ERROR: Required meta tag missing (twitter:text:description)

[maxmadrasi]

hi Ian, I found the same problem of late in my blog www.MadrasNow.com hosted in Blogger & managed to identify the problem and the fix.

A) The problem is there is no ‘Search Description’ in the individual posts, especially if you use WLW or Open Live Writer to blog. The solution is to open up individual posts in Blogger’s ‘edit’ mode and enter the ‘Search Description’. [BTW, this post ‘search description’ is different from the site ‘Description’ which we enter through Settings > Search preferences > Description]

B) But if you forget to enter individual post ‘search description’ by opening up Blogger interface, this twitter:text:description error shows up. And doing it is a nuisance.

C) A code fix is to use the site ‘Description’ as post ‘Search Description’ if it is missing, however, it might lead to ‘Duplicate Description’ error in Webmaster Tools. So a temporary fix, I’ve put in today is to include the page Title itself as post ‘search description’, if it is missing.

D) Here is the actual code, which I put in through Template > Edit HTML
b:if cond=‘data:blog.metaDescription’>
meta expr:content=‘data:blog.metaDescription’ property=‘twitter:description’/>
b:else/>
meta expr:content=’"Please visit " + data:blog.pageTitle + “to read interesting articles.”’ property=‘twitter:description’/>
/b:if>
Since I cannot post code here the opening angle bracket or lesser than sign has been removed - insert them at appropriate. Above code replaces the original twitter card code which is shown in BOLD.
Hope it helps. Please let me know if you find a better fix.

[acestroke78]

I have the same problem as Ian. It just showed up this morning, for no reason whatsoever. I have not done anything different, yet the card shows there’s an error. Here’s what I get:

Is there a quick, simple way to fix this problem? Keep in mind, I’m not an expert at computer “code” speak

-A

[Dvolatility]

This just happened to me as well. I’m just using the post’s body for now <data:post.body>. I’m not sure if this should be used as a permanent fix though.

<b:if cond='data:blog.metaDescription'>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription' name='twitter:description'/>
<b:else/>
<meta expr:content='data:post.body' name='twitter:description'/>
</b:if>

[andypiper]

Are you on Blogger or some other system? What URL are you validating?

The error is telling you that you need a twitter:description (or og:description) tag in your pages.

[acestroke78]

Yes, my blog’s URL is

acestroke

It worked just fine for nearly three months (I had initially set it up back in November of 2016), and this morning suddenly, for no reason (I hadn’t made any changes to the HMTL), it stopped working.

What are usually the reasons for such an error?

A

[andypiper]

In the case of a system like Blogger, there is code in the page which is trying to populate the twitter:description tag

<b:if cond='data:blog.metaDescription'>
<meta expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription' name='twitter:description'/>
<b:else/>
<meta expr:content='data:post.body' name='twitter:description'/>
</b:if>

That block on your page seems to be stuck in the middle of some CSS where it never gets executed. There’s also another blank twitter:description tag elsewhere in the page. I have no idea why this would have worked previously, but not now.

[acestroke78]

Ok, I see, but what am I supposed to do? Should I paste the text you quoted somewhere in my blog’s HTML page? Or should I delete some code altogether?

Again, this computer/website code is practically Greek to me

[andypiper]

Unfortunately I’m not a Blogger user. We do have some suggestions on our documentation that might help. The website we link out to is about 5 years old though, so I don’t know what the current state of the art is on the Blogger side. Appreciate that this must be confusing for you!

[andypiper]

One thing you could try - but I don’t guarantee it will help - is removing all of the twitter:description references, because in that case it should recognise the og:description tag instead.

[Dvolatility]

Hey all:

It looks like the <data:post.snippet> tag stopped working today on Blogger blogs. So it may be related to that.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/blogger/q0frmDM8xGw;context-place=topicsearchin/blogger/post.snippet

My Twitter card stopped working because I had ‘data:post.snippet’ and I switched that to ‘data:post.body’ today, and my twitter card description worked. I just tweaked my Twitter card code in my template. Do you know where you put your Twitter card codes in your html? I have Simple and Awesome blog templates, not Picture Window.

[acestroke78]

Andypiper and dvolatility:

Thanks for your suggestions. I will try both of your tips later, and will let you know if it works.

-A

[Dvolatility]

Oh, the quoted code won’t work in your CSS (style). I see you put it before </style>. Your existing Twitter Card Code appears to be in your ‘post’ codes. I’d get help from someone who knows how to edit the Picture Window template. I recommend you save your template before editing!

[acestroke78]

I see. So where do I find the

b:if cond=‘data:post.snippet’

on my HTML code page?

There are over a 2000 lines , and I just can’t see it.

[Dvolatility]

Your existing Twitter Card Code appears to be in your ‘post’ codes. I’d get help from someone who knows how to edit the Picture Window template. I recommend you save your template before editing!

[acestroke78]

It still doesn’t work. I have no idea how to fix this. Been trying to correct the HTML for hours now, and to no avail

[Dvolatility]

Sorry for the confusion. Since your twitter card description stopped working for you today as well, and the ‘data:post.snippet’ stopped working today, I thought that may have had something to do with it. But basically, now my Twitter card descriptions only work when I call ‘data:post.body’ in my twitter:description code. For example, I’m now using this in my Simple and Awesome templates.

<b:includable id='post' var='post'>

      <!-- Twitter Card Meta Tags by SWT ~ www.superwebtricks.com -->
      <meta content='summary' name='twitter:card'/>
      <meta content='@USGovReport' name='twitter:site'/>
      <b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;item&quot;'>
      <meta expr:content='data:blog.pageName' name='twitter:title'/>
      <b:else/>
     <meta expr:content='data:blog.pageTitle' name='twitter:title'/>
     </b:if>
     <if cond='data:blog.metaDescription'>
     <meta expr:content='data:blog.metaDescription' name='twitter:description'/>
     <b:else/>
     <meta expr:content='data:post.body' name='twitter:description'/>
     </b:if>
     <b:if cond='data:blog.postImageUrl'>
     <meta expr:content='data:blog.postImageUrl' name='twitter:image:src'/>
     <b:else/>
     <meta content='https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ytPedsSE.......' name='twitter:image:src'/>
     </b:if>
     <!-- Twitter Card Meta Tags HELP ~ http://www.superwebtricks.com?p=944 -->

[Dvolatility]

that previous thread said ‘data:post.postSummary’ also works.

[acestroke78]

I got the small twitter card working just fine; however, I can not get the large twitter summary card to work at all. Every time I try to implement it, I get an “Error” on my HTML editing page.

[Ebony_N_Sweet]

I wish you wrote your directions more clearly. I can’t understand it because of the grammar and sentence structure errors.

[IKS_edu]

I get this error all the time:
INFO: Page fetched successfully
INFO: 19 metatags were found
INFO: twitter:card = summary_large_image tag found
ERROR: Required meta tag missing (twitter:text:description)

Can someone pls help with this one:
I use Joomla and the code is in index.php file of my template:

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@myaccount">
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@myaccount">
 
<meta property="og:site_name" content="mycompany"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="article"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="'.JURI::current().'"/>
<meta property="og:title" content="'.$this->escape($this->item->title).'"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="'.$timage.'"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="'.strip_tags($this->item->introtext).'"/>

This was my second option:

/* BEGIN: Open Graph and Twitter Card Tags */
$images = json_decode($this->item->images);
if (isset($images->image_intro) and !empty($images->image_intro)) {
	$timage= htmlspecialchars(JURI::root().$images->image_intro);
}
elseif (isset($images->image_fulltext) and !empty($images->image_fulltext)) {
	$timage= htmlspecialchars(JURI::root().$images->image_fulltext);
}
else {
	$timage= 'http://mydomain/images/logo/65.jpg';
}
$doc =& JFactory::getDocument();
$doc->addCustomTag('
<meta name="twitter:text:description" content="'.strip_tags($this->item->introtext).'">
<meta name="twitter:title" content="'.$this->escape($this->item->title).'">
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image">
<meta name="twitter:site" content="@myaccount">
<meta name="twitter:creator" content="@myaccount">
<meta name="twitter:url" content="'.JURI::current().'">
<meta name="twitter:image" content="'.$timage.'">
 
<meta property="og:site_name" content="mycompany"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="article"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="'.JURI::current().'"/>
<meta property="og:title" content="'.$this->escape($this->item->title).'"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="'.$timage.'"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="'.strip_tags($this->item->introtext).'"/>
');
/* END: Open Graph and Twitter Card Tags */