The Beeb is broken

The BBC homepage is on an outage at the moment, with visitors greeted with a stripped down version of the normal site. Screenshot of the BBC homepage at 13:42 Fri Nov 4 2011 Whoops A little info icon directs you to the following explanation: Due to technical problems, we are displaying a simplified version of the BBC …

[Absent]

It's to commemorate the anniversary of Ceefax.

[JAK 1]

is there a setting for keeping it like this?

[<user />]

especially compared with that horrid new Beta site!

[fuzzybug]

And instantly becomes more usable.

[Len Goddard]

Better

Hands up all who prefer the fast-loading stripped down site to the normal mess!

[KrisM]

not been to the beeb homepage in a while, but...

there is now a link to their new BBC beta homepage (I quite like it). maybe launching that stuffed the site?

The nomal site is working now tho!

[Anonymous Coward]

Timed nicely to coincide with that 75th anniversary

how ironic

[EddieD]

But no news is not good news, so luckily

news.bbc.co.uk (or www.bbc.co.uk/news) seemed to be more resilient. Phew.

[Synonymous Howard]

I only ever go to news.bbc.co.uk as the rest of bbc.co.uk is bloated and pointless and has been each time I've accidentally fell on the wider site over the last ten years.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well...

...their iPlayer hasn't worked for me for a while. Keeps telling me I need Flash 10.1 or higher (I've got 10.3)

[Slim Chance]

Excellent, more, more please!

Best front end for years from the beeb, minimal clutter, easy to use, well done

Anyone seen the new individual radio station start pages?

Sideways scrolling avec I-Pad.

WTF do I need that for on a desktop PC auntie?

[Pinkerton]

Has anyone told them...

...To switch it off and on again?

[Eponymous Cowherd]

Vast improvement.....

if you ask me.

Clean, simple, concise.

I see the Beeb have indulged themselves with *another* web site redesign (the BBC Radio site this time).

I thought the buggers were supposed to be saving money?

[johnnytruant]

I haven't been to bbc.co.uk for some time

But loading it today I couldn't help but notice it appears to be styled after Adwaita, the default style for GNOME 3.x.

Co-incidence, or something more sinister?

I think we should be told.

[Robert E A Harvey]

You say that clicking things takes you to the normal pages, but trying to play radio or podcasts is coming up 502 here.

[Robert E A Harvey]

... and now gpodder says that all the podcast rss feeds are missing.

[Blue eyed boy]

Bring back

the Test Card. Much prettier.

[mhoulden]

Actually the test card does appear on their "page not found" error page. The 404 code appears on the clown's blackboard: http://darkaeon.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/bbc404.jpg

(Incidentally, did anyone see the headline and think it would be an article by Andrew Orlowski?)

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC News has been regularly failing to load for me for over a week; sometimes taking 5-10 refreshes to see anything but a blank, white screen.

But then I am currently in China

Ironically, it is currently working perfectly for me, and has done all day.

Orwell that ends well. or possibly a reference to the GFWoC. Take your pick.

[Ian Ferguson]

Good for them

Great idea having this holding page ready to go - even if they should never have to show it.

[PaulH]

If you like it, try this

The mobile site is a way to get a low-bandwidth version:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/

[Will Godfrey]

Unfortunately it's back to normal now.

[Fergus Gallagher]

Neutrino time travel

Yesterday I was served the home page from 23 July (the day of the Norway bomb + massacre).

[Richard Porter]

Stripped down home page

Why can't they have it like that all the time? Unfortunately it's now gone back to the previous mess. Keep It Simple, Stupid!

[JaitcH]

What a (technically) great index page - keep it, please

I spend a lot of time viewing "Page Source" browser options, in fact tearing CNN pages apart years ago was how I started in to HTML, and I wonder if people just how much clutter is loaded in to some of the larger sights. If you combine them with the separate CSS and Script pages it is hardly surprising they take so so long to load.

So this new, lean BBC index page is a welcome change, as many have noted.

High speed InterNet connections seem to have become the answer to lazy coders.

The Independent, the UK newspaper, has recently undergone a 'revamp', and what a farce it has been. I am still wondering which browser can usefully handle the expression: "height: 69.00325000000001px".

One thing many sites screw up on is in their index pages. Countries that filter news often allow the whole of the Index page to be displayed. Unfortunately, the CSS and Script pages are blocked which severely degrades the presentation.

For sometime now, web pages authored by my employer have included full CSS and Scripts in the Index page so even in China they look as intended. It is also surprising how many web authors miss the SKIP link when the first page uses Flash. Even today, many companies do not allow Flash content to be displayed for security reasons.