TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Thousands of users of Taiwan’s largest native social media site were unable to log in early morning on Saturday (Jan. 28), prompting consternation and fury.

The PTT message board (批踢踢實業坊), often dubbed “Taiwan’s Reddit,” required users to verify their email addresses last night following the release of a policy prompting them to do so more than two years ago. Writing on the board’s Facebook page, PTT administrators said many users had still not verified their email addresses, or linked their accounts to school or business emails, risking permanent loss of their PTT accounts.

As a result, 1.5 million “villagers” (a colloquial term for PTT users) were required to update their email contact details and log back in using a verification code sent to the new address. Problems started when many users did not receive the code, and were locked out, leading last night to be dubbed the "villagers’ longest night.”

PTT is an open-source platform registered as a student organization at National Taiwan University and allows third party developers to build apps for users to access the site through various platforms (mobile phones, for example.) Users reported issues with third-party apps, while Facebook commenter "ChunChieh Chuang" told users that using a computer to log in was more reliable than using a third-party app on a phone, adding sarcastically “(this is) truly high-quality functionality.”

Users on PTT’s Facebook page were also recommending those without a computer to use two phones to log in, while switching the phone screen away from the login page was causing disconnections. Users reported success using iOS, Yahoo or Gmail addresses, while adding that HiNet was proving unreliable, according to UDN.

At the time of publication, users were still commenting on the PTT Facebook page saying they were unable to log in to the site.