What's happening?

SquarePenguin's get_iplayer forums are now closed and have been archived.

Have they been deleted?

Nope. The forums have been archived, not deleted.

All forums, threads and posts are still available and can be accessed at the exact same URLs as before. Use the link in the top nav bar to take a look if you like.

What does 'archived' mean?

It means that the forums have been turned into static html files serving just the content of the forums/threads/posts. The underlying software and server that powered the forums has been removed and securely deleted.

User accounts, passwords, emails, Personally Identifying Information, profiles and backups have been securely deleted and the VPS hosting the site has been deleted.

The forums are now simply a collection of static html files serving the content of the forums as basic web pages.

Can I log in and post still though?

No. The forums are no longer interactive. There are no user accounts or posting capabilities.

It's that time again...

Yes, the BBC has once again borked the XML feeds get_iplayer uses to obtain schedule information and to refresh it's cache of available programmes.

There is more information on this over in the forums, but as I'm seeing a lot of visits here to the blog page, no doubt looking for information, I thought I'd post this little update.

Staying up to date with future developments

If you want to get notified when the feeds are (hopefully) back up and running you have 3 options:

1. Subscribe to this blog. The RSS feed URL is https://squarepenguin.co.uk/blog/index.xml. I'll update it with an 'it's back up' post when it's...back up.
2. Subscribe to the forums. You can create your own custom RSS feed by visiting this page.
3. Register for an account in the forums and subscribe to all new threads/posts to receive an email notification whenever a new post is made. You can also tailor these notifications to just one forum if you don't want to subscribe to the whole lot, and you can easily manage your subscription fron the user CP page to turn notifications off once all (hopefully) goes back to normal.

No need for 'me too' posts

We know it's currently broken. In all past cases the feeds have come back up after a short while, so please don't feel tempted to post any 'not working for me too' posts.

Last night Cloudflare and Google's 'Project Zero' security team published details of a serious security incident affecting websites that use the 'reverse proxy' feature of Cloudflare.

squarepenguin.co.uk uses this reverse proxy feature and WAS potentially affected to a LIMITED extent.

Cloudflare has contacted me to confirm that squarepenguin.co.uk was not amongst the core of domains severely affected, but that does not preclude leaking of data from this site in less likely ways as ALL cloudflare sites were potentially affected.

Despite the extraordinarily low probability of a leak I have taken the following action to mitigate any possible leak:

1. Invalidated all current session cookies forcing all visitors to re-login.
2. Forcing all users to change their passwords at next login (sorry, must be done!)
3. Changed the 'secrets' used to protect the admin area of the site
4. Reassessed Cloudflare usage and removed unneeded features
5. Written this notice explaining the situation to all squarepenguin.co.uk users.

get_iplayer has been updated to version v2.98.

This release removes a number of deprecated features. As it's likely the release notes will go unseen, here's a quick rundown of what has been removed :-)

But first - there is new stuff too!

I don't want it to sound to depressing right off the bat, so there is new stuff too so go and check it out:

https://github.com/get-iplayer/get_iplayer/wiki/release298#newchanged

And on to the stuff that's been removed...

Thanks to the hard work of get_iplayer maintainer dinkypumkin, get_iplayer has been updated to v2.95.

There are a lot of changes in this release and this has meant a lot of changes here on this site and on the wiki.

Installation guides

Installation guides are now hosted directly on this website and no longer appear in the GitHub wiki. Users and package maintainers are strongly encouraged to submit errors either via the forums, GitHub or via email.

Release Notes

It's important you take the time to read the release notes. Find them at the link below:

get_iplayer v2.95 release notes

Headline changes

1. Standalone installer (for Windows users)
2. infradead.org server no longer required (fully hosted with GitHub)
3. 30 day cache
4. HD downloads now default (if available)
5. New default streaming formats
6. Fallback indexing (for loss of feeds from BBC)

There are a raft of other changes and fixes so make sure to go and read the release notes before you use the new release.

Don't freak out!

Yes, this site has had a redesign. Not just a redesign in fact, a complete re-architecture from the ground up.

For a start, the site is now in two parts, the forums in one block and everything else in another. Everything in the main part of the site is built with the fantastic static site generator Hugo and the forums are powered by the amazingly flexible and unnervingly fast MyBB.

The old site was powered by Wordpress. Wordpress is fantastic...except when it's not. It's a huge and powerful beast that can obviously be bent to powering some of the worlds largest sites.

But, the amount of work needed to get it to do exactly what you want, with the features you want, in a reasonable time and without an ever expanding list of plugins and hacks is simply too much for me to commit to.

Thanks to the hard work of get_iplayer maintainer dinkypumkin, get_iplayer has been patched and updated to v2.93 which restores much of the functionality recently nuked by the BBC's removal of listings feeds.

EDIT - Shortly after this release it's been noted that there are issues with live streaming and a further update is expected overnight 03-Jun-2105.

EDIT 2 - get_iplayer v2.94 released - release notes as v2.93.

Release Notes

It's important you take the time to read the release notes. Find them at the link below:

get_iplayer v2.93 release notes

Headline changes

Dinkypumpkin has made great efforts over the past 6 months to minimise the effect of the ongoing removal of listings feeds by the BBC, but this time we aren't spared as we were before.

The biggest change in this release is the time now taken to refresh the TV cache, along with the removal of the ability to search via category. Please take the time to read the release notes for a full breakdown of the changes and what to expect thanks to the latest actions by Aunty.

A note to visually impared and hearing impaired users

Thanks to the removal of the category listings you will no longer be able to use get_iplayer to search for Signed or Audio Described programmes.

This is an ugly outcome for all affected.