I am a reseller on the donhost.co.uk network - not for much longer, after taking one of the servers down for maintenance for the second time in two weeks blocking all HTTP requests and email it has now resurfaced with a 7 WEEK OLD version of the mysql database - totally trashing all new tables and records, the site is a mess!!!! Anyone know of a legal system I can employ? The loss is catastrohpic on a business site with paying members. DonHost did not even notify me of this action and just let the database go live onto the site, I think this is abhorrent and I am furious and seeking a more reliable host.

That sounds terrible. I don't know what legal avenues you can go down for this, what does Donhosts terms of service say about loss of data situations?

You may want to re-read DonHosts' TOS and AUP agreements and see if they are responsible for any data loss or whatnot before you pursue legal action.

I have indeed read DonHost's TOS and this clause appears:

3.1. We make no representation and give no warranty as to the accuracy or quality of information received by any person via the Server and we shall have no liability for any loss or damage to any data stored on the Server.

is this legal? surely this gives them the right to delete whatever they want whenever they want, I would argue that this is an unreasonable contract considering the whole business is about storing and serving data - and if it is legal who on earth would go to them for hosting?? (apart from me :blush: ) do other hosts give themselves this catch-all get out?

...and further they did not notify me of this, they simply loaded up the old database and let it go live onto the site with loads of missing tables, fields and records, the site is mess!! Surely this is illegal behaviour??

Many hosts do this. I think the main reason why is that it is difficult to put a commercial value on a piece of computer data. Someone may argue their list of contacts is worth millions and this would open up the host to some seriously large liability.

Hosts will argue that if you want this type of legal protection then you'll have to pay more for the service (more than most ppl would be able to afford).

I think this highlights the fact that there is no alternative to keeping regular backups.

Originally posted by ice53ltd
Many hosts do this. .......I think this highlights the fact that there is no alternative to keeping regular backups.

do they?? surely they do not just rewrite over your database and not tell you???

I have a backup of the database which is more recent than the one they have used but still not up to the minute and I shall be reinstating it and having to rebuild much of it.:bawling: . Even with daily backups there is no getting back data entered in between onto the DB on a live site and this may have serious legal implications when people have paid money for a service on the site and may never receive the service because their details were UNKNOWINGLY overwritten by the host, even knowingly as there is no getting it back.

Have you actually tried contacting them and asking why? They may not have realised it has happened and have more recent backups.

But then again, if it's that important and worth so much I personally would be making backups all the time. :) Never trust technology ;)

If they're a big company you'd hope they have more recent backups then 7 weeks though. :eek:

Originally posted by alimac
do they?? surely they do not just rewrite over your database and not tell you???


No, that is obviously wrong. What I meant is many hosts have a 'no responsibility for data loss' clause in their service agreement.

ah ice53tld I see, wasn't sure what you meant :)

on the point of backups of the database, the main problem here is integrity, so the new records that are being written by site users to the db right now (that is to the 7 week old version) will be issuing auto id's that are already occupied by records in my own, more recent backup, the database has 30 tables and lots of matrix like connections meaning this is going to be hell to sort out, I say hosts just cannot do this regardless of my own backup policy.

I am at a loss what to do, the host is closed for calls until tomorrow morning......

If you think their terms of service is unfair, unjust, or illegal, why did you agree to it? My advice to you is to just move on. Bad things are bound to happen one way or another.

Quoted from http://www.donhost.co.uk/order/terms.pl:
"5. Service Availability
5.1. We shall use our reasonable endeavours to make available to you at all times the Server and the Services but we shall not, in any event, be liable for interruptions of Service or down-time of the Server."

EDIT: Geeze, they have Ideminification paragraphs and Limited Liability sections that you agreed to. Try asking them for compensation for the lost/destoyed data base.

Originally posted by SE Networks
If you think their terms of service is unfair, unjust, or illegal, why did you agree to it? My advice to you is to just move on. Bad things are bound to happen one way or another.

Quoted from http://www.donhost.co.uk/order/terms.pl:
"5. Service Availability
5.1. We shall use our reasonable endeavours to make available to you at all times the Server and the Services but we shall not, in any event, be liable for interruptions of Service or down-time of the Server."

If you read the thread you will see that it is not the interruption of service that I am complaining about, I accept that this is inevitable on most hosts, it is the destruction of data.

On a happier note, I have just seen that they have just overwritten a very recent version of my database:) it appears to be 2 days old which is a huge relief, so pse all take note that they have done this before judging DonHost bearing in mind that they still did it and I still have a (more minor) integrity issue and still may have lost records entered today.

Who knows maybe they've read this.......

That sounds like a huge relief.

So from now on, regular databackups should be performed. Try looking at something like PremiumSoft MySQL Studio where you can schedule database backups to happen regularly. It is an excellent utility and we recommend it to all our customers.

If your data is updated a lot more frequently than you can backup, perhaps find a host that'll set you up a replicated MySQL database so that you have a real-time copy of your database.

In fact, if you have a fast Internet connection you could setup MySQL on a computer at home and ask Donhost if they'll help setup replication to it.

Originally posted by ice53ltd
That sounds like a huge relief.

So from now on, regular databackups should be performed. Try looking at something like PremiumSoft MySQL Studio where you can schedule database backups to happen regularly. It is an excellent utility and we recommend it to all our customers.

If your data is updated a lot more frequently than you can backup, perhaps find a host that'll set you up a replicated MySQL database so that you have a real-time copy of your database.

In fact, if you have a fast Internet connection you could setup MySQL on a computer at home and ask Donhost if they'll help setup replication to it.

Well it wouldn't really matter what backups I have even if they are up to the minute, it would not have made any difference, DonHost have since replied to me saying they used the most recent backup they had on site and installed it on standby hardware and they did this without notifying me! So imagine here I am with an up to the minute backup of my db and the one online is 7 weeks old and I don't know this on a Sunday afternoon, do you see the problem here I say they should just have pulled it offline altogether instead of loading up an invalid and integrity ruining database.

Alimac,

I have a reseller account with Donhost, but not only with them, since 2001 and I can say only good things about them.
If you decide to go with another company, some considerations should take place:
1) Donhost has one of the best uptime in the world, I've monitored it and it's very close to 100%;
2) you should always backup your data because even when daily backups are performed, they could be corrupted when you try to restore them;
3) Donhost have RAID 1 arrays on every server, very few companies have it on their servers;
4) after the first "old" restore, they copied all the data from the old array to the new one, so I find it strange you complain about data lost...
5) they informed all of their customers about this, perhaps you didn't receive their e-mail.

-- I don't think any host would purposely "trash" a users database files. Perhaps they accidently deleted/lost it due to a server crash or something similar?

Yes, there was an hardware failure.
The RAID controller failed.

Originally posted by alimac
I have indeed read DonHost's TOS and this clause appears:

3.1. We make no representation and give no warranty as to the accuracy or quality of information received by any person via the Server and we shall have no liability for any loss or damage to any data stored on the Server.

is this legal? surely this gives them the right to delete whatever they want whenever they want, I would argue that this is an unreasonable contract considering the whole business is about storing and serving data - and if it is legal who on earth would go to them for hosting?? (apart from me :blush: ) do other hosts give themselves this catch-all get out?

You agree on that TOS when you sign up. :D