back to article BBC News website takes New Year's Eve break

The BBC News website evidently decided earlier today that it'd had enough of 2015, and took a New Year's Eve break which extended to several hours. Error 500 on BBC News website In solidarity with the hard-working site, we at El Reg knocked off for a few lunchtime liveners ahead of welcoming in 2016 tonight. We'll be back …

  1. Dave Harvey

    Slow response / timeouts + occasional 500

    = DDOS ?

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: Slow response / timeouts + occasional 500

      Could be. It's highly unusual, to be sure.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Slow response / timeouts + occasional 500

      Auntie is claiming it was DDOS - "Web attack knocks BBC websites offline"

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can I be the first to blame North Korea?

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      You are the first. I'm going to point the finger at Islamic State.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Childcatcher

        Lester's quite correct. It's Dash wot dun it. ...and the evil intellectual terrorism like this will continue to increase uncontrollably until every government agency you've never heard of has its own half witted backdoor in your phone, PC, telly, car, leccy meter, bus-pass...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's what they get for insisting you install Flash. Karma's a bitch.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Actually, I blame Drupal.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's not just their website

    All their streaming services seem to be down, too.

    1. Ol'Peculier

      Re: It's not just their website

      Radio 2 seems to be fine here.

      1. Mage Silver badge

        Re: It's not just their website

        R4 LW very clear here now.

    2. calmeilles

      Re: It's not just their website

      Ummm.... I'm getting R4 streaming no problem.

    3. illiad

      Re: It's not just their website

      what part of 'streaming' do you not understand??? 'streaming' uses the BBC internet!!!! {roll eyes}

      and most likely DAB too...

      1. Martin an gof Silver badge

        Re: It's not just their website

        Maybe he forgot the "joke" icon, but serious point... if all else fails, tune to LW. Solid as a rock across large chunks of Europe. Unless it falls down, or the valves burn out or something.

        Just don't try it in our Kangoo. Something wrong with the suppression in that car and every time the car goes over a bump there's a "squirt" of something on LW.

        M.

        1. Steven Raith

          Re: It's not just their website

          Fun fact - Radio 4 being knocked off the airwaves for more than a set period (I believe 72hrs) without explanation is one of the triggers to unleash Trident.

          No, seriously.

          http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2012/01/02/radio-4s-nuclear-safety-secrets-you-wont-believe-whats-in-the-airwaves/

          A very British way to conduct war,

          Steven R

  5. Mike Tubby
    Mushroom

    Auntie Beeb's 500 moment of hell?

    I particularly like the sense of humor that someone has with the error graphic... the clown from Test Card F, the blackboard with 500 written on it, something in the background going up in flames and the whole image set on light grey grid with colour bars at the top and bottom...

    ... BOFM moment?

    Mike

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: Auntie Beeb's 500 moment of hell?

      Yes, nicely done.

      1. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
        Mushroom

        Re: Auntie Beeb's 500 moment of hell?

        Yes, nicely done

        ditto

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/404_img.jpg

    2. BagOfSpanners

      Re: Auntie Beeb's 500 moment of hell?

      I agree it's a nice 500 page, but the HTML alone is 61KBytes, mostly CSS. If they are being DDOSed, should they really be trying to serve such a bulky error page?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Auntie Beeb's 500 moment of hell?

        Why would a DDoS result in a 500 server error?

        1. JoshOvki

          Re: Auntie Beeb's 500 moment of hell?

          > Why would a DDoS result in a 500 server error?

          Loads of traffic passed through the apache sever in the DMZ to the Web Server(s) in the background. Causes the webserver(s) to grind to a hault and lose connection the the apache server in the DMZ. Apache server will see this as a 500 error.

          1. Colin Miller
            Headmaster

            Re: Auntie Beeb's 500 moment of hell?

            Possibly should be 503-Service Unavailable or 504-Gateway Timeout instead.

  6. Gary Heard

    Erratic

    It's very erratic, working, gone, working again, gone again.

    I think DDOS is the most likely cause, and if I was looking to bring the "Mighty" BBC down, I'd try it in the Christmas holidays. Some sysadmins on duty, but the majority I imagine will be off preparing for the change of the year.

    Don't envy those working or those on call, I would imagine they are up to their necks in the mire.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Erratic

      "I think DDOS is the most likely cause"

      Why?

      Is a DDoS more likely than a technical error? Is the BBC really more vulnerable to a DDoS than a fuckup?

      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        Black Helicopters

        Re: Erratic

        Everyone's more vulnerable to a DDOS than a fuckup.

        For a start, you don't get fired for being DDOS'd.

        In this business, if you know of an excuse for a calamitous ballsup that gets you out of the frame and that you know everyone'll buy without question, you bloody well use it!

    2. John Sager

      Re: Erratic

      news.bbc.co.uk - I get RST

      www.bbc.co.uk/news works OK for me. (@ 10:55 31/12/15)

      1. illiad

        Re: Erratic

        yes, the main news was up again about 11 :)

    3. Netscrape

      Re: Erratic

      "Some sysadmins on duty, but the majority I imagine will be off preparing for the change of the year."

      hold on, sysadmins are needed to make New Year happen. Is there anything they cannot do?

      1. h4rm0ny
        Pint

        Re: Erratic

        >>"hold on, sysadmins are needed to make New Year happen. Is there anything they cannot do?"

        Not if they have root access. ;)

        (beer icon for our friends working on New Year's Eve to fix this).

  7. Your alien overlord - fear me
    Pirate

    At least it's not a 451 error because they said some thing scandalous about the NSA/GCHQ

  8. Locky

    Do you want to play Global Thermonuclear War?

    Let's hope the Trident submarine commanders still surface to hear The Today Programme rather than just pinging the site, else 2016 could be much shorter than anticipated...

    1. illiad

      Re: Do you want to play Global Thermonuclear War?

      no, how about a nice game of chess... :)

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Mushroom

      Re: Do you want to play Global Thermonuclear War?

      Captain Ramius: Re-verify our range to target... one ping only.

      Capt. Vasili Borodin: Captain, I - I - I just...

      Captain Ramius: Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.

      Capt. Vasili Borodin: Aye, Captain.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gov Counter extremist strategy?

    Or has it been shut down by the Gov for propagating extremist views?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Poor BBC

    They're going to have to find some actual techies to fix this one rather than just the bunch of overpromoted webdevs that usually make up their "technical" department. That won't be cheap on new years eve.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Poor BBC

      Is this not outsourced? Sure I'll find out on Monday

  11. graeme leggett Silver badge

    Not even the error page

    Main bbc.co.uk not responding "This page can’t be displayed" as a certain well-known browser has it.

    bbc iplayer radio app on my phone "if you're connected to the internet, it's probably an issue at our end..."

    BBC press office (@BBCPress) have tweeted "we're aware of a technical issue..." some 30 mins ago

  12. Gomez Adams

    Hope they get it fixed soon. I am suffering Dr Karl podcast withdrawal symptoms ... :(

  13. keithpeter Silver badge
    Coat

    Weather

    Weather regional queries not working (brief flash of 'we are experiencing technical problems' text when using search box, then shows list of locations, then just stops when you try to select a location) but National summary page up.

    Databases getting hit?

    Coat: nice day so off out.

  14. Mystic Megabyte
    Terminator

    Weather or not

    Does this mean that there will be no weather today? From where I'm sitting it's just grey in every direction and an unusual lack of wind. Maybe this is the Matrix's default setting.

    Happy New Year everyone :)

    1. TitterYeNot
      Coat

      Re: Weather or not

      BING BONG! This is a public service announcement.

      We regret to inform you that due to exacerbated overuse of the word 'austerity', an unacceptably high number of stories about water being wet and what you really shouldn't put in a dead pigs mouth if you want to be Prime Minister one day, plus the current juju-flop of an economic situation, today's weather has been cancelled and will not be reinstated until further notice.

      Please contact whoever you like (as long as it's not us) if you require more information.

      Thankyou for your attention.

      Oh, and erm, happy new year.

      BING BONG!

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Either a DDOS or their web servers are in the basement of one of their nice new buildings in the north west of England and its a PDOS (where the P indicates an unusually excessive amount of rain).

    Note for those outside the UK: modern office/school/municipal buildings in the UK are often built with flat roofs and located in areas known to flood; some of them win architectural awards, and then the windows fall out.

    1. BurnT'offering

      Websites too big to host in a shed

      Usually have a CDN in front

    2. Mike Pellatt

      then the windows fall out

      Or the architects decide that concave ones would look nice. Then they inexplicably focus sunlight onto the roadway below and damage cars.

  16. Tony S

    Getting it on all of their subsites - all browsers.

    Have they upset Theresa May recently?

    Just I post that, the site comes back up.

    1. h4rm0ny

      >>>Have they upset Theresa May recently?

      >>>Just I post that, the site comes back up.

      She heard you.

  17. Yugguy

    Divide by zero

    It probably tried to equate the number of people who accuse the BBC of having a leftwing bias with those who accuse it of being rightwing and disappeated up its own arse.

  18. chivo243 Silver badge
    Pint

    Preemptive strike

    The PFY doesn't want to work tonight... simple really.

  19. batfastad
    Pint

    TITSUP / Brown out

    What, no mention of TITSUP?

    It's at times like these I spare a thought for the poor operations folks who are no doubt getting glared at by various species of middle-manglement.

    As an infra/ops myself, only one phrase adequately sums up these moments... brown out.

    My advice, get it fixed then have alot of --------------------->

  20. Amorous Cowherder
    Gimp

    The joys of outsourcing

    So what do you reckon, some muppets decided to start patching some systems at the exact time of year when most people are off on their Xmas break?

    ( Gimp, 'cos there's some poor bugger in the IT team being severely rodgered right now! )

    1. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: The joys of outsourcing

      And its more than likely the 17 yr old intern ....

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ghost of Mary Whitehouse

    WoOOoooOooOooooOoooo

    Get that filth off the telly, etc.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ghost of Mary Whitehouse

      Ha Ha charade you are.

  22. Joey

    www.bbc.co.uk/news works

    I can't get through to news.bbc.co.uk but www.bbc.co.uk/news works just fine. I found this out but getting there through www.bbc.co.uk. Could it just be a DNS problem?

  23. Alfie Noakes

    Web attack knocks BBC websites offline

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35204915

    mb

  24. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
  25. Peter Kavanagh.

    DDOS appears to be confirmed

    Seems it was:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35204915

    I believe Akamai is a large component in their overall web presence - can someone versed in these things outline how this might have played out?

  26. This post has been deleted by its author

  27. taxman

    Oh Dear

    www.bbc.co.uk

    Address lookup

    canonical name a1733.g.akamai.net.

    aliases www.bbc.co.uk

    www.bbc.net.uk

    www.bbc.co.uk.edgesuite.net

    So either it was a massive DDoS that could overcome Akamai's Edgeserevrs (assuming BBC do not just use European ones) or there was a bit of a cockup in some configuration activity within BBC or Akamai.

    1. Mike Tubby

      Re: Oh Dear

      Yuk!

      Double CNAME lookup.... horrid... didn't look like that last time I checked!

      ... and no IPV6 either !

      root@ns0:/var/cache/bind/mike# dig www.bbc.co.uk

      ; <<>> DiG 9.9.5-3ubuntu0.5-Ubuntu <<>> www.bbc.co.uk

      ;; global options: +cmd

      ;; Got answer:

      ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 31455

      ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 8, ADDITIONAL: 9

      ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:

      ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096

      ;; QUESTION SECTION:

      ;www.bbc.co.uk. IN A

      ;; ANSWER SECTION:

      www.bbc.co.uk. 300 IN CNAME www.bbc.net.uk.

      www.bbc.net.uk. 300 IN CNAME www.bbc.co.uk.edgesuite.net.

      www.bbc.co.uk.edgesuite.net. 7200 IN CNAME a1733.g.akamai.net.

      a1733.g.akamai.net. 20 IN A 92.123.140.41

      a1733.g.akamai.net. 20 IN A 92.123.143.249

  28. chivo243 Silver badge

    Akamai? Breach?

    I just read here on El Reg that Akamai was possibly fingered in the Steam Christmas Day pfaffing.

    2 x Akamai honorable El Reg mentions in one day?

    Seems plausible that certain clients of Akamai are being targeted on two big western holidays.

    1. taxman

      Re: Akamai? Breach?

      Then again are the Beeb just using Akamai for CDN rather than CDN and DDoS protection? They do have some IP addresses out in plain sight so a DDoS could have gone through the back door

      Try looking up without the www and you get

      canonical name bbc.co.uk.

      aliases

      addresses

      212.58.244.22

      212.58.244.23

      212.58.246.79

      212.58.246.78

    2. Mark 85

      Re: Akamai? Breach?

      It does seem that way, doesn't it? There's been several heavy, multi-day attacks lately and it's very troubling. Such as "who's launching them?" "Why?" "What else are the originators of the attack doing in the background? IOW, DDoS is a cover for something else?". And lastly "who's next?".

      Who ever is controlling these attacks has some access to some serious assets. I'm not buying the argument it's "bored script kiddies on school holiday". There were several prior to the holidays starting.

  29. Chris Evans

    Up and down like the proverbial...

    bbc.co.uk

    Down for me from 1.45 to 2.08

    Now Up at 2.10

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    World's most pointless cyber attack

    Well done 'hackers', you managed to disrupt BBC. You've gained nothing politically or financially but at least it will make you feel big and clever so it wasn't completely a waste of effort. Also, any action that deprives viewers of the brain rot that is "Eastenders" can't be all that bad.

    1. illiad

      Re: World's most pointless cyber attack

      NOPE, it *wasnt* the BBC.... JUST their website!!

  31. Mage Silver badge

    Happily, all now appears to be well,

    not 5min ago.

    Sometimes doesn't load at all.

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: Happily, all now appears to be well,

      Perfectly ok here. Maybe still a few wobbles?

  32. Mage Silver badge

    Back?

    usually bbc.co.uk loads bbc.com for me, except on one linux box.

    http://www.bbc.com/news seems now to have recovered.

  33. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge

    This Connection is Untrusted

    Firefox still complaining about https://www.bbc.co.uk/news

    www.bbc.co.uk uses an invalid security certificate.

    The certificate is only valid for the following names:

    a248.e.akamai.net, *.akamaihd.net, *.akamaihd-staging.net, *.akamaized.net, *.akamaized-staging.net

    (Error code: ssl_error_bad_cert_domain)

  34. Dazzz

    Here we go again

    Looks like someone is having another go today

  35. Mage Silver badge

    Gone again NYD

    bbc.com/news fails instantly.

    bbc.co.uk/news redirects to bbc.com and dies

    The connection was reset

    The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.

    The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.

    If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection.

    If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

  36. RB_

    Not fixed in my eyes

    Some of us really old school people, we access the news from the subdomain news.bbc.co.uk and this has not been restored.

    I would update my 20+ year old book marks but modern web browsers have made this impossible with their completely mindless/pointless fiddling with the browser UI, I can't find my bookmarks even when I try.

    1. anttix

      Re: Not fixed in my eyes

      That would explain it. I'm also a news.bbc.co.uk man.

  37. anttix

    Still... odd.

    When I go to BBC.co.uk I still sometimes get an error page, then it autorefreshes and comes up.

  38. Nifty Silver badge

    The future of TV is online

    It's been said many a time and is now happening for real - TV is moving off expensive free to air bandwidth and going online.

    E.g. BBC 3 going online-only this year.

    So will this be seen as a stress test?

    Be interesting if a DDOS hits your news service just as a terrorist attack starts...

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    http://uk.reuters.com is working fine, for those needing a news fix.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Still not working for me. Attempting to access http://www.bbc.com/news , I get 'The connection was reset'.

    Attempting to access http://www.bbc.co.uk/news gets successfully redirected to http://www.bbc.com/news ; and then reset.

  41. Bruce Ordway

    New World Hacking test?

    Latest story is that some anti IS group "New World Hacking" was just testing their DDOS capabilities?

    http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2016/01/04/bbc-websites-still-suffering-after-ddos-attack.html

    I wonder why they chose the BBC? It seems "mostly harmless" to me.

    There must be a few other sites that are just as "big" & more deserving of a timeout.

    1. Roo
      Windows

      Re: New World Hacking test?

      "I wonder why they chose the BBC? It seems "mostly harmless" to me."

      To quote a quote from a BBC article on the matter "Because we can", apparently they were just testing their 1337 scripts and had a bit of trouble stopping the spam torrent (presumably because the attack took out their own control channels).

      I am guessing that they think that because just a "test" and the duration was an "accident" it is OK because they are "Anti ISIS"... I wonder if the plods will be kicking their doors down at 3AM.

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