[†] Q: can you check A, User: why if the problem is Z? Q: could you do B and tell me what the response is?, User: but I'm sure the problem is Z, Q: what version of C do you have?, User: that shouldn't' matter because the problem is Z, ..."
[‡] meaning it is not running against any SLA clocks
The two matters could be separate symptoms of the same underlying problem for which more information is needed. Admittedly in this case you would probably be right and the tool is likely failing to update because it is getting the same 503:Overloaded responses from the http server, but that is not necessarily the case (perhaps the server is agent sniffing and provides a different, more human interpretable, response to requests from browsers, the response for humans is proxied by this server from another and that is currently overloaded, so the update tool isn't getting the same 503 responses that you are).