What Does Twitter Over Capacity Mean?
Although Twitter imposes a 140-character limit on all the message or "tweets" you send out using it, that doesn't mean the site can't become overloaded with data. In fact, the site experiences periodic capacity outages -- which prevent you from updating your Twitter feed and, in some cases, accessing Twitter at all -- when too many users tweet at the same time.
Other People Are Reading
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The Fail Whale
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If you visit Twitter when it's over capacity, you'll notice the image of a sleeping whale being held up by birds. Known as the "Fail Whale," this humorous icon actually illustrates the problem of being overcapacity rather well. Although Twitter's server is large in capacity, a finite limit of the data it can accommodate does exist. Like a flock of birds trying to carry a large whale over the sea, Twitter's ability to operate under conditions of extremely high capacity is questionable.
Reasons for Overcapacity
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Simply stated, the reason for Twitter going over capacity is that too many users are attempting to tweet at the same time. In tangible terms, this happens for a variety of reasons, such as when a major news story erupts -- a celebrity dying or getting married, for example. If you hear the same story on all your local and national news stations, you shouldn't be surprised if you find Twitter to be over capacity. Alternatively, Twitter can also go over capacity as a result of too many users posting at the same time without a common reason.
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Getting Around Overcapacity
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When Twitter is over capacity, all its users -- whether you're a celebrity with 100,000 followers or a user who's just joined today -- and unable to tweet and, in some cases, access the site at all. As such, there is only one way to overcome Twitter being over capacity -- waiting. If you have an important message you want to tweet, re-load your Twitter feed every few seconds until you're able to tweet. Otherwise, simply wait until later in the day for the problem to be resolved.
Status Blog
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Twitter does its best to communicate openly and frequently with its users about issues pertaining to the site, including any which involve the site being over capacity. If Twitter is over capacity and you're not sure why, visit the "Status Blog" to read any updates Twitter employees have sent out explaining the outage. If nothing is posted to the status blog, it could simply be that people working behind the scenes haven't had a chance to update yet.
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