h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

[sorry if this is a bit but...]


I'm based in the UK I normally connect to h2g2 via my ISP's proxy server but every now and again (like today) I get the following Message

"Proxy Error
The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.

The proxy server could not handle the request GET /dna/h2g2/brunel/Feedback-Technical.

Reason: Could not connect to remote machine: Connection refused"

Switching to a direct Internet connection (avoiding my ISP's proxy server) fixes this about 1 time in 10 BUT if I use SSH to forward port:80 to a computer in the USA the problem is fixed almost every time.
Why is this so, are the UK & the USA connected differently to the DNA server?

We have four web servers serving DNA. These are variously connected to the many proxy servers in the BBC's farm of front-end web servers. If one of our web servers has a problem (which happens occasionally) whichever proxies are talking to that server will get the 'Connection refused' error, and since in one session you'll almost always be talking to the same front end server, you'll always get that problem. However, if you disconnect and reconnect, or use a different browser, you will be asking for another address for www.bbc.co.uk and there's a good chance that you'll get the address of a different front end server, and if you're lucky, that server will be connected to a working DNA server.

Internet services are usually quite good at spotting and correcting problems on the DNA servers in any case so the problem doesn't often persist for too long.