Twitter gem for rails always fails on first status update (console example included)

Question

Every time I try to post to twitter in my rails app, the first post fails. I will explain the issue further after I show a quick example. Here is a live example from the console (with sensitive stuff edited):

>> u = User.find(7)
=> #<User id: 7, login: "[email protected]", email:
"[email protected]", crypted_password: "stuff", salt: "stuff",
twitter_token: "some_twitter_token", twitter_secret:
"some_twitter_secret", twitter_sn: "some_twitter_sn">

>> u.twitter_client
=> #<Twitter::Base:0x7f11672957a0 @client=#<Twitter::OAuth:
0x7f1167295728 @csecret="some_c_secret", @ctoken="some_c_token",
@asecret="some_a_secret", @consumer_options={},
@atoken="some_a_token">>

>> u.twitter_client.update("Hello World")
=> false

>> u.twitter_client
=> #<Twitter::Base:0x7f11672957a0 @client=#<Twitter::OAuth:
0x7f1167295728 @csecret="some_c_secret", @consumer=#<OAuth::Consumer:
0x7f1167290bd8 @uri=#<URI::HTTP:0x3f88b3948330 URL:http://
twitter.com>, @options={:access_token_path=>"/oauth/
access_token", :site=>"http://
twitter.com", :oauth_version=>"1.0", :scheme=>:header, :request_token_path=>"/
oauth/request_token", :signature_method=>"HMAC-
SHA1", :http_method=>:post, :authorize_path=>"/oauth/authorize"},
@http=#<Net::HTTP twitter.com:80 open=false>, @secret="secret",
@key="key">, @access_token=#<OAuth::AccessToken:0x7f1167290c78
@consumer=#<OAuth::Consumer:0x7f1167290bd8 @uri=#<URI::HTTP:
0x3f88b3948330 URL:http://twitter.com&gt;, @options=
{:access_token_path=>"/oauth/access_token", :site=>"http://
twitter.com", :oauth_version=>"1.0", :scheme=>:header, :request_token_path=>"/
oauth/request_token", :signature_method=>"HMAC-
SHA1", :http_method=>:post, :authorize_path=>"/oauth/authorize"},
@http=#<Net::HTTP twitter.com:80 open=false>, @secret="secret",
@key="key">, @token="token", @response=#<Net::HTTPRequestTimeOut 408
Request Timeout readbody=true>, @secret="secret">, @ctoken="ctoken",
@asecret="asecret", @consumer_options={}, @atoken="atoken">>

>> u.twitter_client.update("Hello World")
=> <Mash created_at="Thu Sep 03 01:38:21 +0000 2009" favorited=false
id=3724099662 in_reply_to_screen_name=nil in_reply_to_status_id=nil
in_reply_to_user_id=nil source="<a href=\"http://www.url.com\" rel=
\"nofollow\">MyApp</a>" text="Hello World" truncated=false user=<Mash
created_at="Tue Aug 11 19:47:26 +0000 2009" description=nil
favourites_count=0 followers_count=4 following=false friends_count=21
id=64803633 location=nil name="some name" notifications=false
profile_background_color="9ae4e8" profile_background_image_url="http://
s.twimg.com/a/1251923748/images/themes/theme1/bg.gif"
profile_background_tile=false profile_image_url="http://s.twimg.com/a/
1251923748/images/default_profile_normal.png"
profile_link_color="0000ff" profile_sidebar_border_color="87bc44"
profile_sidebar_fill_color="e0ff92" profile_text_color="000000"
protected=false screen_name="screen_name" statuses_count=4
time_zone=nil url=nil utc_offset=nil verified=false>>

>> u.twitter_client
=> #<Twitter::Base:0x7f11672957a0 @client=#<Twitter::OAuth:
0x7f1167295728 @csecret="csecret", @consumer=#<OAuth::Consumer:
0x7f1167290bd8 @uri=#<URI::HTTP:0x3f88b3948330 URL:http://
twitter.com>, @options={:access_token_path=>"/oauth/
access_token", :site=>"http://
twitter.com", :oauth_version=>"1.0", :scheme=>:header, :request_token_path=>"/
oauth/request_token", :signature_method=>"HMAC-
SHA1", :http_method=>:post, :authorize_path=>"/oauth/authorize"},
@http=#<Net::HTTP twitter.com:80 open=false>, @secret="secret",
@key="key">, @access_token=#<OAuth::AccessToken:0x7f1167290c78
@consumer=#<OAuth::Consumer:0x7f1167290bd8 @uri=#<URI::HTTP:
0x3f88b3948330 URL:http://twitter.com&gt;, @options=
{:access_token_path=>"/oauth/access_token", :site=>"http://
twitter.com", :oauth_version=>"1.0", :scheme=>:header, :request_token_path=>"/
oauth/request_token", :signature_method=>"HMAC-
SHA1", :http_method=>:post, :authorize_path=>"/oauth/authorize"},
@http=#<Net::HTTP twitter.com:80 open=false>, @secret="secret",
@key="key">, @token="token", @response=#<Net::HTTPOK 200 OK
readbody=true>, @secret="secret">, @ctoken="ctoken",
@asecret="asecret", @consumer_options={}, @atoken="atoken">>

It's obvious that doing u.twitter_client the first time is not setting the client properly as @consumer is not set and the first time I do u.twitter_client.update("Hello World"), if i look at the client after that I see the 408 request time out issue which is really strange to me. Does anyone know how I can fix this? I am including my functions below that the above example used.

def twitter_oauth
   @oauth ||= Twitter::OAuth.new(ConsumerConfig['twitter_token'],
ConsumerConfig['twitter_secret'])
end

def twitter_client
   @client ||= begin
     twitter_oauth.authorize_from_access(twitter_token,
twitter_secret)
     Twitter::Base.new(twitter_oauth)
   end
end

Update I should also note that this issue only occurs in my production environment. This process would tweet successfully in my development environment.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Do you need to change the credentials for your production environment? When you setup your application on the Twitter site now you specify what URL you want it to return to and it skips whatever URL you pass in programatically as a return (security feature).