IB seems to do some kind of back-up every night between midnight (eastern time) and 12:40 - 1:00AM. During that period you are disconnected and cannot login.
That's the delay Lee bitches about periodically.<g> It's definitely annoying (as futures keep on trading while you are blind) but it's a limitation you learn to live with.
The range of different products you can trade at IB is astonishing. (And dangerous for your purse <g> as many of them are highly leveraged)