twitter clients have been left confused, frustrated, and even scared. “I tried to login and got an error message that said the certificate had expired,” said one user on Twitter. “I was worried that my account had been hacked.”
The good news is that the issue seems to be limited to third-party Twitter clients only — the official Twitter app is still up and running for most users. However, the sudden outage has highlighted a growing trend in the tech world, in which developers are relying too heavily on single vendor solutions for critical components of applications. In this case, the reliance on a single certificate provider appears to have been the downfall for these third-party Twitter clients.
The issue is frustrating for many, but it also serves as an important lesson. As more services move to the cloud and developers become more reliant on third-party solutions, it’s imperative that they also take steps to protect themselves against unexpected outages like this one. No matter how reliable a vendor may seem, it’s always a good idea to have a backup plan in place.
At the moment, Twitter has yet to comment on whether or not this issue has affected its user base, or when third-party Twitter clients may be back up and running again. Until then, users may want to stick with the official Twitter app or look for alternative ways to access the service.
