Something weird has happened to my Twitter account.
Last night, out of the blue, the Twitter app just kicked me out saying my account had violated rules around automated behaviour and that I needed to verify my phone number again.
That's ok, I've done that before - albeit not under these circumstances - but this time it wouldn't be so easy.
First, there was a Captcha to pass - that was easy, a few pedestrian crossings ticked off and I moved on to the next page. This is where the problems started.
Tapping the verify button simply showed the message "Due to a technical issue, we couldn't complete this request. Please try again.". So I tried again.
And again.
And again.
And then this message appeared: "Something went wrong. You have exceeded the number of allowed attempts to verify your phone. Please try again later."
Now, I'm completely locked out. Publicly, my account is still visible, but with a warning that it's been suspended.
I've already logged a ticket with Twitter Support, but all I've had so far - 15 hours later - is the automated responses simply telling me to follow the instructions to verify my number, or reply if I'm still experiencing problems. Of course, I've done that.
I just don't know how long I have to wait. With everything that's going on in the world right now I understand their support team may be reduced or having a different way of working, so I'm just going to have to ride it out and chase up the support ticket if I haven't heard back after a day or two.
I've had that Twitter account for 11½ years, I'm feeling lost without it, and it's a great tool to find out coronavirus information or even light relief from it.
Update: 24 hours after getting locked out, I'm back 🎉 No explanation, though.