faction/chain/timeout api response returning 0

I've been using https://api.torn.com/faction/?selections=chain&key= this api call for over a year now, to notify me and faction members when the chain gets low, the ['timeout'] value has always returned the correct amount of seconds left until a chain dies, but since 5:16 TCT today (time not precise), it has always been returning a simple 0 in the chain timeout value.
example value :
{"chain":{"current":43634,"max":50000,"timeout":0,"modifier":1,"cooldown":256757,"start":1666699223,"end":1667371336}}
Will provide key that gave this broken value if a staff privately messages me.


Edit: Faction member is informing me that torn crashed around the same time 'timeout' started forcing 0, and that our chain was briefly broken before being restored. That would make sense because 'current' is displaying an older value as well.

My API from torn is showing our chain stuck at 42,316 on yata and on my phone on Torn PDA it shows the same number with a chain cooldown timer.

Not sure if this is related

Same club here; seems to be an overall problem after this crash;

Our chain dropped after it had automatically been restored, and it logged our watchers out and they struggled to log back in.

So close, please restore!

Same here.

Same issue for our faction, Chain API returns a dead chain (on cooldown) making chain watching very hard for us. Would be awesome to get this fixed.

We had the same issues and our chain dropped shortly after. A lot of us use TornPDA and TornTools for chain watch and not having that notif kinda screwed us.

not pushing more for it to be restarted, it is what it is. just we were trying to work out what had happened and one of us found this thread. nobody knew about the issue with the api and had we, we would of done things different.

maybe an announcement or something in the news ticker could help others know about the issue and avoid this outcome?

none the less, nice one dude.

I think it’s a pretty valid reason.


We’ve had our chain going since the beginning of the Halloweek and our chain dropped during the time that chain notifs went down. We have had a steady amount of hitters and our chain watchers don’t usually need to make more than a single hit during their watch if even that. I believe this is a good explanation as to why the chain didn’t immediately die, we had members logging on and off constantly so a chain saving hit wasn’t necessary until a little bit later.


A large number of our members utilize Torn PDA for chain watch as it has been widely recommended as a mobile alternative due to not having a functioning Torn Mobile app. I believe that our chain dropped due to the API not sending out data since we had no other issues with it during the rest of the event time.



I’m not saying we necessarily deserve to have our chain restored because of that, even though that is what I want, but I think not having the API is ultimately the reason why it dropped. We didn’t even know that the API was having issues until the chain had already dropped so we couldn’t prepare for it and having someone watching manually.

Having scripts and API that gives you chain alerts is a luxury but it’s something many players rely on now and having chain notifs has become standard for a large number of people who chain.

Man that sucks whats the point of having API if it has trouble working sometimes it ruins the gameplay and experience of text based game by having lack of working features.

What i dont understand is why must we have repercussions for the API failing, people have a life outside of torn, this is just a game i play on the side it isn’t progressive for a game like this.

I work to pay the bills and a place to live etc. i don't have time to watch a bar all the time, people working unfortunately pays you also, so if you’re making money from people, you should expect to provide a service and if something fails on your side which ruins someone’s experience of the game thats being funded by people playing, you have the responsibility to correct said error.

Unfortunately I don't agree with your response, something failed on your side, no announcement was made, now you cant be bothered to fix or rectify something because merely you cant be arsed.

Our chain is something we’ve worked on collectively, sacrificed hours if not days watching it driving traffic towards torn, so if you factor in all those irl hours and people working on something all for something to fail on your end, whats a couple of hours trying to fix something on your behalf if it rectifys the problem?

Hopefully this is just a one off but i can understand why people are frustrated.

If the game cant support these features then why do we have them?

"The API issue has been a thing for about 6 hours" are players expected to check the game is actually working everytime they play it?

"Free pass" I don't thing any of the guys that earned the chains over the last week or so think that it was free..

"cannot give a free pass for chain restores continuously in this window until the issue is fixed." Why not? the issue with the game that is causing its intended use to fail , which is in no way any ones fault involved in any of these chains.

I don't often post on things like this I can accept that we always tell our players not to rely on the alerts and perhaps they did this time I could not say . BUT what you are saying is just absolute rubbish.

If the API was down, people would know it was down and therefore know not to rely on TT / TornPDA for alerts.

The point (in my DM to you) was the API was UP but giving invalid data. This is not the fault of the players as there was no way (for the average person) to know the data was invalid.

The API subsystem is a part of the Torn Infrastructure and is trusted by almost (if not) every player.

So, are you saying that the API subsystem is in fact not suitable to be used as a reliable source of information and the results may contain invalid data?

We also dropped our chain thanks to the API Issues. We rely heavily on this API to hold the chain alive, since it's a part of the game I'd honestly expect the fairness towards the players of torn which are chaining right now to have a right of the chain beeing restored.

We didn't even know that the API was broken, there was no Announcement or sth like that in the Newsticker.

Quite hilarious. The system is wonky, it's supposedly getting fixed, as well has been confirmed that the problem is on Torn's side and not working as intentended. Supposedly also for hours straight already would have been cool if at least some news ticker would have notified people about it.

If this has let to issues, the answer is a sophisticated 'it's your own responsibility'.

Basically the API merely acts as a sort of failsafe popping up notifications, but the main point is that a chain needs to be watched on the timer at all times. Because anything else is simply unreliable. Serioiusly, whats the point of adding failsafes when its neglected to inform people the failsafe doesnt work.

This whole Torn API usage should get a 'use at your own risk label'. Because despite admitting the problem, Torn takes no responsibility for it.

Does that mean the chains will be restored once the API issue is fixed?

Edit: Why I ask -
Not restoring it at all, vs, not restoring it every time when people ask as long as the issue lasts, sound different to me, and both have been said.

We are JUX are used to dropping chains, and actually surprised it lasted till 18.5k somehow this time, but it's gonna suck for all the ones at 40k+.