BBC News website takes New Year's Eve break

Error 500, but normal service now restored

Updated 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.

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 at our desks on Monday, by which time we hope BBC News has made a full recovery. Happy New Year to all our readers. ®

Update

The BBC confirmed earlier that all of its websites were knocked offline this morning due to a "large web attack".

Happily, all now appears to be well, mercifully for those reduced to near panic across the UK by the inability to tell exactly what the weather was, or catch up with Eastenders on iPlayer.

The BBC website is now back up and operating normally. We apologise for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) December 31, 2015

According to Auntie sources, the titsup was "thanks to what is known as a 'distributed denial of service' attack", although earlier this afternoon the BBC had "yet to confirm or deny that such an attack was responsible for the problems".