Check your DNS
Flush your DNS cache: ipconfig /flushdns on Windows, sudo dscacheutil -flushcache on macOS.
Website · futurelearn.com
Is FutureLearn down?
futurelearn.com
education
UP
Probable cause · from probe evidence
Bot filtering active (site likely fine for humans)
The curl-style probe was rejected with HTTP 403 while the browser-like probe loaded normally — consistent with a WAF or bot-protection layer filtering automated clients. Real visitors are probably unaffected.
HEAD · curl UAGET · browser UA
100.00% uptimelast 30 days
See full history →
30 days agocollecting data · 1/30 daystoday
Checked 2s ago
4/4 probe methods returned data
every 5 min · HTTP probe
direct probe, not crowd-reported
Per-method results
HTTP/1.1
UP
21 ms
HTTP 403
HTTP/2
UP
16 ms
HTTP 403
Browser UA
UP
617 ms
HTTP 301
curl HEAD
UP
12 ms
HTTP 403
HTTP details
- HTTP status
- 403
- Response time
- 12 ms
- Region consensus
- 4/4 reachable
- 24h success rate
- 100% (2/2 probes)
- 24h latency
- 134-167 ms · 151 ms avg
- Last successful probe
- 1s ago
90-day uptime
100.00%
≥99.9%
≥99%
≥95%
<95%
no data
Timing breakdown
- DNS lookup
- 2 ms
- TCP connect
- 2 ms
- TLS handshake
- 3 ms
- First byte
- 5 ms
- Total
- 12 ms
Network
- Host
- futurelearn.com
- Port
- 443
- Transport
- HTTPS
What this means
FutureLearn is reachable from all 4 probe methods.
If you still can't connect, the outage is on your side: DNS cache, VPN routing, ISP filtering, or a browser-level block. Try a different network or device to confirm.
What to try next
Try another network
Switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data, or disable your VPN. If it works there, the issue is on your primary network.
Up but slow?
Run the speed test, first-byte, TLS, and download timing with a published grade, plus a check of your own connection.
Browser reset
Try an incognito window or a different browser, a bad extension or cached error page can masquerade as downtime.
FAQ
Why is FutureLearn down right now?
Outages typically come from CDN/DNS issues, failed deploys, regional routing problems, or DDoS. We can't see FutureLearn's internal cause, we only confirm reachability from each probe method. If all 4 probe methods failed, it's a confirmed outage on FutureLearn's side. If only some failed, FutureLearn is up but blocking or mishandling a specific request type.
Is FutureLearn down for everyone or just me?
Look at the probe-method grid above. If every probe method succeeded, the issue is local to your network, flush DNS, switch networks, or disable your VPN. If two or more probe methods failed, the outage is on FutureLearn's side.
How often does isitdown.io re-check FutureLearn?
Every 5 minutes via background HTTP probes using 4 independent probe methods. You can also re-run on demand by reloading, the verdict above reflects the latest probe.
Get alerted when it goes down
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Related · education
Methodology
- Probe
- We send a GET request to the target URL with each probe method and time the full response.
- Counts as DOWN
- Every probe method fails the request (connect refused, DNS error, timeout, or HTTP 5xx).
- Counts as DEGRADED
- At least one probe method succeeds but at least one fails, the site is up but blocking or mishandling a specific request type.
- Detail
- Per-method results include HTTP status code, response time, and best-effort DNS / connect / TLS / first-byte phase timings when the Node HTTP client exposes them.
- Cadence
- Every 5 minutes, in parallel across 4 independent probe methods (HTTP/1.1 with strict TLS, HTTP/2, a browser User-Agent GET, and a curl-style HEAD) from our edge network. We check probe diversity, not geography — if a site blocks a non-browser User-Agent or only speaks HTTP/1.1, the four cards show it.
- Rate-limited targets
- If a host returns 429 or consistently drops connections from our IPs, we cap retries at 3 and report the last observed status, we do not flood the target to confirm the outage.
- Data source
- Our verdict is based on direct multi-method probes, every result above is a live network request, never a Twitter mention or DownDetector aggregate. User reports, when shown, appear separately below as a supplementary signal and are never used to determine the up/down verdict.