[General Questions and Answers] timmymarsh:
[UPDATE 3] Why isnt my Twitter Working, what does it mean & what can I do? [See Here]

Ok guys,

Many of you have or are finding out (depending on how much of a twit-a-holic you are) that you are having problems accessing twitter on various clients, inc HTC Peep, Motweets etc.

Sites around the web were getting splashed with a mysterious dialog Tuesday, thanks to a change in the way Twitter handles user authentication.

It states that a username and password are being requested by Twitter, with the unhelpful message, “Twitter API.” The same dialog has been spotted on ReadWriteWeb and even on Twitter’s own website.

In addition, users of some Twitter apps, including Twitter’s own Tweetie and BlackBerry apps, Tweetdeck and Twitterrific and HTC Peep have complained of Twitter login problems.

In the case of the website dialog, entering your username and password doesn’t do anything useful, and won’t make the dialog box go away. Indeed, it will often reappear several times during a session.

The cause of the troubl is a change in the way Twitter handles user authentication for remote sites and programs. Instead of giving a Facebook app your Twitter username and password, for instance, Twitter now requires the app use a protocol known as OAuth to hand you off to Twitter’s website. Once you’ve authorized Twitter to share your information with the other site or app, it hands a token back to that app, and the two can share information with each other.

The new, OAuth-based method is more secure and ultimately more reliable (for instance, you don’t have to update every Twitter app you use whenever you change your Twitter password).

However, now that Twitter has switched, programs and sites using the old authentication method are not working properly.

That includes websites using Twitter widgets with older code. These widgets, which embed the latest tweets from specific Twitter users, appear to rely on the old authentication method.

The solution should be simply to upgrade if possible. If you have old widget code on your website, go to Twitter.com and get a new widget embed code. Similarly, if you’re using a Twitter app that’s having login problems, the solution is almost certainly to upgrade to the latest version. Twitterrific’s developers, for instance, have spent the day urging the app’s many users to upgrade. Developers have known about the authentication switch for months now, and most have been able to release updated versions of their software that works properly with the new OAuth system.

People using HTC Peep have been getting the error message "incorrect username or password" whilst trying to post or update, which is even more frustrating when some other apps on the iphone for example work perfectly well.

This is what Twitter blog has to say : http://blog.twitter.com/2010/08/twitter-applications-and-oauth.html

Cool smart phone tweeted this today as word finally gets around : http://www.coolsmartphone.com/news6158.html

So, when will HTC be releasing a hotfix for Peep? Answer is I dont honestly know. Lots of people inc myself have been asking HTC exactly this but they arent giving anything away at the moment, but updates will be posted here.

If you guys hear anything, please feel free to post your info here.

Remember, try and be patient, HTC have only had 8 months to sort this out.........:rolleyes::eek::)

Cheers.