Here's an idea. Actually recycle the inactive user names like you said you would. I've been on Twitch for 7.5 years now WITHOUT my correct handle because someone with 1 follower is "using" it. As long as my fans are searching for my page this account will be "active" because it's getting traffic from my followers. PLEASE allow attention to this and other cases like this instead of sending generic response as if we didn't already research why this is happening. As a 7.5 year Twitch streamer it's crazy to me that myself and others are still waiting for our correct handles because some inactive account is not being recycled.

Long Story Short: Recycle Usernames

How about you speak to your parent mega rich company Amazon and see if they can employ some more staff for your support team because in all my life I've never witnessed such dreadful support simply because there is none. Almost 2 months of emails and tweeting Twitter support and still not 1 single reply. I think it's a disgrace a company as big as this has no support especially when you're a business that can charge money. What's even more of a disgrace is the fact I'm a moderator for a stream and someone made several accounts and reported my username for being offensive and I'm auto banned! This is this second time this has happened and to prove my username isn't offensive, you guys actually emailed me the first time to say it was a mistake and not offensive!!!! So how can I be banned for the same reason again??????? I would like to add that I understand there's a worldwide crisis, but at least send me an auto response email to let me know this is the reason I'm getting no support. Do you realise how frustrating it is getting no response what so ever from a company especially when you shouldn't be having the issue you're contacting them in the first place for!!!

The recycle program needs a massive overhaul.

There are far to many people waiting on unused usernames that are not released in a timely fashion.

I have been watching two names for years now. One is simply completely inactive with zero information on the profile and has never followed anyone, for years. That account also has never responded to private messages to even suggest someone logged in. **** I'd buy their account name from them if there was anyway I could contact them.

The other has the "Unless you have a time machine." message and may be an old twitch staff, or previous partner, but i have no way of knowing that. Can't they supply some reason to why I can't change to that name?

Such as: "This username is unavailable and is exempt from the recycle program"

Then in the FAQ they can just state the names that fall into this category are the old staff, partner.. etc names. So we know we won't get it. Transparency! And it wouldn't be difficult, Twitch I'm sure already has a list of names it will not release in its database, just tell us why.

I would like to suggest that there be way when we go to change our name and it says its "unavailable" for name change, that we can request a flag on it. That it can then be checked for activity and if it is actually inactive within the username recycle programs guidelines it can be put in an upcoming recycle. I'm sure this can be automated, Twitch can see if a name has logged in within six months or a year and if not then flag it, and actually do this, not like right now where inactive names MAY be recycled but probably won't be in any timely manner.

Inactive accounts under threat of recycle don't have to be deleted, you could just append the name with a bunch of random characters in case the owner comes back and you can be sure to send out multiple emails letting them know what is about to happen if they don't log in. Though this would defeat the purpose of clearing up space due to inactive accounts, at least you wouldn't be worried about someone not returning later because their name is gone.

They should also in some way be required to actually use the name. Why are some names taken but are not in use? Is there protection from possible name sellers? (Not that i've ever seen one for Twitch but its common in other areas, such as website urls, mmos usernames, social media handles) What if someone has taken a name and only logs in once a year on that alt account but that account has zero activity, they don't chat or watch any videos? Is that fair or right? Why is that allowed? Shouldn't that name be available for someone who will use it?

The current system suggests that inactive accounts will be recycled but it could take as little as six months or it could take years. We have no way of knowing when that will be or even if the name we want is eligible for recycle. I had a **** of time just getting twitch to tell me if Curse usernames from when Twitch bought Curse and automatically created accounts for them would be eligible to recycle. I was told all those names have already been recycled, but it took multiple emails and explaining on my end as the twitch staff responding just wanted to send me copy paste responses that never addressed my question.

Of course partners/affiliates and old staff names should be exempt from this to avoid possible fraud/impersonation.

I'm not sure if the problem is on my side, or if my IP got somehow banned, but I can't connect to twitch.uservoice.com without using a proxy.

Right now I'm writing this ticket from a proxy IP 186.121.206.241 (Bolivia), and it works fine. But when I try to open twitch.uservoice.com without a proxy from my main IP 95.27.129.58 (Russia), I get a "ERRCONNECTIONTIMED_OUT" error in Chrome and "The connection has timed out" in Firefox.

I should note that uservoice.com opens fine, and twitch.tv opens fine as well - only twitch.uservoice.com is not working.

I would appreciate if someone could take a look at this, because using proxy makes adding and tracking tickets on User Voice much more difficult.

Below is my tracert information for twitch.uservoice.com (without using a proxy).

Tracing route to twitch.uservoice.com [104.17.27.92]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 178 ms 203 ms 216 ms 78.107.125.165
3 132 ms 198 ms 192 ms 78.107.125.165
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 * * * Request timed out.

Stop replying to support requests once and then marking as resolved when nothing is resolved. This happened twice.

First time I got a generic copy/pasted email, which absolutely IGNORED anything I had written in the request itself. Then it was marked as resolved.

Second time, a human answered with an actual reply, I immediately replied back but the issue was, again, already closed.

This is really, really, really bad support. It's absolutely disgraceful.
You either don't care about your users, or you are completely oblivious to the quality of your support staff.

So here's my idea: Get your **** together Twitch.

I've seen this requested feature a lot, option to add a display name? (just like with Twitter, there's a display name, and an @username)

Good way to deal with username snipers, generic words & common names such as "Jake" or "Jacob" are already being used of course, but if someone named "Jacob" creates a username such as /Jacob_535455 then it just looks messy for a channel name, so yeah, a display name should be an option too (it's already on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Steam, you name it, so it'd be a good idea for here too)

For LIVE notifications, it should still say "@Jacob_535455 just went LIVE" (or something similar) to prevent confusion with someone else named Jacob

Authenticate a PC across all of your platforms. Example: Twitch Web and Desktop App, Broadcasting software (StreamLabs OBS), etc.

Right now, after re-installing my Windows, I had to request an SMS authentication code for Web, Twitch App Desktop and StreamLabs OBS. Since I had to reset my password (forgot it once again, since I am not allowed to have an Easy password) I have totally requested 3 sms messages. After which I get locked out and I couldn't get a code for the Desktop Twitch App for that period of time, on the same PC.

Authenticating the PC uniquely, without having to authenticate the pc each time when a login has occurred from a new App supporting Twitch Login, would be a lot better UX. Please consider updating your API, cuz I'm pretty sure that's what's handling it. I am even assuming the initial idea is that, but it somehow fails on a Back-end level.

I know you guys have been "working" on this, but the views not counting for small streamers is crippling. I'm currently trying to get Affiliate status and it feels like every single time I start making progress, your servers/algorithms ***** me over and knock me back down again. I have friends that watch regularly and it had been counting their views... now I'm about to breach 2.2 views and because the system is not counting their views, I'm going to get knocked back down below 2.1 again. It's very frustrating that your system isn't more reliable than this. I love the service, but can IT please fix this issue?