Hello Peter, I based my reply on also having no access to 901 and 903, that you can now access 903 changes the situation.
I am guessing that the 901 problem is a temporary problem in that I have seen the BBC were having some issues with their servers and for me the loading message is on for longer than I would expect but it does load.
Current advice from freesat remains the same:
http://www.freesat.co.uk/help/channels/fix-a-problem/showcase-od-issues
I would suggest that even though settings does show a connection you retry and re-select connect automatically.