BBC goes offline in MASSIVE COCKUP: Stephen Fry partly muzzled The BBC is scrambling to fix what appears to be a number of severe technical glitches on its network, after its website and catch-up TV service were hit by a major outage at the weekend. At the time of writing, Auntie was still carrying a "simplified version" of its BBC website on its homepage. The Corporation said: "We are …
> @Tom Chiverton 1 sure it's not just you? Was working for others in Manchester yesterday.
I've heard that, but was getting an uninformatively black screen from the app on our STB on Sunday.
Access to radio programmes has been most notably bad, with some shows "not currently available on BBC iPlayer radio" (normal service mostly resumed for Radio 4* but "Pick of the Pops" on 2 still affected), some that could be started but bombed out (Ross Noble Goes Global wouldn't play for me last night, presently back at "will be available shortly after broadcast"), and some available but not especially promptly ("Laura Solon: Talking and Not Talking").
* prioritising, perhaps ... although as a devotee I'm biased as to what I'd notice ;)
Don't know if it has any relevance (probably not), but I watched the highlights of the German GP on the web version of iPlayer at about 11pm on Sunday night* here in Dundee. The only thing of note was that there were fewer buffering interruptions than usual.
*After I'd been to see Monty Python (almost) Live at the local cinema.
The iPlayer page kept prompting for feedback on the new format before it became a mandatory format. I probably wasn't the only one giving them rock bottom scores. I find it no longer fit for purpose. Those enormous pictures really detract from the functionality - but in general it has become almost useless.
The TV programme page is also very hard to use now. The "Previous/Next" buttons tend to position themselves out of sight when viewing BBC1 to 4 - and vertical scrolling is needed to correct sudden jumps in the displayed area.
They would probably say that 1024 x 768 monitors are obsolete - but that gives a text size I can read easily. My use of those pages and consequently watching BBC TV programmes has fallen considerably - even when I know there is a programme I want somewhere there. In a way it relieves me of the stress of watching BBC Four documentary programmes that are usually bloated with repetition and other fillers.
"They would probably say that 1024 x 768 monitors are obsolete - but that gives a text size I can read easily. "
Have you tried using the so-called "Big Screen" version? I think this is designed for use by Playstations etc. and gives a slightly different view formatted for use on a TV screen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/bigscreen/
I just tried it out at the above resolution and it seemed to work quite nicely...
"Have you tried using the so-called "Big Screen" version?"
Thanks for taking the time to post that tip. Unfortunately that option fills the screen with one big picture for one programme - and you then have to scroll sideways to see what else is on offer one at a time.
The nice thing about the old format was it took very little effort to scan the small pictures to see what was on offer - and to then add selections to a list of favourites for future viewing. New episodes in a series then became obvious in that favourites list.
It almost seems like a designer has gone round people like the BBC, Microsoft, Flickr and Yahoo - and said that BIG pictures are what people want. It gives me a feeling of "back to the nursery".
They would probably say that 1024 x 768 monitors are obsolete - but that gives a text size I can read easily.
You know the size of text rendered on your screen is not dependant on your resolution, right? You could change the DPI setting in your OS. Alternatively, if you only want to alter web pages you could either set you web browser to render all pages zoomed or you could set it to override default font sizes.
"You could change the DPI setting in your OS."
Thanks for the suggestion - but it is already set to "Large 120dpi". I wonder if that might be what causes the BBC TV programmes page to miscalculate where to position the "previous/next" buttons in the margin? Will experiment when I'm in the mood.
I'm weaning myself off watching TV. Now down to just the occasional BBC Four documentary. Can't watch it via Freeview as the signals from two main transmitters are upset by high buildings. There wasn't any noticeable problem on the old analogue service. Watching BBC via the internet on a 12mbps ADSL I've become accustomed to blocky artefacts, irritating pauses, and speech out of sync.
I am also weaning off TV. My Freeview and Astra are great but I find that everything about every genre of UK TV is now totally unwatchable. From lazy journalism to patronising drama. I hate it all! I used to listen to the radio but that also gets on my nerves now for much the same reasons.
"Due to technical problems, we are displaying a simplified version of the BBC Homepage." is a message that could have headed the current offering with it's content-free, celebrity-heavy tat.
"We are working to restore normal service." If only.
Hear those whispers saying "Privatisation is the answer"? Are they getting louder?
Yeah because privatisation of the trains and utilities companies worked soooooo well..
And if the argument for privatising the BBC is that Sky and Virgin offer the same service then I point you to the fact that the BBC licence fee covers ALL BBC services which is more radio stations than I can keep track of without looking it up, 6-10 TV Channels (two dedicated to children one to news) IPlayer, the BBC web site and a stack of original programs... compared to Skys basic package which gives you a 50% split between adverts and content for twice the price!
Ive said it before and Im sure Ill say it again, £14 a month is worth every penny - I'd pay it just for Dr Who.
I love the BBC to bits.
Yes, of course they occasionally screw up (quite massively with moves to the North and Digital Library debacles etc).
However. The license fee is worth every penny, and I'd happily pay more. It's waking up to Radio 4, rather than this "green and pleasant land" I miss when travelling. The BBC is something I can be proud we own and one of the few things the rest of the world seems to agree with us, is 'good' and 'British'
Any governmental talk of interference automatically gets my hackles up. Leave It Alone.
"He must be called to fix the BBC site immediately and tougher sanctions must be imposed when he doesn't."
Would this fix involve invading the Beeb? The program quality might improve! Perhaps Vlad could team up with Bear Grylls to host an 'unintentionally' homoerotic documentary series bout wrestling large animals while bare-chested and on horseback. Or a new format for The Apprentice wherein the winners get to not have their profitable multinational company seized by the state.
"Would this fix involve invading the Beeb?"
I don't know, but of late, calling on Putin and sanctions seem to be the magic solution being proposed by and on BBC for every minor and major world problem, so I thought - maybe I should suggest that all-winning move as well?
This is all the Republicans' fault - they're so determined to prove Obama is incompetent that they've started this narrative that Putin is in charge of everything. It's not like he has to keep different sources of power in Russia in some sort of balance, is it, or that he too has religious and left or right wing fruitcakes stirring things up behind the scenes.
The idea that he has no more control over the nutters in East Ukraine than John Major had over the Protestant "loyalist" nutters in Northern Ireland seems to be too complicated for Western media. Once upon a time the BBC could provide some objective analysis, but since they were spooked by Campbell and co., they seem pretty supine when it comes to repeating what the Government tells them to say.
iPlayer has minor issues over a weekend. Worked for me so I didn't really notice (which is a shame as it allowed my three year old to catch up on his Cbeebies). Sure, it's over engineered and more times than most performance is crap, but not sure if that's a reason to "shut the BBC down".
And less of this whole "Privitisation!" nonsense. Virgin leads a fine example of why this is not always the answer.
That would be great. There was a very sheepish article linked from the news page with no real description of the issue. Within hours of the outage the main screen ((c) 2009) should have been updated with information. Standard Major Incident management (he says, fingering his ITIL documentation).
And yes, much of BBC's web output was borked over the weekend.
Also why was this AC's post downvoted?
I think the amount of information given out during and after an outage is inversely proportional to the size of the organisation concerned. Expect nothing from the Beeb, even assuming they know, or will know, the reasons themselves, considering there are practically no in-house techies.
>I have been seeing Bubbles the Clown pretty much 50% of the time.
I think that is a new major piece of real time performance art being trialed on BBC4 as part of a dynamic, brave and exciting new interactive... something... something... wibble.....
" nearly 12 hours since Auntie updated its users about the outage."
I was going to post a rant about 'First World Problems' etc. , but at the last moment, realised you'd written 'outage' not 'outrage'
Just as well, I'd noticed. It would have been embarrassing if I'd revealed my poor comprehension skills!
They now serve different news content to UK and outside UK. Often exchanged links won't work. Sometimes the bbc.com/news and bbc.co.uk/news links do automagically change domain when used across the national GeoIP border other times you get nothing. BBC future is unavailable in UK. They claim for commercial reasons of charter & Adverts. The real reason is that it seems to be recycled from other websites.
bbc.com/news working all weekend but very slow apart from the Clown Error page once.
Also too much damm video and flash rather than text and photos. Also outside UK EVERY video is poisoned with a prepended unskippable long advert. I do not wish to use up my Cap downloading stupid advert video.
They, ITV and C4 seem to stopped making much decent TV too (Five never did). I've gone back to Radio. I have no wish to watch soaps, Fry, reality TV, quizzes, crap rude comedy and US imports or franchises.
Selling BBC Technology to Siemens really paid dividends. Or rather paid a quick buck to the BBC and put a whole layer of extra management in place.
I remember the days where a phone call from a mate in another department just got stuff quietly and quickly fixed. After the sell off that went out the window and it was managers galore. I got out as quick as I could!
I'd ben reliably informed at some point in the past that the Iplayer is/was based on the Drupal CMS. A recent Security update was released for it, yet this update had huge flaws that would delete content from the system.
That being said you'd think the BBC had a disaster recovery strategy in place, and that updates were tested before going live.. but that does not seem to be the case.
I've recently been on the hunt for a new job and noticed that there were a lot of positions for a "Global Media Company in West London". I applied for one of the short 2 month contract ones and ended up interviewing for Auntie. The long and the short of it was that there was a big project to update the mobile news platform that was in trouble and they needed a boat load of help to get it done by the deadline (about now). They even asked if I'd be prepared to work 7 days a week. Coincidence?
I read all the above, Someone mentioned a single CMS, Drupal, so maybe that is what they use.
No wonder there aren't any posts saying "They should have used Linux".
I worked for an outfit that charged real money for a CMS, I assume people thought it was worth it, which makes it interesting that such a large system is using a free one.
I suppose the very large-ness means they can have their own people understand and build the system and because no-one can really do anything to them if the system goes down, apart from vent here and on Twatter presumably.
I upvoted that, not because I object to Stephen Fry per se, but because I do think the BBC might give a job to a few more people than the current lot. I'm a Cambridge graduate myself, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel we're massively over-represented in BBC light entertainment (though it's not quite as bad as Eton/Oxford in the Government).
.. but it sounds great; maybe it'll prompt they to also fix the false positives from their mythical TV detector vans so that I stop having to shred their stupid letters for no TV receiver! :-P
The only things I ever remember Stephen Fry being amusing in was Black Adder and V for Vendetta; other than that he seems a bit of a Muppet.
I think the icon is appropriate given well they apparently catered to despicable characters like this when I still watched TV.
Some may remember this on the BBC during the holidays
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/titles/whydontyou.shtml
"The Show was fully titled "Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set And Go Out And Do Something Less Boring Instead?", which is rather appropriate. "
Perhaps the BBC will bring it back, with an update to the full title to reflect current technology.
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