It appears that both client downloads being served are from what was available 3 weeks ago, not the most up to date version. I believe this is why people who allowed the updates are having problems. I didn't allow the update and had no problems (besides being slow as molasses) when we came back up.
Allowing the update, I couldn't open 888b, indeed.
I might be wrong, but I think that not allowing the update, I didn't see any puzzle in the list (I tried this after updating, may be I did some mistake).
In devprev, allowing or not allowing the update gived me access to all puzzles, including 888b.
So I suppose gitwut might be right in his assumption.