Websites hit by system problems

Some sites have been down since last Thursday

A system failure which has brought down hundreds of websites for the past four days should be corrected by Tuesday, according to telecoms firm Thus.

The Scottish-based company owns internet service provider Demon UK which hosts thousands of commercial websites and has 100,000 customers.

It said up to 2,000 customers had been affected by the "significant" file system software failure.

Problems with the Demon web hosting platform began on Thursday.

A Thus spokeswoman said: "We experienced a file system software failure on one of our many Demon hosting platforms and our engineers continue to work around the clock to bring this small hosting platform back into service.

"Due to the nature of the software failure, detailed and specialist activities have been required which have taken a longer period of time to complete, however we anticipate that the service will be restored in the morning of Tuesday, 3 October.

"We apologise to affected customers for the inconvenience caused."