Very odd message on bing.com

[joshnerius]

It seems Microsoft Bing isn't doing so well this evening. http://www.bing.com/

On each refresh, I receive a message like: Ref A: 357bf3f4244348b59339ec9220af1257 Ref B: 01D5D1617DBB772F4C77D54C43995845 Ref C: Wed Apr 24 21:13:31 2013 PST

Ref A and Ref B change on each refresh, and the timestamp updates.

[ISL]

I get a page with a search box; a humid mountain view of a staircase with a city beyond; and links to articles regarding "Mexican cartel queens", the "Obama tattoo plan", and a picture of a swordfish labelled "Make-A-Wish teen".

Same response in an incognito window. Seattle.

[dangrossman]

That has been Bing's error page for years. The reference hashes are probably to help them debug whatever caused the page to fail.

E.g. from 2011: http://blamcast.net/articles/bing-crash

[dear]

I get:

Ref A: 7e8212dd6f4348a39347e3ee7e617441 Ref B: 373C177A10DC187C4867FCED8213A733 Ref C: Wed Apr 24 21:43:41 2013 PST

It gives me a different string every time I refresh.

[pizza]

Not sure if I can see what you're talking about.

[joshnerius → pizza]

All I get is:

Ref A: 357bf3f4244348b59339ec9220af1257 Ref B: 01D5D1617DBB772F4C77D54C43995845 Ref C: Wed Apr 24 21:13:31 2013 PST

A few friends are experiencing the same message. Perhaps it's geography specific.