diff --git a/tests/cypress/e2e/home.spec.ts b/tests/cypress/e2e/home.spec.ts
index 6467f94b0..186cb9b19 100644
--- a/tests/cypress/e2e/home.spec.ts
+++ b/tests/cypress/e2e/home.spec.ts
@@ -46,32 +46,25 @@ describe("404 page", () => {
   });
 });
 
-describe("display the maintenance page", () => {
+describe("display the home page even when APIs return strange responses", () => {
   beforeEach(() => {
-    new Fixtures(cy).config().versions();
-  });
-
-  it("displays an error when trying to get status page information", () => {
-    // ! we plan to change this behavior and ignore statuspage info when unavailable #2283
-    new Fixtures(cy).renkuDown();
+    new Fixtures(cy)
+      .config()
+      .versions()
+      .statuspageDown()
+      .userNone(undefined, 1000);
     cy.visit("/");
-    cy.get("h1").should("have.length", 1);
-    cy.get("h1").contains("RenkuLab Down").should("be.visible");
-    cy.get(".alert-content")
-      .contains("Could not retrieve status information")
-      .should("be.visible");
   });
 
-  it("displays status page information", () => {
-    // if the call to get the user fails (e.g., no .userNone() fixture)
-    // then show the status page
-    new Fixtures(cy).getStatuspageInfo();
-    cy.visit("/");
-    cy.wait("@getStatuspageInfo");
+  it("displays the home page intro text", () => {
+    cy.wait("@getUser");
     cy.get("h1").should("have.length", 1);
-    cy.get("h1").contains("RenkuLab Down").should("be.visible");
-    cy.get("h3").contains("RenkuLab Status").should("be.visible");
-    cy.get("h4").contains("Scheduled Maintenance Details").should("be.visible");
+    cy.get("h1")
+      .first()
+      .should(
+        "have.text",
+        "An open-source knowledge infrastructure for collaborative and reproducible data science"
+      );
   });
 });
 
diff --git a/tests/cypress/e2e/maintenance.spec.ts b/tests/cypress/e2e/maintenance.spec.ts
index 4ffaa30a5..d5487561b 100644
--- a/tests/cypress/e2e/maintenance.spec.ts
+++ b/tests/cypress/e2e/maintenance.spec.ts
@@ -51,7 +51,6 @@ describe("display the maintenance page when there is no user response", () => {
   });
 
   it("displays an error when trying to get status page information", () => {
-    // ! we plan to change this behavior and ignore statuspage info when unavailable #2283
     new Fixtures(cy).renkuDown().statuspageDown();
     cy.visit("/");
     cy.get("h1").should("have.length", 1);
diff --git a/tests/cypress/support/renkulab-fixtures/global.ts b/tests/cypress/support/renkulab-fixtures/global.ts
index 847d1b8e8..2c80c98c6 100644
--- a/tests/cypress/support/renkulab-fixtures/global.ts
+++ b/tests/cypress/support/renkulab-fixtures/global.ts
@@ -25,12 +25,12 @@ import { FixturesConstructor } from "./fixtures";
 function Global<T extends FixturesConstructor>(Parent: T) {
   return class NewSessionFixtures extends Parent {
     getStatuspageInfo({
-      name = "getStatuspageInfo",
       fixture = "statuspage-operational.json",
+      name = "getStatuspageInfo",
       overrides,
     }: {
-      name?: string;
       fixture?: string;
+      name?: string;
       // eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
       overrides?: any;
     } = {}) {
@@ -51,6 +51,14 @@ function Global<T extends FixturesConstructor>(Parent: T) {
       return this;
     }
 
+    statuspageDown(name = "getStatuspageInfo") {
+      cy.intercept("https://*.statuspage.io/api/v2/summary.jsonr", {
+        statusCode: 500,
+        body: {},
+      }).as(name);
+      return this;
+    }
+
     config(params?: {
       name?: string;
       fixture?: string;
diff --git a/tests/cypress/support/renkulab-fixtures/user.ts b/tests/cypress/support/renkulab-fixtures/user.ts
index 24773d67a..5b3af8b6d 100644
--- a/tests/cypress/support/renkulab-fixtures/user.ts
+++ b/tests/cypress/support/renkulab-fixtures/user.ts
@@ -40,8 +40,12 @@ function User<T extends FixturesConstructor>(Parent: T) {
       return this;
     }
 
-    userNone(names = { user: "getUser", keycloakUser: "getKeycloakUser" }) {
+    userNone(
+      names = { user: "getUser", keycloakUser: "getKeycloakUser" },
+      delay = undefined
+    ) {
       cy.intercept("/ui-server/api/user", {
+        delay: delay,
         statusCode: 401,
         body: {},
       }).as(names.user);