Betfair had some technical difficulties this afternoon (starting some time around 12pm and finishing some time around 2pm) during which they turned off API access to Betfair for third-party applications. During this time TBE would not have been able to "see" Betfair and would have issued a warning message "Unable to communicate with Betfair - betting suspended", or it would prevented people from logging in with a warning that "Betfair may be down".
When the API was turned back on, TBE would have automatically started communicating with Betfair, but all races that had already been run would display a "No race information" message in the commentary.
For info, there are two ways of accessing Betfair:
1. Their web site
2. The API (Applications Programming Interface) that they provide for all third-party bots
When the API is shutdown, all bots are not able to communicate with Betfair. You may still be able to access Betfair (and place bets) via their web site, but no bots will be able to operate.
The best way of checking to see if there is an issue with the API is to monitor Twitter - the Betfair Helpdesk (@BetfairHelpdesk) tend to publish alerts when they are notified of technical issues.
Alistair