Twitter: Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!

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For nearly a week I could not get anything out of the Twitter website, i.e. http://twitter.com. I tried to click the links of people who were following me, but without fail, Twitter kept responding, “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”. It didn’t matter if I tried the handles of some famous people — they all did not exist. An appeal to @twitter fell on deaf ears: I don’t think @twitter has the capability of responding to individual tweets. Finally I made a determined search for the answer. A plausible answer that kept coming up was to flush the DNS cache. This is how you do it in Windows 7: Start > Run > cmd > ipconfig / flushdns Next, I emptied my cookies and cache. Made no difference to my problem.

Table of Contents

Change your browser

Finally, I switched from my default browser Firefox 8.0.1 to Chrome 15.0.874.121 m. That was the answer — now Twitter knows any valid handle I want to check. It isn’t the best solution, because I like a few add-ons for Firefox that don’t exist in Chrome. Perhaps FF 8.0.1 broke something; who knows. I will make do with Chrome for Twitter for the time being.

Update: 12 January

Firefox 9.0.1 seems to have no trouble connecting with Twitter successfully, but fingers and toes crossed.

27 Replies to “Twitter: Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”

  1. Glad it worked for you, but it’s hardly satisfactory to have a major player like Twitter have such errant browser specificity, is it?

  2. I’ve been having the same problem with twitter. Firefox on my mac won’t show anything when I’m logged into twitter. All I get are the “doesn’t exist” (for other profiles) or “loading tweets seems to be taking awhile” (when I try to look at my own profile).

    Firefox works fine when I’m not logged into Twitter, but that’s useless isn’t it? Chrome works OK whether I’m logged in or not. Seems like one more reason to stick to Tweetdeck, and avoid the Twitter site itself altogether.

    1. I use Tweetdeck for sending tweets from home, especially from non-primary accounts. But I like using Twitter.com for browsing my timeline as much as I wish and to quickly check from an email that a follower is not a bot. Either I have missed something about TweetDeck’s ability to fetch more tweets, or it’s not possible.

  3. Just to mix it all up a bit, I’ve got the reverse problem – I’m experiencing the same symptoms, but in Chrome! I don’t know that it’s necessarily browser-specific… it’s more like the ‘user environment’ is hanging on to something (yes, I know you cleared your cookies and cache) that’s corrupt. Incredibly frustrating! I already use three browsers for convenient and quick access to separate Twitter accounts, now I’m having to log in and out of different accounts (I also use SproutSocial so I could operate the Twitter accounts through that instead, but they just did a major ‘upgrade’ and it’s sluggish and not much fun any more!)

    1. For me it is Firefox 8.0.1 specific. Yes, it could be some strange combination of factors, such as add-ons or cookies picked up from somewhere, but I have the same issue with my office laptop which is in a locked-down environment. At work I have access to numerous combinations of PCs and Macs with multiple browsers in a test lab, so I might have to take a quick look there.

  4. As I thought, this didn’t sound like a Twitter prob but a Firefox bugg. While everything worked well with Chrome and IE

    I have downloaded Firefox 8.0.1 and upgraded 8.0 to 8.0.1. and everything works again

    Hope it will work for you 2

  5. I usually have a problem in this Twitter: Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!. I’m in a business where social media marketing is critical . But thanks for the fix I will try this.

  6. This has been driving me CRAZY lately! I mainly run into it when I get an email about a new follower. I click. “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”

    This is in Chrome on a Mac, Snow Leopard.

    If you SEARCH for that same user on Twitter, then click through from there, voila! No problems.

    Twitter appears to be broken.

  7. I have had this problem since yesterday afternoon in the Chrome browser. I am on Chrome Dev branch. Firefox is fine, as is…wait for it….Chrome Canary build. Please note that the latter is a step ahead of Dev branch and is not recommended for use in a production environment.

  8. Since my last post about having the problem with Chrome Dev branch, but not Firefox or Chrome Canary I started thinking…

    Here is how I solved issue:

    Chrome Options/Under The Bonnet: Cleared all browsing data from the beginning of time. (Note: I suspect it was the next step that solved the issue, however this is what I did).

    Chrome Options/Under The Bonnet: There are 5 tick boxes. I had three ticked:
    Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors
    Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar
    Enable phishing and malware protection

    I suspected that the second: Use a prediction service to help complete searches and URLs typed in the address bar….might have been the culprit and as it was of minor importance (unlike the malware protection), I unticked it. Problem solved.

    Simply speaking then; I now have just two ticks:
    Use a web service to help resolve navigation errors
    Enable phishing and malware protection

    I had previously (ages ago) unticked the other two so as to improve general performance.

  9. Alex Webley, you crazy magic man!!!

    I unticked the ‘prediction service’ item. No change. I then went and obliterated my cache to the beginning of time.

    BOOM! I’m in, error is gone.

    I’m sure the cache was just a temporary glitch as I have tried that before, but the prediction service…..

    So thanks!

    btw, does your version of Chrome actually say “under the bonnet” ??? 🙂

  10. My version of Chrome says “Under the bonnet.” Odd; it’s a Brit phrase that is quaintly peculiar to Canadian ears. Our cars have hoods 🙂 .

    Clearing the cache worked for me, too.

  11. I have had the same problem for a few months now, I get the error “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!” and “Loading seems to be taking a while” Yet when i run Safari it is totally fine..
    I Had Firefox 8.0, so I Did all the updates & I am now running Firefox 9.0.1, I still have the same issues.. I even deleted Firefox & reinstalled it but it has made no difference!

    1. Same here. FF 9 has made no difference, neither has clearing cookies and cache. I think one of the plugins is the culprit but I’m not ready to lose any of them.

  12. Ha, for me it’s the other way around…Chrome is giving me the issues and it’s FF that seems trouble free. Major pain!

  13. So here’s my twist on the problem. It only happens if I’m logged in to Twitter. No matter what browser I am in. If I log out and follow a link in an email that says someone new is following me, I can see their profile; but, as soon as I log in, the profile doesn’t exist. As a side note, I’m not sure these are legitimate followers. If I look up something like the late show with letterman, then I see it just fine.

    1. Paula, That’s a valuable tip for me. I will log out the next time I click an email link and see how it goes, but it’s unreasonable. Firefox is getting to be a problem with other things, in particular the Yslow plugin, which I use at work. It fails to run unless I uninstall it and reinstall it. Then it works for a day or so before I have to repeat this process.

      Ash

  14. We’re hitting the same thing in IE9, but it may not be browser related, and it only happens when NOT logged in, when I login to twitter it works fine. Weird!

    1. Since this happens at their website, I don’t think so – and they could show a more appropriate message if it did. I am now using Firefox 10.1 and have not had the error for a while.

      Since different people have seen the same error in different browsers, or when logged in/not logged in, I think that the only common denominator is a cookie and/or something in the cache.

      It would be great if @support (Twitter Support) dropped by this thread and left an explanation.

    1. I’m using Firefox 12.0 on a Linux box and I’m having the issue too. I’m in the process of implementing login with Twitter and can get the authentication url fine, but when redirecting to it and authorizing my application I get the message:
      Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!
      Thanks for noticing—we’re going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon.

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