Well, that was quick. About thirty minutes after X started to experience an issue with its mobile and desktop interface, engineers at the company appear to have sorted it out.
While posts were still appearing in an account’s main feed, if you headed to the homepage of a particular account, you were met with a blank page and a message saying that the user had yet to post anything. For example, here’s how it affected the account of Elon Musk, the owner of X and a prolific poster:
The problem started at around 6:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday and appeared to affect users globally.
At one point, Downdetector, a site that tracks and reports real-time outages and problems for websites, apps, and online services, received more than 7,000 user reports of issues with X. Comments on Downdetector’s X page included, “Here we go again,” and “Why can’t Elon fix his own app?”
X last suffered an outage just a few days ago, on May 30. The disruption began around 3:45 p.m. ET and lasted for about three hours, according to reports. During this period, users experienced issues such as duplicate posts, being logged out, and losing access to their feeds and posting capabilities.
The social media app also suffered problems on May 22. Across a 24-hour period, some posts wouldn’t load, timelines failed to update, and some messages could only be viewed after refreshing the site.
Some have attributed the choppier service to changes made by Musk after he acquired the company, then called Twitter, for $44 billion in 2022.
Early on, the billionaire entrepreneur laid off a significant chunk of the workforce, including many many engineers who were responsible for maintaining uptime and addressing bugs. Musk also likes to push fast-paced rollouts of new features without extensive testing, which can lead to problems.
If any more information comes to light about Tuesday’s brief outage, we’ll be sure to share it here.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Samsung’s scandal over its Game Optimizing Service, or GOS, has returned with a bill attached. South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission has tentatively fined the company 20.1 billion won, or about $15.1 million, over gaming claims made for the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Tab S8.
The regulator says Samsung promoted the devices as gaming powerhouses without disclosing that GOS placed preset CPU and GPU limits on certain demanding games. Samsung disputes that conclusion, calling GOS a legitimate way to manage heat.
Apple's next cheaper iPhone could get a brand-new processor while keeping its most stubborn display compromise. Digital Chat Station tips the iPhone 18e for a 2027 release with a 2nm A20 chip and a 6.12-inch OLED screen still limited to 60Hz.
The rumored camera setup includes a single 48MP rear camera and a possible 24MP selfie camera. There's new hardware to consider, but buyers hoping Apple would extend that upgrade generosity to smoother scrolling could be disappointed.