Thursday 24 March – UPDATE
All access has now been restored to BoB National. Thank you all for your patience over the last few days, we are truly sorry that the largely successful upgrade of hardware and software was overshadowed by this painful period of authentication drama.

The authentication problems delaying the launch of BoB National v3.5 have finally been resolved and alongside the new and improved BoB National is now a live beta test version with its own single sign-on authentication so that in future we can test any changes to the website, and if they affect authentication in any way. This will help us to ensure that any future developments do not cause the level of disruption we have experienced this week.

Please be assured that lessons have been learnt from this episode and measures have been put in place to prevent such fundamental problems from ever reaching the live version again. This includes greatly increasing the involvement of the BoB National Administrators in the testing/development process. Until now, without the beta live version, this has not really been possible.

It has become clear to us in these few days that BoB National was offline, how precious a resource it is to subscribers. We hope all the improvements are welcome and that you find BoB National v3.5 easier to use, and that the improved functionality is a benefit to your research, teaching and learning. Some of the new functions are gradually being switched on and more information will follow.

We apologise again for the disruption to the services. As with all new versions and despite so much process testing there will be some bugs still to be ironed out in the future , or ones that will only manifest themselves when real users start making real demands from the system. Please forward any feedback you may have to bob@bufvc.ac.uk.

Thank you for your patience.

Wednesday 23 March – UPDATE (12:00h): We have been able to link Shibbleth test users with their accounts, which is very promising. More tests are being done to make sure that this works for all users. We are truly very sorry for these problems. If you need help or make sure that certain programmes get recorded please contact us on bob@bufvc.ac.uk

Tuesday 22 March – UPDATE (17:30h): Athens accounts now work but we cannot yet allow system logins because Shibboleth accounts are still not registering. While we would like to open the system to some users we still cannot. if we did all Shibboleth users (the majority) would create new accounts and experience empty accounts. Your data is safe and the system is recording as usual. Unfortunately work is ongoing despite the progress. We are truly very sorry for these problems. If you need help or make sure that certain programmes get recorded please contact us on bob@bufvc.ac.uk

Tuesday 22 March – UPDATE (16:50h): Athens accounts appear to be working now, about to test Shibboleth. There is some progress and we will continue providing updates.

Tuesday 22 March – UPDATE (16:30h): From this afternoon we have had one of the top developers in authentication in the UK working on this case, which is far from simple. Progress is being made and we will update with more details when we have them. All priority is being given to restore access. The recording services are still working on the background, the problem continues to be the login.

There has been a delay in our upgrade of the Bob National system. We are very sorry to have inform users that the service will remain down today (22 March) while we fix a problem with existing Athens and Shibboleth accounts.

At present access to BoB National has been restricted because it is recognising all who sign in using this method as a completely new user – so you would not be able to access programmes in your My BoB accounts.We expect to be back in service by tomorrow as we are working hard with the authentication service providers to resolve this.

In the meantime if you have any questions or urgent requests please email the bob@bufvc.ac.uk.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Thank you for your patience.