Retweets aren't sticking to timeline

[brandyellen]

Any suggestions on who could help figure out why retweets are sticking?

Also are you familiar with Twitter’s json response in regards to a retweet?

[DanielCHood]

Sure. Looking at a snippet of the code could help. Knowing one of the tweet IDs (and corresponding retweet id) could help as well.

[andypiper]

First of all let me just note that myself, @bonnell and other members of the team are unfortunately not able to cover every thread and question that is asked on the forums (particularly not always in a timely manner) - we have different skills and schedules - these are here for community support as much as as direct help from us your patience is appreciated!

That said, this sounds super odd…

When you Retweet a status, the ID returned in the JSON is the Tweet ID of the new Tweet; the original ID is in the retweeted_status object inside it.

I don’t understand why a retweet would “disappear” unless that (new) Tweet ID is itself deleted or unretweeted later. Are there any other applications attached to the account that could be doing this?

Are you able to share specific Tweet IDs that demonstrate the problem you are explaining? Thank you.

[brandyellen]

Ok understood, as I got in and read some more after I posted - I began to realize that each person has their specialties. I apologize for that.

As far as an id - let me give you an example

Here’s one that was used via the API:

[created_at] => Mon Dec 12 23:58:12 +0000 2016
[id] => 808460976836132865

That retweet went out via the scripting and the id was returned via the Twitter json response and then was stored. Now, when I attempt to pull up that status (retweet) in my Twitter time line which would be here:

Alli Smith (anallievent)

That retweet would no longer be applied (meaning the double green arrows would be gray and not green)

As far as applications - there is only one app that is attached and our users authenticate through that app. The “only” feature we have is a single page that someone could click an “X” and delete that retweet from their timeline - but that isn’t something our user base does at all. These are a bunch of bloggers and VA’s and it’s their job to post retweets and not have them removed.

[brandyellen]

@andypiper - Here’s a working example of what I am talking about:

2016-12-21_0845

[brandyellen]

And the results of that id via a status lookup using the API says this:

[is_quote_status] =>
[retweet_count] => 172
[favorite_count] => 0
[favorited] =>
[retweeted] =>
[possibly_sensitive] =>
[possibly_sensitive_appealable] =>
[lang] => en

Specifically:
[retweeted] =>

But again, I got the id of the retweet via the API and code, which means it had to have successfully posted to Twitter via the code and API in order to have gotten the id of the retweet.

Like I said, after about 5 or 6 days or so - they seem to undo themselves. It’s completely strange.

[andypiper]

The retweeted value is what we call perspectival, i.e. it depends who you are, and will only show true if the authenticated user has RT’d the status you’re checking for.

As an example, I just used twurl to RT ID 808460976836132865 from one of my test accounts. Checking the status back with that same account, retweeted shows as true; changing to another account which didn’t RT it, and then retrieving the status, retweeted shows as false.

What you’re describing is that entering the RT ID into a browser essentially redirects you to the original Tweet (and a native retweet is basically just a reference to another Tweet) - again, the green RT arrows should only show if you have retweeted the status. The RT should show in the timeline of the user that RT’d it. You’ve got a lot of retweets in your timeline, so I wasn’t able to scroll all the way back for a week to check - certainly things look like they are working as expected based on all of the other content in your timeline, but you did mention this seems not to work past a week, which is odd. From an API / developer platform perspective, the Tweet object(s) themselves look fine.

[brandyellen]

Ok, while I can understand what you’re saying, I guess that theory isn’t sticking true.

It’s completely understood that if I retweet a tweet and then login and look - I should see the double green arrow, and if I login to another account and see the same retweet - the double arrows won’t be green. That makes 100% sense and it’s how it should work.

But let me blow that theory out of the water in this scenario for a moment.

2016-12-21_0919

In this video - I share some simple code that gets the status of the user, shows that they properly authenticated via the API, and then gets the status of the ID in question. The end results shows that via the API - after I have retweeted this tweet using the API originally, the json response shows “false” on the retweeted variable. But when I go to twitter, click on retweet, and then come back to the API and refresh the page again, retweeted now shows 1 (true).

But it goes back to the original statement - the retweet was originally posted via the API and it gave me the retweet id in question in return - which means theoretically - if the id is returned via the API - it successfully retweets - thus providing the id. Otherwise it would have failed for whatever reason. (Retweeted already, over limit, etc)

I hope you can see why I am baffled with this.

[brandyellen]

@andypiper Did you see this response?

[andypiper]

Yes but I have not had time to reply (and is past 1am here now) - again I’d ask you to respect that we are not all here or able to answer every thread. I don’t have an answer for you right now I apologise.

[brandyellen]

It’s ok! Truly, I do respect that you have quite a bit going on. I’ve yet to be able to figure this out as to why they aren’t sticking. I’ve poured over what logs I have and ids and such. Still nothing.

[andypiper]

Just to set your expectation, I’m going to time out on being able to check further on this ahead of the Christmas break, so I’ll have to pick this up in January if the issue persists. At the moment I am unable to reproduce it (and it sounds like I’d need to programmatically reweet something a week in advance, and then go back and check if it was still showing as a retweet 7 days later, if I understand the issue you’re describing correctly).

[brandyellen]

I can give you a list of working examples that have this issue going on - and their respective IDs if you’d like. Just let me know how would you like to receive the list (potentially respecting privacy)

[andypiper]

The issue is trying to find them in the context of a timeline, rather than just seeing them standalone (since the retweet IDs you previously provided do still exist and appear correctly in their own right). Are there any examples of a user handle you could share where a retweet ID exists, but they do not show in the user’s timeline within the past few days? I think that is what I’m looking to confirm.

[brandyellen]

You can use my own. The earliest one I found so far is Dec 16, 2016.

The actual retweet was

RT @AuthoJana: “An outstanding epic of honour and loyalty battling greed and betrayal.” Spanish Inquisition. #ASMSG #greatreads https://t.c…

Retweet ID: 809833520092692480

Retweet URL:

Jana Petken (AuthoJana)

Which is even funny because even when I paste that link in here - it shows as I retweeted it but yet it’s not on my timeline.

And when I echo out the json data for that particular id (809833520092692480), this is the results:

http://pastebin.com/jChG2std

And as an added note, I’ve scrolled to the very end of my timeline on Twitter and it won’t let me load anymore. And then did a Ctrl + F to find An outstanding epic on my timeline and no results were found. (aka not retweeted). See: http://screencast.com/t/JUlDhaFI

[jcbl]

I can see it. Try your search in Firefox, not Chrome, though I’ll warn you it takes forever to get back to December 16, 2016, in your timeline.

[brandyellen]

Here’s a more recent one:

http://pastebin.com/M4t0y2A5

Which attempted to retweet this one:

Karen Dawkins (karen_dawkins)

[jcbl]

Also there. Consider too that since my last post 2 hours ago, you’ve posted ~200 tweets. My inclination is that your web browser can’t load all of your tweets into memory which is why your Ctrl-Fs fail.

[brandyellen]

Ok, but here’s the thing. Something isn’t right. I may be wrong, but I don’t think this has anything to do with browser at all.

Reason being is when attempting to pull the json data in using the API using the “statuses/show” Endpoint, it shows [retweeted] => Meaning nothing is there, aka not retweeted.

When I pull that retweet up in a browser, the double arrows are gray - not green. It doesn’t appear on my timeline at all but yet - I have a retweet ID that was provided by the API. In my mind, if it failed, I’d get an error message. If it succeeds, then it provides me a retweet ID - which I have.

That’s why this is baffling.

[jcbl]

With regard to: http://pastebin.com/M4t0y2A5 , yes that [retweeted] property is blank, but you’re getting a [retweeted_status] node, which means that it was retweeted, and it shows up on your public profile, which confirms this. If you want to make absolutely sure that this is correct, I’d try using twurl and, with the correct app keys, calling:

twurl /1.1/statuses/show/811015571017863168.json

There will be a retweet key, which you can inspect.

Without knowing what library you’re using or seeing the code, I can’t tell for sure, but I think this is just a bug with whatever script you’re using to retweet things. I expect it’s not setting property values correctly, which may be due to changes on Twitter’s side of things over time.