UK drivers' agency shrugs off claims of week-long booking site smashes, blames browser configs The DVSA's driving test booking system has spent the week offline, according to frustrated users. Readers tipped off The Register that the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) page for changing existing practical driving tests has been failing to load, either throwing connection errors or not responding at all. When we …
There was a long sequence of CAPTCHA tests which were impossible (we want things that are the same as the reference,but had no relationship to the refetence).
Yup. Reference picture - aeoplane taking off. Other pictures - trains, elephants, and burgers. WTF?
Tried skipping the test - no luck, just repeated itself a few times. Eventually clicked a train, on the basis that it's a mode of transport, as is a plane. But an elephant can be, as well. Didn't work.
Eventually, after a different test - click all things that float on water - I made it to the login screen.
Using bog-standard Firefox on Windows 11, and have a driving licence, so didn't go further.
I thought these captchas helped train autonomous cars to recognise things? Bit worrying if they can't tell a plane from a burger, or need to know what does and doesn't float :)
> I've been seeing this lately as well. Some websites requiring multiple CAPTCHA screens.
There has been a big increase in bots registering to websites recently, a CAPTCHA seems to stop them but I have seen some cases of the CAPTCHA itself having problems. The club website I run (but is maintained by a provider) has a "silent CAPTCHA" that only pops up if it thinks you are a bot.
Part of the french driving test uses almost exactly this method, a sort of game controller which has colour coded buttons to click while the person watches a screen with various questions and street scenes.This part of the test is taken in small groups so everyone in that group gets the same questions.in a country where one learns that "traffic coming from the right has priority", roundabouts are a game of chance, as many drivers enter them without looking as they "obviously" have priority.
there is a stretch of dual carriageway near Cherbourg where people backing out of their driveways have priority over the traffic on the highway which is doing 70 km per hour. there are ( or were, it has been a while since I drove to sister in law's house there ) warning ( in English ) to "give way to vehicles entering the road from the right"..driveways.
Interesting. Using Firefox on Android, I got Access Denied Error 16.
(That's sixteen, not a typo.)
Further text said, "You have been blocked by DVSA security rules." ... and, at the bottom of the page, "This request was blocked by our security service"
I never was presented a Captcha.
In this Brave New World of Zero Trust architecture Microsoft Azure n M365 do not Trust the Googlesphere or the Appleverse
The Big Vendors are using ZTA as 21 Century Vendor Lockin
All of HMG is on Micro$oft - "browser configuration" is coded speech for "have you made sure you are using Edge?"
Tech interoperability is dead
Open standards exploited in closed implementations
Probably testing using their own dev machines or using other PC's on the local network, not ones connecting from the internet, thereby avoiding various firewall and security rules. Also, coding for one browser - Chrome - and not using best practice methodologies either.
There's nothing that pisses me off more than having to use a site where it's blatantly coded for Chrome and works instantly, but sits around loading each page for twenty seconds when using Firefox. Browser settings? Fuck off and code it right then test against multiple browsers you lazy shits.
> using Firefox. Browser settings? Fuck off and code it right then test against multiple browsers you lazy shits
B&Q won't accept my FF logon any more, have to use Chrome if I want to order online. Of course it could be NoScript, Ghostery, Adblock plus etc that is getting in the way but they are there to give me a safer and more acceptable internet experience.
Because clearly, nobody uses firefox, so it's suspicious. You should be using Google Ad Surveiler. It's the only web browser that exists.
also... adblockers will often cause online stores to flag a transaction as fradulent at checkout time because some moron decided that the best way to figure out if a person is real or a bot is to grab all the ad surveilance data.
There are also websites that send you ( without warning ) to an exterior site ( which requires javascript to be enabled ) to process the final stage of payment. Thus payment fails, because you hit it with "screens up". It would be so easy to say "payment will be processed on the next page which will require javascript enabled , or it will fail"..OVH send me to a page which uses an iframe to show my bank website payment gate, it has invisible scroll bars, the second button ( 2FA) is always below the frame bottom edge. 3 unsuccessful tries at payment and the card locks up and requires an in person visit to the bank ( 1 km away luckily ) to unlock it. It took a phone call to OVH to find out that the second button was "below the fold".2FA here ( France ) is up to the merchant to decide if they want it, and at what payment threshold, so not every purchase will require the second button.Many sites have been coded to fail silently, but the banks will block their cards, after what looks to them, to be fraudulent attempts. OVH have never fixed this.
This post has been deleted by its author
Access from EU is also blocked (as per description below) in Firefox after (agreed: strange) Captchas.
So maybe this gives a hint to users not seeing anything...
Message:
-----------CITATION START
Access Denied
Error 15
driverpracticaltest.dvsa.gov.uk
2026-05-02 09:42:34 UTC
You have been blocked by DVSA security rules.
These rules are in place to protect DVSA services. You can reduce the risk of being blocked in future by trying the following:
Clear your browser's cache, cookies and history
Use a different device
Use a different browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari etc...)
Make sure your browser is up to date
Don't use automated software to access DVSA services
Avoid using a browser plug-in that may interact with our services
Use a different network (if using Wi-Fi switch to mobile data - or vice versa)
Slow down and reduce the number of searches you make on DVSA services
Only access DVSA services from within the UK
Don't use a VPN to access DVSA services
If you are using an Apple device, make sure you are not using iCloud Private Relay to access DVSA services
Details:
What happened?
This request was blocked by our security service
Your IP: X.X.X.X
Proxy IP: 45.60.13.230 (ID 101779-100)
Incident ID: 1779000640036990416-72970931834916926
Powered by https://www.imperva.com/why-am-i-seeing-this-page/?src=23&utm_source=blockingpages
-----------CITATION END
Time for UK residents to start prodding their MPs if the site is denying service to a large part of the potential audience. The key thing will be if it is blocking users with out-of-the-box configs, as that is what a non-technical audience would have, and it must provide service to, regardless of edge cases. Be interesting to see if it is blocking Chromebooks, as they are usually totally vanilla.
Why would MPs care? Unless by prodding you mean inviting an MP for wine and steak dinner?
There is few years to next elections. It's the season where MPs are armed to teeth with canned responses and couldn't give a flying toss about the voters, but bend over backwards for multinational big corporations.
The Welsh Senedd election falls on this Thursday and there are a bunch of crazed idiots running aorund and sending endless mailings telling us how they will be totally different from the shits that have messed the place up for the last 27 years, which also include the party of the shits that have done so for the last 27 years....We have the dubious delight of having their numbers swell from 60 to 96 for no real reason other than to take money from the system and micromanage our existence in ways the 60 have not managed as yet. Fucking joy.
Also DVSA or whatever they are called this week - is based just outside Abertawe. *Swansea for the non Cymraeg. Every few years they change their name, fuck knows why and at what cost. DVLA, DVLC, DVLB, DVSA... fcking tools.
I do agree with you that they don't really give a flying fuck though.
You can reach DVLA's website from outside the UK. Or at least you could a month ago when I needed a cert for all my licence categories for changing from a UK licence to a french one. Phoned them up as time was of the essence and a very helpful young man sent me one by email within 10 minutes and followed it by another sent by post which arrived within a week. If only their counterparts here in France ( ANTS* ) were so helpful, easy to contact, and fast. * Recently hacked by a fifteen year old with nearly 20 million "customers details taken and for sale". They , ANTS, run windows servers and a variant of excel on the back end , they suggest uploading one's documents in pdf . The phishing attacks to the email addresses that were swiped are coming thick and fast daily. They will catch almost anyone whose email program does not show the destination to a "click this button" on hover..outlook? and who does not have it set to always show full headers.
"Works for me - won't investigate"
What a wonderfully poor attitude! That they can't _think_ of any issues just shows they aren't that good at thinking.
FWIW I tried the site. Worked in firefox and brave, not in chrome or edge.
That's a surprise as I've spent the last couple of years encountering an inceasing number of sites that don't work in firefox. It feels like the browser wars all over again.
DVSA is the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, based in Bristol. They look after driving tests and instructors, HGV/PSV operators, vehicle safety and inspections (think HGVs, weighbridges and the like) and oversee the MOT system.
DVLA is the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, based in Swansea. They handle driving licences, keeper registration and VED.
There's obviously some overlap and the two bodies do interact, but they are distinct entities.
Works here on Safari and Firefox, not Chrome. And it's 100% a server-side issue - a request is sent, no response received.
The captcha is only a bit odd (Cloudflare's hCaptcha), but I suspect the culprint is literally staring us in the face: "the website you are visiting is protected and accelerated by Imperva". I'm taking issue with "accelerated".
Saw this tidbit of theirs when it was blocked for me:
"Use a different browser (Chrome, Edge, Safari etc...)"
Absolutely unacceptable for a public agency to not acknowledge the existence of Firefox, especially when the government claims it wants to reduce dependence on US Big Tech.
Firefox is a great way for Brits to reduce dependence on US Big Tech.
Its been there for a long time. Three years ago I had the same problem looking for driving tests for my wife. I got locked out and could only get in using Firefox Incognito. The reason I was given was that I was navigating the site to fast using an old Toshiba laptop and copper connected internet. What do they expect people to use, tin cans and a length of string? Now theres a project to occupy idle hands.
"we can think of no current error with our booking system that would allow certain browsers, but exclude others,"
This is related to my usual answer to the question "What's wrong with it?" which is "If I knew it wouldn't be."
The difference here is that they appear not to be looking. Sadly it's an all too familiar situation with many web sites - for what was conceived as a universal platform it's getting ever more picky as fewer and fewer browsers work with them.
Pardon Our Interruption
As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:
You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article.
To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.
In another place and another life I worked on these very things. Albeit a different jurisdiction.
Nothing, and I mean nothing was permitted to be wrong. The public would quite rightly scream if it was.
I remember when we retired an old Flash based system, the cross browser testing was epic.
Maybe the public should complain louder: "Pitchforks, pitchforks, get yer luvverly pitchforks 'ere, only a tenner to you madam! Flaming torches, I got loads of torches, can't 'ardly give 'em away, flaming torches, guaranteed to last the 'ole night long, three for a Purple Lizzie!"
I got a page that reported:
---
Why am I seeing this page?
The website you are visiting is protected and accelerated by Imperva. Your computer may have been infected by malware and therefore flagged by the Imperva network. Imperva displays this page for you to verify that an actual human is the source of the traffic to this site, and not malicious software.
What should I do?
Just click the checkbox above to pass the security check. Imperva will remember you and will not show this page again. We recommend you run a virus and malware scan on your computer to remove any infection.
Note: Ad blocker extensions can interfere with the CAPTCHA challenge.
---
So, it would appear as if my ad blocking (PiHole + Adblock Pro) makes it look as if my machine is infected (it's not).
As mentioned above, the CAPTCHA isn't of the form that a lot of people will recognise, as they are using an image to define "what you click" to pass the test. Not really that tricky, but I can see some people not working it out! It also made me run through three sets, even though I got them all right the first two times.
Looks like something that was set up by a 12 year old on a work experience placement,,,
