Quote - I'm beginning to believe it was something to do with ef and the up coming release of P7.

Well there is definitely a problem with EF update check.
They did have server trouble beginning last weekend, and during this week, so this would account why it popped up when it did.

I doubt it's related to the P7 release, other than it's broken and they haven't fixed it yet, either because they don't know, or it's seen as low priority.