The BBC hit technical problems over the weekend leaving its website and the iPlayer catch-up service unavailable to some users. Gremlins have managed to find their way into the BBC’s systems causing technical problems which are still ongoing days later. The broadcaster confirmed on Friday that it was working to fix problems causing some section of BBC online to be inaccessible. Much to their dismay, users were confronted with messages stating that content wasn’t available. “We’re fixing a problem that means some people can’t access parts of BBC Online. As soon as it’s fixed we’ll let you know.” said the BBC iPlayer Twitter account on 19 July. More than 48 hours later the BBC apologised to viewers for a lack of resolution, tweeting: “Apologies. We know some users are still unable to access BBC iPlayer. We’re working hard to resolve the issues. Thanks for your patience.” It’s unclear how many users were and still are affected by the outage but it appears to be widespread. The BBC was forced to use a simplified version of its website due to the problem. The BBC said, “engineers noticed that there was a ‘severe load’ on the servers underlying the video-on-demand system.” This suggests the problem could have been down to a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack. The web iPlayer appears to be working properly now but the basic website is still in use stating: “Due to technical problems, we are displaying a simplified version of the BBC Homepage. We are working to restore normal service.” Source: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/internet/3531696/bbc-website-iplayer-suffer-weekend-outage/

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BBC website and iPlayer suffer weekend outage: ‘severe load’ on servers suggests DDoS attack