Thread

The 1.x download still says its version 1.3 should it work anyway?  It seems like its not updated on my end.

Yes, 1.3 is the incremented version for EE 1.x, and 1.4 is the version number for EE 2.x; the EE 2.x version of the plugin already had a 1.3 update for its conversion to EE 2.x.

The plugin doesn’t work when you’re on a shared server. I’m getting the following error (echo $rawxml in pi.twitter_timeline.php):

Rate limit exceeded. Clients may not make more than 150 requests per hour.

From def.twitter.com:

- Anonymous calls are based on the IP of the host and are permitted 150 requests per hour.
- OAuth calls are permitted 350 requests per hour.

Is there have a solution for this problem?

Looks like authentication was just removed from the Twitter Timeline all together.  Is there an interest in EllisLab to make the Twitter Timeline plugin authenticate via OAuth?  If not, I may take a stab at it myself since we have a client that needs authentication to work again (for their friends timeline).

Thoughts?

The main concern we had was allowing the most common usage to no longer be available: displaying an unprotected feed.  On the priority of things for first party development, though, a Twitter plugin is fairly low.  We think it would be wonderful for a third party to create a really nice add-on for Twitter; it’s a robust opportunity for application development as is evidenced by the choices on mobile and the desktop, so we’re honestly surprised that there are more commercial and free solutions for all things Twitter in the add-on community.

Thanks for the quick reply, Derek.  Most things can be accomplished using either the Twitter Timeline or the Twitter Search (which seems to be unavailable at the moment) plugins.  However for users that want to manage who shows up in the stream without going into the code, there’s really nothing available now.

We will possibly take this on, but that’s subject to discussions with our client… So stay tuned. 

If there’s any interest in a more robust Twitter add-on, shoot us a Private Message.

Dereck, a previously mentioned by someone else, I am also getting a “pi.twitter_timeline.php on line 394” error thrown using ee 1.6.9. Was this ever solved?

Good lord…. it decided to magically start working…  😡

Hi folks. I had this working just fine on a site with the new (n)oAuth solution. Seems as traffic has increased the plugin is not working. I’m also running on a shared server. Has anyone found a way to reliably display an unprotected twitter feed in an EE template since oAuth was introduced??

Thanks.

Sorry guys.

Go ahead and grab a new version if you’re running into the rate limiting bug. Replace the files and clear out the twitter timeline cache.

It may take up to an hour to start pulling in data, we had to drastically reduce the rate at which we can hit twitter’s api. Also, if someone wants to take up Derek’s challenge, drop me an email, I may have some code to help you get started on the oauth stuff.

Installed the new version on EE1.6.9. Still getting:

(0.013305) Fetching Twitter timeline remotely
(0.410453) Twitter Timeline error: Rate limit exceeded. Clients may not make more than 150 requests per hour.
(0.410505) Twitter Timeline Error: Unable to retrieve statuses from Twitter.com

Perhaps this is because I’m on a shared server? Other sites could be hitting twitter just as fast from the same IP. Don’t suppose there’s anything can be done about that.

Aaron MacAdam appears to have made a start on an oAuth version of the timeline plugin. I couldn’t get it working but perhaps someone here will.

http://aaronmcadam.com/wordpress/?p=103

Thanks for the responses/updates.

@Pascal…

Thanks for your efforts on this. Unfortunately, on my shared server, the measures taken to reduce the rate of API calls from the plugin are not sufficient. I don’t know if this is the same for anyone else out there.

In thinking about this problem - I’d like to make a suggestion.

Would it be possible to have the plugin cache the feed as it currently does, but upon receipt of the “rate exceeded” error it simply defaults back to the cache file, instead of displaying nothing?

I’ve never written an EE plugin (that’s for another day) but I’d imagine it would be possible to check for the rate warning in an incoming feed before replacing the cached data, and then resetting the expiry forward a couple of hours.

This would at least mean that users would see a dated feed, instead of a broken feed.

Once again, appreciate the support.

J.

Would it be possible to have the plugin cache the feed as it currently does, but upon receipt of the “rate exceeded” error it simply defaults back to the cache file, instead of displaying nothing?

It should do that already, but the prerequisite is a valid cache file. I think in your case the first call fails with a rate limiting error. So it’ll be blank until one of the later calls succeeds. One way to force a dated feed in a situation like that would be to install the plugin locally and then copy the cache file it creates. As long as the parameters are the same it should generate a file of the same name.

Having tried this plugin on our shared server, adjusting cache time and using both twitter and template caches I’ve found that its’ performance is extremely sketchy. One final suggestion is the inclusion of a customisable error message for when no response is received from Twitter.

If there are still javascript solutions out there that work under the new twitter system I’d love to hear about them… it’s off to google I go in the meantime, will post possibilities here.

J.