Bread

Same here. My starter just bubbles a bit, no rise at all. I've baked two loaves and they taste great but they're not even an inch high, even though they've been proved in a banneton and everything. They just slowly collapse in the oven and end up like a baked jellyfish.

Just changed the kind of flour I've been feeding it with lately to see if it comes back

What flours are you both using? Try a loaf with extra strong white only - makes for more gluten and a less brick-like loaf. (Don't worry about what you're feeding the starter with, as long as it's looking healthy.)

Organic white at the moment, now trying with some freshly milled wholemeal

Wholemeal will likely be very dense. It could be that you're over-proofing the dough - how much is it expanding in the banneton? I wouldn't worry about letting it double in size - a 50% increase is enough.

Right now I'm just after any kind of action in my starter, once that gets going I'll get some new organic white and give it another go

Another one of mine, this time starting with the proportions from my old sourdough recipe, mixed with some of the schedule from bsb's pain de campagne and some other things thrown in to give it a try.

Proportions are easy: 1:2:3, as in 1 unit of sourdough starter (normal, not stiff), 2 of water, 3 of flour. (I've used 1/3 wholemeal and 2/3 plain white). Salt is 1% of the total weight of the above.

1. Autolyse for ~2h: I tried to autolyse sans starter but with salt on the account that the sourdough starter is breaking the gluten network that the autolyse is forming. With salt as it's easier to mix it now than afterward and there's no starter to kill so I might as well save me the trouble. I've been told about that technique by a friend and he read that in a book so there you go. Anyway, mix flour and salt and water together in some rough ball and leave it be.

2. Knead in the sourdough. I was told to knead while trying to not break the gluten network, I tried my best.

3. First proofing: big bowl, cling film and in the fridge for ~24h. I think I folded the dough on itself a couple of times in the meantime.

4. Shape the loaves. I tried to be fancy and emulate what I could see at the end of this video
   . Not quite there yet.

5. Then back in the fridge, in the banneton or equivalent of thereof. I used an heavily floured tea towel put in some salad bowl. Leave it there for 12 hours or so.

6. Then the baking: oven at 250C, boiling water in the bottom tray, loaves in Pyrex Casseroles (they're actually cocottes, by the way) and off they go for ~40 minutes.

Results are plenty satisfying as far as I'm concerned. I think the key is the 2nd proofing after shaping the loaves (for these nice, not too big, not too small, and evenly distributed bubbles) and the cooking in-casserole (that - in my case - really helps to burst open the scorings).

Thinking about it again, proportions are actually somewhat similar to bsb's, from the stiff starter point on. In his case bit more of starter (and stiffer) and bit less of water for the same amount of flour, so my dough is slightly more hydrated. Although I think the loaves are more tasty with his recipe.

I think I'll now experiment with strong white flour (I use plain at the moment), less wholemeal and more water, hoping to get a more elastic and open crumb. We shall see.

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My dough is still in the bowl 3 days later and its beginning to rise. So tonight its going to get shaped left in the fridge again and then baked tomorrow night.

@user86460, @kboy - you're feeding your starters with organic flour right? Strong white bread flour? Equal amounts of flour and water? Sorry if these seem obvious questions but organic does make a difference when it comes to the microbes available.
Where are you storing the starter, and are you giving it a good stir when you feed? It's not necessarily essential but the bubbles are carbon dioxide so if you get rid of those and manage to incorporate some air (and therefore oxygen) then the yeasts have more to work with.

You don't have to feed them much, I normally feed about 50g flour + 50g water before I use them but sometimes as little as 25g and sometimes as much as 100g if I need more. I've fed mine with organic wholemeal when I've run out of strong white in the past and it was fine but it was well established by this point.

I've baked two loaves and they taste great but they're not even an inch high, even though they've been proved in a banneton and everything. They just slowly collapse in the oven and end up like a baked jellyfish.

Sounds like your dough may be too wet, what proportions of flour to water are you using? I normally do roughly 2:1.
Also are you just letting the banneton do the shaping, or do you shape your loaf before putting it into the banneton?

This definately sounds like your starter isn't very active, assuming you haven't been proving in the fridge?

Keep feeding the starter daily, maybe discard some if you have a large volume.

First go with this starter and it looks pretty feeble. Still tastes good with butter

From the crust at the top, I'm guessing temperature too high.

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Got some new flour bags the other day and fed my starter yesterday. 50/50 rye and strong white, both organic, and about 50/50 flour / water.

Bubbling away nicely today. Not super strong, but good to see it's still alive. Will give it another couple of feeds to get it going then bake something sunday

Today's effort is Kolach, a Bulgarian bread.

It's supposed to come up as a ring so I think I may have gotten the yeast proportions a bit wrong from fresh to dried. Probably should have also made a bit of a bigger circle out of the dough before baking.

Spiced milk stout hot cross buns on the go (based on this recipe: https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/mar/13/spiced-stout-buns-dan-lepard ).

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I expect if you keep using it and feeding then it'll become well established. It won't bubble all the time, it goes in cycles with the feeding. But I still get good bread from a less bubbly/active starter. The years are still there, they just go dormant until there is food.

The years are still there, they just go dormant until there is food.

quoted for later introspective moments

Forgot to take pictures before the locusts had descended and scarfed half of them (proving, finished result).

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Ferment is looking a bit more powerful

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I massively over proved the dough in a bowl with a tea towel. 7 hours later it had stuck to the tea towel, so I picked the tea towel off and baked it anyway.

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So I had another go. Changed things slightly and I think although its not perfect its definite progress.

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A bit more height than before

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First one for a while this morning and first time using the Lodge CC, still lots to improve on!

Been pondering a cast iron thing like that for quite a while. Is it as good as it seems to bake in?

It's what the Modernist Bread lot recommend, though if you've a normal cast iron casserole (with a metal handle on the lid), then you may want to save yourself £80 and just use that. It's what I do and it's fine, though I probably will end up getting the Lodge at some point...

Yeah, what @Thrustvector said. If you have a cast iron pot already, use that. In my case, it was much cheaper to buy the Lodge and it's more practical for bread, and I don't have a cast iron pot.

But yes, to answer your question, using either of these will dramatically improve what you're able to produce as it retains much more moisture.

Yeah; supposedly that you get a bit more radiant heat from the black inside compared to an enameled pot, but I've never had any problems getting a proper crust in my Le Creuset.

(Where did you get yours from @M4xime? It seems to be out of stock at most UK retailers.)