Frustrated fans attempted to solve a series of Easter egg puzzles to reveal titles for new “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” songs but were met with technical difficulties.
Taylor Swift fans were struggling Tuesday as the pop sensation sent them on a virtual Easter egg hunt to reveal her new “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” track titles — only to be faced with technical difficulties.
Swift announced her upcoming “1989” re-recording last month while performing in Los Angeles, and that “Taylor’s Version” will include previously unreleased songs. Vault songs have been included in her three prior re-recording releases as an extra perk for fans who stream and purchase the albums.
Swift previously revealed vault tracks for “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” and “Red (Taylor’s Version)” by releasing a video of scrambled letters.
Google announced Tuesday that its search function will populate a series of 89 puzzles that fans can solve to eventually reveal the names of those new songs.
“You’ll be helping Swifties around the world get out of the woods (or unlock the vault) as everyone collectively solves 33 million puzzles,” Google said. “And that’s how it works, that’s how you get the vault track titles!”
Some international fans first noticed a little blue vault populate on Saturday when searching “Taylor Swift,” building anticipation as Swifties awaited the reveal of what the vault meant.
The puzzle began with the vault revealing a scrambled version of Swift’s upcoming album name and would reveal more puzzles as participants entered answers into the search bar.
But many fans (including this NBC News reporter) think there’s been a glitch as they search the answers with no subsequent progress.
Some fans were frustrated that they couldn’t participate or were upset at the large number of puzzle completions required when the game wasn’t working properly.
“I feel like Taylor constantly forgets how big she is,” one user posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “33 million is a lot when you take into account the vault not working. Google has to process who is playing the game and who is genuinely trying to search for sunglasses which I think is what screws this all up”
Another joked, “we’re definitely not getting 33m before the album comes out with this stupid vault not working.”
Google addressed the errors in a post on X late Tuesday.
“Swifties, the vault is jammed! But don’t worry, there are no blank spaces inside,” the company wrote. “We’re in our fix-it era and will be out of the woods soon.”
A representative for Swift did not immediately respond to request for comment Tuesday.
Swift posted a clip Tuesday afternoon of a blue vault opening on her Instagram, captioning the video with “You can tell me when the *search* is over… if the high was worth the pain.”
Searches for “Taylor Swift” spiked after the post and remained high for a few hours, according to Google Trends data. Swift reached her highest Google search interest at 3 p.m. Tuesday, two hours after her post, before declining slightly.
“1989 (Taylor’s Version)” is scheduled to release on Oct. 27, exactly nine years after the original’s release.