Cannot Upload Twitter Background – RESOLVED
By Ian Lee on May 19, 2009 in Software
Twitter is a fun and productive tool that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates. This free social networking service has grown so exponentially that, unfortunately, it is often times plagued with bugs and server time outs – frustrating to say the least. The latest bug that is tormenting Twitter users worldwide is the inability to upload a background image. A Twitter background has to be 800 kilobytes in file size and must be in a JPG, GIF or PNG format. But even if you abide by these rules, many users are still getting the dreaded “There was a problem with your picture. Was it an animated gif? We don’t support those!” error. No Twitter, I was trying to upload a JPG that was 700 kilobytes in file size. Seems like Twitter already knows about this bug but there has not been a fix yet… until now that is.
- Profile images: can’t add or remove an image, or current image reverts to old image
- Error uploading profile picture or background image
Over at Joomlabear.com, there was a solution to remove metadata from the JPG itself and this allowed the image to be uploaded to Twitter. Unfortunately, this did not work for me.
Resolution – Cannot Upload Twitter Background
Although not a formal fix, what did work for me was to click on “Don’t use a background image” before clicking “save changes” during the upload process.

Using this work around, I was finally able to update my Twitter background. How do you like the design?
I hope this can help all of you who are also having difficulty trying to upload a background image to your Twitter account!
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13 Comment(s)
By Big Bear on May 19, 2009 | Reply
Hiya Ian,
It’s a shame that my solution did not work for you, were you using CS4? I’ve stripped the meta for about 10 people so far and has worked for all.
Your solution is interesting though – I’ll update my post when I get to the office.
By chris cooper on May 19, 2009 | Reply
Looks good Ian! all about that branding, eh??
By Ian Lee on May 19, 2009 | Reply
@Big Bear,
Glad to hear you have helped others to get their Twitter background to update. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do so on my end from stripping meta tags.
@chris cooper,
I was out of ideas so just decided to use something simple. You like?
By chris on Jun 3, 2009 | Reply
Thanks for that.
By Peterfrancon on Jun 4, 2009 | Reply
Hi Ian
About your Twitter background…
I use cs2 – no meta tag removal for me, and persistence in uploading paid off. It appeared it wouldn’t accept a re-upload of the same filename, so I suspected cacheing issues. But it worked eventually. Server overload sounds about right.
Peter
By Ian Lee on Jun 5, 2009 | Reply
@Peterfrancon, glad you were able to get your twitter background updated through multiple attempts. I was not able to do so until I clicked on don’t use a background image before doing the upload. Yes, I also noticed that uploading an image with the same file name as one that has already been uploaded often fails. I normally rename to another file name before uploading. Thanks for the note.
By Montana on Jun 8, 2009 | Reply
I’ve also had that problem, fixed it the same way, but what’s more annoying is that it regularly throws 505 server errors at me – do you get that as well?
By Gino Carpio on Jun 10, 2009 | Reply
You got a very informative blog that helps a marketing guy like me!
Thank you!
By izmir web tasarım on Jun 28, 2009 | Reply
Thank you very much for that.
By izmir web tasarım on Jun 28, 2009 | Reply
Thank you very for everything.
By Catharine on Jun 30, 2009 | Reply
I keep getting the 505 errors too … finally I just went back to my old background … any fix for that?
By Yuva on Jul 6, 2009 | Reply
As a matter of fact i was so much annoyed with not being able to change my background which was pretty dull. Now your tips i have successfully changed my background. Thanks for your post.
By chatcity on Jul 12, 2009 | Reply
thanks so much admin this is a good site