Can’t Upload Twitter Background Image – Bug Fix
Update: This fix definitely works as I have now had around 10 people email their images to me and I have stripped meta data from their background images using Photoshop CS4, every single image has then been uploaded successfully to Twitter – however it does appear you need Photoshop CS4 to strip the meta data – I cannot advise how this can be achieved with any version prior to CS4 – if anyone knows please leave a comment or email me and I will update this.
As time allows I am also happy to strip meta from images if you email me – I cannot promise to do them all or very quickly but I will endeavor to as long as I’m not getting more than a few a day.
My method is below, and I promise you it does work as long as you correctly remove the meta data.
There is a bug currently making a few tweeters grumpy and I may have found a fix – at least it worked for me.
See my Twitter background in action: http://twitter.com/JoomlaBear
I was having trouble uploadingmy background image – Twitter would tell me that there was a problem and they were looking into it. I checked their suupport area and the problem seems to have existed for alittle while…
With a little trial and error I found that by removing metadata from the image I was able to upload without issue. Images with metadata I could not.
Simple way to do this is to open your image in photoshop and and from the File menu choose ‘Save forweb and devices’. Then select metadata = none from the dropdown.
See the image below and click to enlarge.
Twitter background image bug fix
You may also like to look at this post from Ian Lee which describes another twitter image method. And if you are interested in adding a twitter widget to your site, my friend Norman Sheppard has put together an easy option for this as well.
How do you get rid of the meta data in CS3?
Rob I’m not sure – does it not have the same dialogue as seen in my screenshot? I only have CS4 installed currently – if you can’t get it to work email me the image, my email should be below this post, and I’ll fire it back.
thanks for the tip. i finally got it to work b/c of this post.
@Rob not sure if i have the version PS as you but mine had a check box for “Optimized” or not. I deselected it and it worked perfectly.
emergingsea on twitter.
Ari to everyone else.
using firewoks and exporting the image in stead of save it, might help too
Yes that should – I’m not sure if Fireworks ads meta or not – I found that an image that has been uploaded to wordpress – and resized by wordpress will also have the meta stripped.
Nope, sorry. Does not work.
Hi Michael,
It does work I’m sure – send me your image and let me strip the meta.
BigBear just helped me out with my twitter image. His method definitely works. Thank you again for your help!
I have CS4 and can’t find that option, would you mind doing this for me?
Thanks,
Tim
nm, got it. thanks anyway though
Would have been happy to – glad you sorted it.
if you are using GIMP, make sure there is nothing on the image comments. The one that reads made with gimp. This is metadata
Thx Ozkar,
Gimp users will appreciate that.
Thank you so much, I was going crazy waiting for Twitter to resolve this issue. With CS3, I went “save for web”, changed the output settings to “background” + “view document as background”. It worked!!!!
Thanks very much, you can see the page here as evidence: http://twitter.com/BellaBeanie
I have CS3 and tried what Danielle suggested with changing the output setting to “background”. It didn’t work for me.
Here’s what did work:
I selected my image and clicked the “tile image” option. Hit save and it worked. Oddly, there was no tiling going on. Weird.
Proof:
http://twitter.com/thinksimplenow
Thanks for everyone’s help!
I’m having the same problem uploading a background image.
I have photoshop CS2 but when I go to “save for web” I don’t see an option to remove the metadata. Can anyone help?
Thanks.
Hi all. I’m suffering from the same problem as you, but I can’t even upload a profile picture nor a background picture. I’ve tried know for several hours with changing file formats, sizes, (betweeen 48 – 700 k) like Jpeg and Png, different names, I have installed and tried on both internet explorer and mozilla firefox, i have now 2 twitter accounts to see if that was the problem but nothing is working…
I don’t have photoshop just adobe elements and in there i can´t find any alternatives for selecting/deselecting metadata.
Please help me somebody? Frustrated…
Regards / Michael
Send through your picture and I will fix it
Hi BigBear. I’ve sent my pictures to [email removed for spam protection] about this errand, was it the wrong adress?
Regards, Michael
For those who cant upload the pic i found this site
http://blog.joomlabear.com/upload-twitter-background-image-bug-solution/
Hi Michael,
– I’ll look at it tonight as the machine I’m on today does not have CS4.
Correct address
Cheers
Big Bear
I need some help.. can only save as a tile version for web as someone else said. No option to leave out metadate in my version of PS.. unless someone can tell me somewhere else I can look
Thanks, this was the trick! But in CS3 I first needed to save it as a GIF without metadata, and then convert it to png…..but it works!
[...] at Joomlabear.com, there was a solution to remove metadata from the JPG itself and this allowed the image to be [...]
I had been looking for a fix for ages now! Thank you so much. Why doesn’t Twitter post this temp solution? Check out our twitter (with a nice custom jpg background hehe) at http://twitter.com/gameaccess for the latest video game updates.
Now its finally working! First i had the pic cleared of metadata (JPEG) then i converted it into a PNG file. Now it’s working! Don’t forbet the pic to be min of 48 k and max of 700 k. Thanks JoomlaBear for all your help!
Here’s the proof:
http://twitter.com/tjali
I’ve tried this, and it doesn’t work for me. Tried to uncheck optimized as well, and it made no difference. So frustrated!
Hi Michelle,
Send me your pic – Ive had almost a 100% success rate so far with the ones I have processed myself.
Hi, we’re also trying to upload our company background but nothing seems to work. Would you mind doing what you do to our three files?
Thanks so much for your help on this !
Valerie
I have tried all the solutions suggested and nothing seems to work…I’ve built versions of the page in PowerPoint, in Photoshop and in Image ready…I downloaded a Meta stripper, I’ve saved in every possible format and tried uploading them all in every combination of the above suggestions…can you tell I’m a mite frustrated? Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated..:)
Thanks so much for this post – worked beautifully!
Hi Joomlabear, nice advice about the meta tag data and CS4. I use cs2 and persistence paid off. It appeared it wouldn’t accept a re-upload of the same filename, so I suspected cacheing issues. But it worked eventually.
I like you template designs!
PeterFrancon
The fix doesn’t work. I’ve tried everything suggested
Correction. Does work, but doesn’t actually tile. proof http://www.twitter.com/killer16bars. Just take out the metadata and it will be fine
It seems to be tiling for me.
Okay, so I stripped all the meta data as you said (I do have CS4) and for whatever reason it still will not upload…you can see the status bar working and it gets about half way and then goes in Chrome > Error 101 (net::ERR_CONNECTION_RESET): Unknown error. and in IE >Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage any suggestions on what else might work? BTW the image is 498KB, ty for your help.
Hi Crystal – have you tried uploading a smaller version of the image? The connection reset sounds a bit like Twitter is just timing out, perhaps because the image is too large?
The error for which I wrote the above blog post was something slightly different where the image appeared to upload but would not appear in Twitter.
No problem Crystal, I suspected it was quite possibly just temperamental old Twitter
This was really doing me head in. So glad I stumbled upon your site. Image optimized was my problem in Photoshop 7.0. Thank you!
Hi, I have CS4 and I tried this but still had no luck
Hi Ruth,
Try making the image a little bit smaller perhaps – I’ve noticed that a background changing from say, 500kb to 400kb made a difference (I recommend smaller
And also try uploading your image to Twitter at a different time of day… Twitter is quite temperamental…
I finally managed to upload it, I choose the file, then clicked on “dont use a background image” before clicking on save and that worked.. weird
Struggled with uploading for ages … just saved it for web with high setting, then click ‘don’t use background image’ and its a winner. Check out AVAPR – DB
You can strip data in vista (Not sure about XP) but right click on picture and hit properties, then click the “details” tab. click on “remove properties and personal information” at the bottom of the window. Make sure “create a copy with all possible properties removed” is selected and click ok. worked with a png, havent tested any other file format. Hope this helps!
Thanks JV – that’s a good tip
I’m having problems, I currently have a custome background, but unable to change it, even if I follow all these pieces of advice.
maybe you can help? can I email my background image?
I thank you for your article.
I followed these links and found, that you don’t actually have to pay to get cool Twitter backgrounds. I found many web pages, which also offer cool and interesting design for Twitter and you can get them for free.
I hope that this will help you and the readers of this blog. Thank you again and I encourage you to write even more articles like this. They inspire a lot!
I have cs4, mac, os 10.5.8. I saved for web, unchecked optimized, selected none for metadata. When saving, saved as a background as suggested. When I browse for the pic, i select it. I click on save changes (is there supposed to be an upload step because I don’t show one, just select your file, and then save changes?) and when I do, it says your settings have been saved, but no pic change. What am i missing.
This is what worked for me.. Try…
“I finally managed to upload it, I choose the file, then clicked on “dont use a background image” before clicking on save and that worked.. weird”