Welp, just spent two hours waiting to chat online with the ***** tech support. This was after waiting an hour on the phone ...

Skinny of the issue is that my email isn't working on the three domains I have with *****. Two are on one server and the other is on another server. Mail hasn't worked since about 9am this morning.

Finally get a tech in chat, explain the problem and he tells me it's due to the Code Red "virus."

Uh, huh.

He tells me that the server is being scanned and that it's performance is nill.

I let him know that the domains are on two servers. He replies both are being scanned and performance is horrible.

Uh, huh.

I then point out that FTP, HTTP and Telnet access are unaffected. That the Code Red worm scans port 80 and that if there were performance issues the other services would suffer as well.

Then begins a 30 minute begging session for him to check for other issues. I am unsuccessful and he says he needs to move to another person who is waiting to chat.

So, my questions:

1) Other folks have a Code Red issue?
2) How did it manifest itself in your hosted site? Did all your services suffer?
3) Are there other ***** customers experiencing mail issues?

Thanks for your time.

Im having similar problems.

1 of my accounts cant access ftp,email or the website

another can access ftp,mail but cant get to website


***** claims code-red but these are on UNIX servers and I have not heard anyone else with unix problems such as these.

anyone else?

I have a dedicated server with them (never again) and a couple of days ago and I couldn't access my e-mail for one domain on that server. Just one, all the other worked normal.

I tried the webmail thing they have and it worked great.

I want to say it was my ISP, but only one domain was having the problem.

Just thought I would add that comment.

That is strange. The virus is generating additional traffic on networks, but not that much.

Code Red is not known to affect Unix/Linux.

Only MS IIS 4.0 5.0

Code Red is not known to affect Unix/Linux. Well, yes and no. It's a security exploit for IIS, but when loaded in the process it scans 1000s of IP blocks which could affect network/server performance of a *nix machine.

Couldn't access MonsterControls for the past 24 hours with the Internal Server Error. FTP is fine.

Pages load much slower than usual. 30 minutes ago got this:
Fatal error: out of dynamic memory in yy_create_buffer() in Unknown on line 0
Reloaded the page OK, but very slow.

:) This is all it does to a unix server

[admin@www admin]$ cat /var/log/httpd/access | grep default.ida
www.mysite.com 165.121.27.139 - - [03/Aug/2001:04:03:09 -0400] "GET /default.ida?NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN%u9
090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u909
0%u8190%u00c3%u0003%u8b00%u531b%u53ff%u0078%u0000%u00=a HTTP/1.0" 302 588 "-" "
-"

I have them from about 400 different IP's in the last couple days.

No performance problems.

Yep ... The saga continues ...

I have tried over and over again to get ***** that their catch all excuse of Code Red scanning isn't going to fly. No luck.

So, today, I switched my domains over to Hosting Matters. Easy sign up, impressive pre-sales support and I like their active user community on the support boards.

I was able to Monster Chat with a accounting deptartment person who indicated she's been busy with cancellations.

What is the most irritating thing about this is their steadfast refusal to look at other reasons for this occuring. It is amazing how pompus they are when you are dealing with them.

Thanks for everyone's feedback on this!

Well now doesn't this just suck eggs ...

8/3/2001
5:11:00 PM
Code Red Update
Open

Due to the code red worm, we have been forced to block the IP ranges of networks with the highest number of infected machines. We will lift these blocks as soon a possible. We have technicians working 24 hours on this issue. Please refrain from calling technical support unless you are positive that your issue is not being caused by the excessive traffic or IP blocks caused by this worm. Thank you very much for your patience during this situation.

Amazing.

Inept.

I now can't get any email to transfer my domain to the new hosting company. EGADS! I know ... I should have used Yahoo! Mail or Excite Mail as my contact email ....

Originally posted by Fish_Saver
:) This is all it does to a unix server

[admin@www admin]$ cat /var/log/httpd/access | grep default.ida
www.mysite.com 165.121.27.139 - - [03/Aug/2001:04:03:09 -0400] "GET /default.ida?NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN%u9
090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u909
0%u8190%u00c3%u0003%u8b00%u531b%u53ff%u0078%u0000%u00=a HTTP/1.0" 302 588 "-" "
-"

I have them from about 400 different IP's in the last couple days.

No performance problems.

I have this in the log's at all of our servers. Several thousand times and there was absolutely no slow down :D
I am just wondering if i should contact the machines owners to tell them about their trouble. Obvisiously they are infected. What do you think? Anyway, it sucks to mail serveral thousand machine owners to tell them. :nuts:

I just got off the phone with ***** and their guy told me that their being hit harder by Code Red because they have more IPs so they're being inundated by Code Red packets. He said this was causing all sorts of problems with bandwidth and memory and such. I've been recieving memory errors on my PHP scripts constantly.

What has everyone's previous experience with ***** been? I've been on less than a month and I'm trying to decide whether to take advantage of their 30 day money back guarantee. I'm just wonding if I should continue to expect problems. My sites were down around July 17th for several hours and when I first transfered I actually had to deal with the domain name transfer myself. I'm seriously considering transfering. Any thoughts?

Aaron Roberts

Originally posted by Duece
What has everyone's previous experience with ***** been? I've been on less than a month and I'm trying to decide whether to take advantage of their 30 day money back guarantee. I'm just wonding if I should continue to expect problems. My sites were down around July 17th for several hours and when I first transfered I actually had to deal with the domain name transfer myself. I'm seriously considering transfering. Any thoughts?


I wish I had been smart enough to bail out of ***** during my 30-day trial period.

What has everyone's previous experience with ***** been?
From bad to terrible. See the last link in my signature. Get out now, and be prepared to cancel your credit card. Do a search on this forum for plenty of horror stories from other former ***** customers.

I have two sites hosted by *****S-each one is on a different Unix server with them.

One is fine-no problems at all.
The other is effectively dead in the water-can't run cgi scripts, the main page(10k!) takes 35 seconds to load, can't access monster controls at all.

I opened a ticket, they said it was the code red worm. I reopened the ticket and asked why one server with them was fine, and the other hosed. They simply pasted in a canned 'code red' response.

Just 3 weeks ago they updated network solutions with an incorrect IP address for me, taking my site down for 1 week. Every ticket I opened with them, they said 'its a new site-it takes 48 hours for the IP address to get populated through all the internet servers'. Oh-did I mention the site had been up and running for 4 months previously? After 4 times reopening the trouble ticket someone actually read what the heck I was saying and fixed it.

I've had it with them-yes they have attractive pricing, but their customer support is very lacking. Now I have the fun of finding a new hosting company.

Shawn

whats funny is how it is taking them 72 hours to fix a server problem. I mean come on, anyone here could have it done in 24 hours tops! There web site has been down since last nite. I bet they losing mega money! serves em right. Im gonna give em another couple of hours then im gonna take my customers and leave!

What company is this?

WHoops...i was in the Code Red and ***** topic...wonder how it posted here?


ps. It was ***** we were talking about

Sorry to hear that......Hostiva so far hasn't a whole lot better.

Geez all I want is a host with what Hostiva has mostly and good uptime....but I guess I'm asking way to much.

Originally posted by brad_nelson1
WHoops...i was in the Code Red and ***** topic...wonder how it posted here?

ps. It was ***** we were talking about
Probably you clicked "new thread" instead of "post reply" since they are right next to each other. :)

Hi,

I've had a very same problem around the time u experienced it...
no mail, no ftp, no http access...
and also I found out when i tried to open support ticket with them (*****) i couldnt even get to their site... so i can't even open a ticket!

after some desperate hours of trying and error, i got in once. ONCE. since then, FTP and email are working, however, no access via HTTP still...

but in my case, this seems to be a little different... according to third party stats like Hitbox and linkexchange, other ppl seem to be having no problems accessing the site! and i also tryied on several other machines and I could get in!

i'm having trouple from my mahchine only...

but the case is very similar (as to how it started, date/time etc) i'm thinking it's to do with the Code Red...

Does anyone have any ideas as to what's happening? or haivng a similar experience?

thanks!

I have several NT/W2k ded servers with ***** and only one UNIX. I have had ded servers with them for nearly 3 years. Over the past few days I have had an awful time with the UNIX with Error 500 - Internal Server Errors. Probably the overall worst performance I had in over a year (before that I had to upgrade memory). The load on the UNIX server is currently ranging 6-10x normal load and drains all memory. The logs are reporting massive amounts of port 80 scans from different IPs mostly from @home users.
The 4 - W2K and NT servers are operating fine with no problems as they were patched to fend off the worm.
The UNIX issue sounds like nothing else but the Code Red Worm or another major attack on only *****'s UNIX servers??? The second theory is unlikely.
I wish the posts would analyze the issue rather than jumping at the conslusion that ***** is hiding something. People need to learn problems do happen and when they are told the cause there is no need to continue to complain unless they know exactly what needs to be done. Experts out there that know ***** is withholding information... come up with why my NT/W2K servers are working perfectly okay and the UNIX servers memory has been drained???????
Also, the W2k servers have a patch and are not affected unless you were stupid enough not to install the patch from June 19 but why isn't there a patch for UNIX machines? No matter what the load is it is not good to have that many port scans. Right?

RWF -- I thought I did a pretty good job of analyzing the issue with *****.

I think they are smoke screening something else.

Here is why:

1) Code red is a worm. Not a virus. For a hosting company not to know the difference is beyond me.

http://www.*****.com/?zone=support/network_status&ID=354

2) When my sites started having issues the only issue I was seeing was that mail was unresponsive. FTP and HTTP were performing as well or better than they were in the past. I *had* two domains on two different servers ... lilly and goldenrod. The Code Red worm scans port 80.

3) The increased traffic idea is bogus. The fact that ***** claims to have many more IPs doesn't increase it's risk. In fact, read over the technical analysis and you will see that the IPs chosen to scan are actually randomly generated. Sort of ...

http://www.eeye.com/html/Research/Advisories/AL20010717.html

4) If you capture the addresses of where the scans are coming from you can add it to your routers so that it ignores traffic originarting from that IP.

5) You can prevent the worm from hitting again by possibly adding the following to an IIS server:

"In this case, the "lysine deficiency" is a check for the existence of the file c:
otworm. If this file exists then the worm will become dormant. This means it will not attempt to make connections out to other IP addresses to try to infect."

6) Your IDS is the first step in battling this. This is where I don;t understand *****. An IDS is an intrusion detection system. For more info look at :

http://www.nss.co.uk/ids/introduction.htm

and

http://www.securityfocus.com/frames/?focus=ids&content=/focus/ids/articles/idsforecomm.html

and

http://www.networkmagazine.com/article/NMG20001130S0007/2

***** could have added the above message to their IDS and bam, problem solved. Sure, a small price in bandwidth performance would have been experienced, but the worm activities would have never gotten to the servers.

Now, I do this sort of thing for a living. I am Microsoft Certified, but not Cisco certified. I deal with LANs and servers ... not WANs or datacom. If I could learn about this thing and prevent it from happening on our servers at work, don't you think ***** could?

When I contacted tech support they were condescending and of no help. EVERYTHING was blamed on Code Red. They wouldn't look at any other solution.

The final straw for me was the total BS with blocking the IPs. If they understood how the worm worked they would have realized that it was only a matter of time before their "large block of IPs" were randomly selected again.

So, in conclusion, run from *****. Find a hosting company that technically understands the system they have and has a responsive, trained support staff.

Was that enough analyzing?

To answer your final question ... the Code Red worm only infects IIS (NT) servers. They are the only ones who can do the random scans and attacks. Unix server are affected from the standpoint that they happen to be one of the random IPs chosen by the Code Red worm as it looks to propagate itself.

I'd welcome other's comments.

As you almost said it.... it must be Code Red Worm or similar attack.
What is it that only affects the UNIX servers and not the NT/2000 servers on the same network?
They did block IPs but mainly ranges of @home and others and this did help the problem but soon as they lifted the IP block the loads started peaking again.
Agree that it may be something they did or are not doing that is making it as serious as it is.
May be another worm or similar denial of service attack but what is the difference from what is happening and the Code Red Worm? not technically speaking but the end result.
What smoke screen are they putting up? and for what?
Final fact... it is not a single server issue (as it affects all UNIX servers), it is not a network wide issue (as it is not affecting NT/2000 servers), it is not a router issue (obviously), it is not a scripting issue (obviously).... so it leads us to the fact that it is an attack of some kind and isn't it funny that the Code Red Worm started the same day problems started occuring at ***** - UNIX servers.

Is Mario Talkington on glue? I just saw this article on ***** as one of Top 25 Tech Leaders with WorldCom, Ericsson, Nokia, Alcatel, Verizon and other more. Who the hell is Chris Faulkner screwing? I just email the editor wick@dmagazine.com and told them they are idiots for picking *****.

http://www.dmagazine.com/july01/featureb100701.shtml

pgrote,

i totally agree. The more I talked to ***** the more I knew they were lying. Stuff they said made no sense with the code red problem. So i got sick of it and LEFT!

I found a SUPER reseller. Its MCHOST www.mchost.com and they are friendly people. Marc was very nice and helpful. So if anyone is looking to switch at least check out MCHOST.

I just have to insert my 2 cents here. All this bs about code red - okay, maybe ***** was foolish enough to not take necessary precautions, or maybe they're not smart enough to figure out how to purge the worm.

I've read several articles that have said that there was no evidence that the internet traffic suffered more then the daily normal. They have been feeding customers the line that "all internet traffic is clogged by the worm". Which we know is not true.

Then they tell their customers that they're servers being pinged by the worm - causing latency problems. Latency? You call the complete inability to access your website via http, ftp, and pop3 latency? Several posters (with other hosts) on this board experienced excessive pinging by the worm, yet they can access their sites.

So, ***** blocks their routers. Which on 8/4/01 at 3:05 pm they state: "We have removed all crv2 netblocks from our routers ACL. Al traffic should be coming through without problem at this time. Code Red is not over by any means, but the port 80 scans are slowing down. Accept our sincerest apologizes for the issues you may have had over the last 24 hours. They will not continue."

So, then if all is fixed - why can no one still access their website? Why are there numerous customers experiencing 500 internal errors on their scripts. Why are there file locks being placed in customer's directories? Why all the bull****?

I await your answer rwf - since either you seem to know more about this than anyone else here, or your ***** customer service rep ready to rattle off one of another one of your generic excuses.

RWF ... I really feel for you. I went through the same thing for over a year with *****. The rest of you keep your chuckles to yourself. :-)

Each and everytime I spoke with tech support I ended up educating them on something. The only time they helped me without me helping them is when they installed Sitepop on one of my domain names.

Someone mentioned ***** telling us that latency was an issue while this was happening. It wasn't. I stored weekly ping and tracert results weekly to my hosts. The ping and tracret times were as good or better than they ever had been.

The only thing that could have happened is that the Code Red worm invaded the *internal* ***** network. This would have happened if they didn't adequately path and/or reboot their servers to remove the worm from memory.

Since the Code Red worm, and it's new variant, use a semi-random IP generation to attempt to infect other servers, if an internal network is infected it would cause issues. I say this only to point out that this would be the only plausible explanation.

To resolve this you basically have to take your NT servers down, patch them and reboot them. All of them. I don't know how many NT servers ***** has, but that process shouldn't take more than 8 hours. Tops.

If that was the case it raises two specific issues with ***** then:

1) Why weren't the prepared?
2) Why did they possibly pass on misinformation to their customers?

It all gets back to basic customer service. If you have an issue you always, always, always, fall on your own sword. Admit what is wrong and give a detailed explanation as to what is causing it. This is especially true in hosting where your customers sometimes know as much or more about the technical aspects of your installation.

Past this, you work with your customers. Answer their questions. Try possible solutions they suggest. Don't stuff them in a corner and blame everything on the Code Red worm.

Through all of this my sites didn't suffer that much until they blocked the IP addresses. My FTP and HTTP worked throughout. My only issue was mail access.

Anyone in business knows this common rule: It costs more to source and find customers than it does to keep them. People are exceptionally patient and understanding with a company. What killed me about this is that they lost my business because they did such a poor job of communicating at any level.

My personal belief is that one of two things happened with ***** during this episode. (I do not know what is happening know as I have moved my domains.)

1) ***** found it's internal network plagued by the Code Red worm. This was caused by being unprepared.

2) ***** suffered from a network or hardware related issue and it used the Code Red worm as a smoke screen to cover it. This is bolstered by what I said, plus the understanding that their issues started a full 12-24 hours after the infection cycle restarted.

Anyway, keep in mind these are my personal opinions. I do not have any inside information. It is the story of one guy who lost three days of his life getting his sites backed up, moved off and set uop at new hosting services.

C I Sh*t, aka "*****" :spam: (aka C I SPAM) is a joke. Their server "techs" are so stupid they don't know how to restart a server. It took OVER 150 HOURS for the morons to reboot a server that I had.

Well, this is what happened:

I email 911@*****.com saying I need a reboot.

This dumba$$, we'll call him "rickyt", replies saying "Your server has been disabled for abuse". :eek:

R-I-G-H-T...Very interesting; I'd like to know what their definition of "abuse" is. I guess "abuse" is emailing asking for a reboot?

SO, I emailed cf@*****.com (Faulkner, aka, "Head Loser" :laugh: at *****) and explained what was going on. He says something along the lines of "Ok, why don't you apoligize to "rickyt"". :erm:

I reply with "Uhm...ok, for WHAT?!?!"

:uhh:

He replies "What kind of businessman are you?" :bawling:

:eek3:

By now I'm totally PISSED :kaioken: :angry: :kaioken: that this guy would even say something like this. I ignore him after that and give in to their game and email abuse@supportteam.net and apologize (for nothing).

About 3 hours later someone restarts the server and we're back up.

End of story. Now we're having the same problem with C I Sh*t again since our servers are crashing because of the 'Code Red' crap and their dumba$$ "techs" don't know what to do. EVEN our LINUX boxes are crashing!

What else is new?

Normally we just read the views and comments of fellow members and get back to work. But today its different and we want to quickly share how stuffed ***** really is (we know most of you already know how bad they are).

Since Friday our website has been down together with email (3 days) and the amount of problems we have had with ***** has been truly incredible.

Initially it was great, good speed, no dramas, and we thought we would bring all our accounts to them. Then they upgraded from php3 to php4 and our website was down for over one week - our programmers were talking with (as they called the ***** help team) the janitors who argued that they were still php3. Just one example.

Then we are unable to send mail to AOL members - 3rd time we contacted *****, we were finally told that AOL had blocked mail coming from *****. I don't know if this is true for other people but it is definitely true for us.

Ok, and now finally, we see Code Red and read everyones comments. I have tried to get through to their online help (39 people waiting, one janitor) and its been 60min already.

If you are browsing webhostingtalk to view comments about ***** then please take this warning, if you like painful experiences then go with *****. For everyone else, if you can please give some advice on when ***** is going to get their act together so we can at least access some data &/or please advise how to get out of them and move to a decent server.

Yes, my site is down since 8/2. Yesterday I got FTP access but still no HTTP. Now they (*****) say that they are installing a firewall. But the problem goes far, Cisco routers, switches etc are sensible to Code Red too. I asked Cisco and they confirmed providing me code access to download new firmware for Routers 675, 677 and 678. So, that's why not only MS servers are affected.

The Cisco theory on ***** problems is a good idea and I already thought the same was very probable sine its been reported in all Code Red document but this wouldn't explain why ***** NT/2000 servers are unaffected (running at normal CPU usage). Does ***** have two separate networks... one for UNIX and one for NT/2000? Don't think so since I have experienced network slowdowns and outages that affected both UNIX and NT/2000 servers equally. Usually it was worse on the NT/2000 servers.
Any ideas?

We also are new to *****...I thought I did a lot of research on them, but now that I have found this site and looked on google groups, Ive realized that I didn't look hard enough. Its been a couple weeks and I think Im going to be utilizing that 30 day money back guarantee soon! Assuming I can get ahold of a person, or their site comes back up so I can use the chat. I waited on hold on the phone today 3 times at 50 minutes each and gave up to do other things each time.

We have 2 domains on UNIX servers with them - both of which are dead in the water. Our mail servers are down too -cant send or receive email through them.

We also resold a dialup ISDN account through them (to ourselves) and have had lots of problems with that. Come to find out today that ***** sold the accounts to a third party - and of course never let us know. So we went from having 24/7 access to 150 hours a month with no warning!

WHY OH WHY is it so hard to find a Good Hosting company!?

I smell pending lawsuits against C I SH*T for fraud (they charged my credit card $1,020 FOR NO REASON!!!:eek::angry: )

What kind of company is this?!?!?! Maybe we should get everyone that's been defrauded by these people to file a report with the FTC? The BBB obviously can't do much...but the FTC can if they get enough bad reports...

MODS- Think we can start a forum dedicated to ***** FRAUD and put all of the complaints together to send to the FTC???

I think it's time for ***** to explain themselves to the feds...

I completely agree with B-Broker. Action needs to be taken again *****. They have defrauded all their customers long enough. They give you lousy service (if any service at all) then bill you thousands of dollars. They even make random (and not to mention big) charges to people's credit cards! I think we should stop complaining on this forum and go the Federal Trade Commision.

Originally posted by B-Broker
MODS- Think we can start a forum dedicated to ***** FRAUD and put all of the complaints together to send to the FTC???

I think it's time for ***** to explain themselves to the feds...
I thought I'd add that I have been working on my site at ***** everyday now for a couple of weeks and have had no down times or email problems. I have an NT site because I am using ASP.

As is normal up here, a lot of the louder anti-***** posts up here come from people that do not verify that they are with *****, or from newbies that don't provide proof of hosting with them either. I'm not saying you don't, but it would be better to back up your "I have a site with them and they suck" posts with a verifiable URL.

I have posted elsewhere up here that so far ***** has been great for me so I am probaby one of the happy majority. :)

I don't mean to offend anyone here. I just wanted to add another side.

Originally posted by txdivegirl
WHY OH WHY is it so hard to find a Good Hosting company!? [/B]

Price tag perhaps?

I wrote a quick script that e-mailed the abuse@domainname for the codered servers scanning my boxes, and 98% of them bounced back, either no email for domain or no abuse@ address. Probably a good indicator as to their continued cluelessness.

HobbyGal - Im just curious - if ***** has been so good to you , then why can't your website be accessed?? It would appear yours is suffering just like the rest of us.

Good luck though - hope it works out for you.

Stacy

Well a few days ago I had sent support a ticket to see why my email servers were down. In response I got a form letter about Code Red on Aug 1.

So - then I escalated the problem because at this point my websites were also down. Of course theirs was still up at this point obviously.
So my problem I was reporting was:
mail servers (2) down
domains dead (2)

Well I heard nothing in the promised 1-4 hours for an escalated problem, so I escalated it again and it said it was sent to the President (yea right).

Well looks like my mail server opened up just now - just long enough to send me this response: (I find it amusing that at the end of the post it gives me a link to rate the service....but funny - that link isnt working...hmmmmm) Also - if you note...this email blames the code red attack on July 31st. The first email they sent me said Aug 1. A little fishy.

Quote from ***** email:
"The second wave of the Code Red Virus struck at 7:00 PM CST on July 31st, 2001 and has been continuing nonstop since then. While all of the systems have been checked and patched to make them safe from Code Red, the entire internet is struggling with its effects. Part of the problem with the Code Red worm is the fact that it scans the entire internet looking for other hosts to infect. This additional traffic causes latency problems throughout the internet. Because of this, there will be intermittant services on the server you are on due to the flood of port scans being caused by the four strains of the Code Red worm. The extremely high number of scans is causing server loads to skyrocket which in turn is causing all processes and protocols to perform slowly or fail altogether. Our administrators are working to filter the malicious port scans at the firewall, which should be implemented soon. More information about the Code Red worm is available at http://www.sans.org or http:!
//www.iis.net as well as http://hostingsupport.com/NetStatus.asp


Best Regards,
Miles M.
Level 2 Customer Care Member

If you want to rate my service
http://supportteam.net/rate.php3"

I can tell you why. Because not everyone wants to publish the URL hosted by the company they've been bashing. Just today alone, I've received 14 "your sites down"/"your sites up" emails from netmonitor. Since I've been with *****, I've been down more than I care to remember. If you want proof - give me 24 hours to get settled with my new host, and I'll publish my internic records, my netmonitor stats, and anything else you require for proof. Sound Fair?


Originally posted by HobbyGal

As is normal up here, a lot of the louder anti-***** posts up here come from people that do not verify that they are with *****, or from newbies that don't provide proof of hosting with them either. I'm not saying you don't, but it would be better to back up your "I have a site with them and they suck" posts with a verifiable URL.

I think everyone would like to see those logs!

BTW- Now my server has been down for 24 hours for their stupid @$$ "Code Red Updates"...Their damn Network "Status" page said everything was going to be back up this morning at 6AM CDT??!?!?!?

What a joke this "company" is...My advice:

:uzi: AVOID CI "HOST" AT ALL COSTS!

"*****" :smash:

***** makes me want to :puke:

I hate to look at my logs! :bawling:

I've received 25 "Your Down" no, "Your Up", no "Your Down" emails since 3:00 am today from Netmonitor.

You want them? You can have them!:smash:


Originally posted by B-Broker
I think everyone would like to see those logs!

BTW- Now my server has been down for 24 hours for their stupid @$$ "Code Red Updates"...Their damn Network "Status" page said everything was going to be back up this morning at 6AM CDT??!?!?!?

What a joke this "company" is...My advice:

:uzi: AVOID CI "HOST" AT ALL COSTS!

"*****" :smash:

Are you having problems with ***** now? Or, were you one of the lucky ones to get out in time?

Could you post parts of your logs here?

We'd be interested in hearing your full story too!

Oh the agony. Yep, I'm with ***** still - I got in long enough yesterday to get my forums packed up. Now I'm just carefully shopping before I can switch. Still down though - with no email or ftp access. I don't even give a **** anymore.

Here's my log files from 8/2 - 8/7

02/08/01 13:59:05 Server Down No message.
02/08/01 14:05:15 Server Down No message.
02/08/01 14:36:17 Server Down No message.
02/08/01 15:57:35 Server Up HTTP/1.1 200 OK
02/08/01 16:29:19 Server Down No message.
02/08/01 16:35:10 Server Down No message.
02/08/01 17:05:25 Server Down No message.
06/08/01 20:45:47 Server Up HTTP/1.1 200 OK
06/08/01 20:58:11 Server Down No message.
06/08/01 21:06:47 Server Up HTTP/1.1 200 OK
06/08/01 21:39:17 Server Down No message.
06/08/01 21:44:58 Server Up HTTP/1.1 200 OK
06/08/01 21:59:19 Server Down No message.
06/08/01 22:03:35 Server Up HTTP/1.1 200 OK
06/08/01 22:24:24 Server Down No message.
06/08/01 22:27:35 Server Up HTTP/1.1 200 OK
06/08/01 22:39:30 Server Down No message.
06/08/01 22:43:54 Server Up HTTP/1.1 200 OK
07/08/01 05:10:13 Server Down No message.
07/08/01 05:17:01 Server Down No message.
07/08/01 05:47:11 Server Down No message.
07/08/01 05:54:50 Server Up HTTP/1.1 200 OK
07/08/01 07:00:20 Server Down No message.
07/08/01 07:04:54 Server Up HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Notice there were no messages from 8/3 - 8/5. That's because it was down the entire time!!! And that doesn't even include all of today's downtime!

And oh the stories I have! But that's another thread entirely!

...and their headquarters are less than 15 minutes from my house!:dgrin:


Originally posted by B-Broker
Are you having problems with ***** now? Or, were you one of the lucky ones to get out in time?

Could you post parts of your logs here?

We'd be interested in hearing your full story too!

Hello people. -)
A server who has 100,000 accounts can't be all that bad.
I actually have gotten to like them, after my first numb
experience of almost quitting before I got hooked up.
Only reason I didn't leave, is a very good friend of mine
was happy with them......... WHAT another happy *****
customer?

Once you figure them out, they are not too bad..
really.... ..
Hints: Get everything you want in your original set up.
So you don't have to wait while they get you some more
IP's.....sigh.
Never phone them, waste of time.
I have never spoken to a real person yet.
Turn your speakers on loud when you go to tech support
chat and leave the page down until you hear them call
you... then once you have them.. don't let them go until
they have faithfully answered all your questions.

Send trouble tickets....

Don't overload your server as many webhosts do.

I have had very little downtime with them......
Yes, the last two days have been sad..... but they are up
and running now...... so.......

By the way...... lots of servers were down, it isn't just
*****...... not by a long shot...

Look how many servers were getting (amazing) memory
upgrades..... what do you think caused that action?

Picture the net as a road map...... This code red horrid thing
comes along,,,,, and puts detours and road blocks in...
There is the same amount of traffic on the net....only thing is
less road way........ hence congestion..... traffic jam...
pain in the rearend.....

Well, I am not going to buy another server from them...
as far as that goes.. but. it isn't all that bad once you figure
out how to deal with them.

Teresa King

Teresa,

What is wrong with you? Seriously? Do you think everyone should have to place their life on hold just to speak to a CSR? No! Not me! I've been hosting websites for several years now. I've been with hosts with bad servers/good customer service, been with hosts with good servers/great customer service. This is the FIRST time I've ever been with a company with this kind of customer service! NO SERVICE!

It wouldn't be so bad, If I didn't have to call them...true! But when you host a website that goes down umpteen times in a week, I think a personal response is needed - not a generic one. And I NEVER waited more than 10 minutes holding for a CSR from any of the other hosts I've used.

There's nothing else to figure out here! They just SUCK! So, you have fun waiting on the phone for hours while your website/business is losing customers by the minute! Enjoy watching your potential clients pass you up, because your website isn't there! Enjoy waiting for a CI Moron to answer the phone, only to tell you that they don't know what the **** is wrong, but they'll look into it (yeah, right)!

And by the way, ***** puts 254 clients on each server. I'd hate to imagine the service if they tried putting 100,000 clients on one server - ??? :bomb:

(if I seem a little crabby today, it's because ***** lost almost all my incoming email for the last 5 days. I usually receive anywhere from 50 - 80 emails DAILY! I've managed to receive 5 for the entire week!)

I was wondering what kind of response I would get if I said that.
Yes, a service should be way better....

But, let's take this. To begin with I am a type A personality.
I hate waiting, I hate depending on others so that I can do
what I need to get done. And, my clients are number one with
me. I believe in top notch service..... and I give it.

I have been with 5 servers so far.. One, I had to pay 35.00 to
add a new person...... the service was good, though,
the amount of space for the money was... not conducive to
making a living on the net and THE CGI bin was a nightmare.
Uptime fantastic.... best for serving small sites.. that
didn't want much on the server.. I used them for two years,
and all the while hunting for another hosting service.


So was convinced by someone that they could get me a better
deal... less set up fees...and less monthly payments and a better
box......... aarggh...... I left after a month..... Keeping the one
I had... I bought into that one....... Glad I kept what I had.

Found Alabanza.... not a bad server really, but I was not directly
under them, I am renting space from another.. NOW that
service sucks.... am sorry to say.. but talk about not being
able to get your hosted people up...... at least, with ***** you telnet up and your person is on....... ready to go.... With these people, I would actually have to argue with the guy... I would say, I need this, and the first thing I would get.. is "Why does your client want that?"
"I don't know, does it matter, may we have it please?"
:"Well, it is a dumb request."
"I don't care if you think the request is dumb or not.... my client
wants it.. Do we get it?"
"Well, I am busy tonight, but I will do it tomorrow, tomorrow,
tomorrow"...echoing in my ears.

And, yet another client was happy to be moved to the *****
server. Benefits...... actual telnet... Benefits.. your own set
up... Benefits... my people can actually use their own domain
to send email out and receive it. It is not dependent on one's
ISP. Benefit.. ability for subdomains... Benefit... you can
charge your clients less and give them a break.

For my Alabanza server, I bought securecrt... used it once....... the whole ssh bin was
shut off...... basically, send to your host to get permission to
use shell..... GREAT.. It's been three months and I still can't
use shell......... I had a client patiently waiting for cron.....
Fine.. put him on *****..... and once the server was over, the
cron works fine... I still have people wanting that.... I even tried
fakecron, but it didn't work.

AND by the way, the albanaza server was messing up and was upgraded on memory too..... it was hit by code red, also.. as far
as struggling on the net.

Oh, yeah did I mention smart host...... now there you go...
NIL service.. none.. made ***** look like a dream. Pretty
good getting your site requests up... But by gosh if you want
one down and put another up..... well,,,,, guess that isn't important to them...... so I dumped them.

OH, did I mention that I ordered a server up from one guy
who took my money.... then told me he could not fulfill the contract as his previous customers were more important..
Wasted ten days waiting for that.... hmmmm.... and still
waiting for the money to come back to me.

Oh, did I tell you that I faxed to get another server that was
supposed to ready on Thursday it is now Tuesday.. NO
server... Money in their hands..... I hope this is a right decision,
again.. he is having trouble getting the IP's.... so I imagine
that has a lot to do with the net traffic.

So, yeah we can all have bad hair days... but... at least
with the ***** one, I have almost total control over the situation.
And, of course I was unhappy....these past two days were bad.
But, it is not their fault that they were under slaughter by
a hacker...
Oh, and my mail was leaking through.. and I even had orders
using my sites, that I couldn't see... mostly it was the owners
of the sites that couldn't see the sites.

I don't know if I lost any mail.. but I figure, if it is important they
will write back....

Also, I have written several email using my ISP... and have
had way more returned email than usual.. I am saying it
has been a lot of servers down...

I guess, basically.. once I dealt with *****'s lousy customer
support and figured out all that it takes (AND NO, I should
not have had to deal with that kind of service) But now that
I know what it takes to make the site run smoothly.. it really
is not that bad....

Basically, if you are planning on having more IP's... or doing
any upgrading... there is a waiting period.. so I just plan
for it... AND, no when I have my 45 accounts on this server
I will not be getting another... as I go through the servers
trying to find the dream one.

Which by the way, I have a client who has way different sleeping
hours than me.... he has been most pleased with this server,
he needed something done, followed the instructions for customer support and I woke up to a letter with, "WOW, Teresa,
I got great service from customer support from your new
server, I am glad I decided to move over."

And amazingly enough... out of 30 clients these past couple
of days, I have only had three inquiries about the sites having
any problems. Basically, it has mostly been my own sites, down.
But... mainly to me.. not others. Something to do with that
209... starting IP number.

And, yes, of course, if you write in wanting some service,
you should get an answer... their phone service does suck,
big time.. I have been on hold, until I talked to a friend who
told me what I needed to know.. Basically fill out a trouble
ticket.. read their server updates..and plan for what you want
in advance.

Well, long and drawn out...... maybe some of you out there
are just thrilled with your host.. and yes, if my friend had not
told me that she was very happy with her server... I would not
have dealt with the slow service in the beginning,a nd by the
way, I read about how bad ***** was before I bought in.
To, me a word of a friend, is far more important than bashing.

Thanks,
Teresa King

I too read a few derogatory things about ***** before I signed up. But my feeling was that you can always find more people bashing a company than speaking their praises - that's just the way it is.

So, with that in mind - I signed up. Not because my last host (Verio) was bad, but because I wanted to try the extra services that ***** was offering (at $35 a month less at what it would cost at Verio). When I first signed up, it was Verio who helped me make the dns changes, because ***** screwed it up - and sent the request to the wrong registrar. So, what did I pay ***** $50 to set up? That was just the beginning of my woes.

Within the first week, my unix server had gone down twice. It was minimal time (under 3 hours), but during peak hours. I managed to lose a client in that short amount of time. I bucked up, and chalked it up to "moving pains". But in the time since, my site has continuously gone down.

Reaching CS was a nightmare in itself. I'd turn in tickets, only to have them "completely resolved" - yet they weren't. I'd have to escalate the issue 3 times just for someone to finally write a non-generic response, and get my site back up. I even had one CSR tell me, "hmmm. there's not even anything here about the issue on our board" - meaning, no one really did take the time to fix the issue, much less acknowledge it.

So, now I'm going on 6 days with no site - and no end in sight to this nightmare.

If you have been lucky enough (as you claim) to be on a working server, than you can feel good about continuing your services with *****. But I cannot.

I believe that my experiences are all the proof I need to seek hosting elsewhere.

Good luck to you in your future endeavors with ***** (you'll need it).

Hi Again,
Oh that is horrible, and it is so hard to keep people happy,
when you hate your server and have no place to put them,
as that takes time.

Hopefully, the new server that I am getting, is going to
be a good one....

You may have to start scouting around, too.
Was this just your first couple of weeks with *****?

One hears good things, too about different servers, And, those don't work out either.

I am keeping my fingers crossed on the server that I was
suppose to get on Thursday....... Hmmmm, I went to see
how it is going.. and got a message.... Server too busy...
Shall, I think of that as a bad sign. or can I attribute that the
whole darn net is like this, this week?

If I can help you, let me know.

Teresa King

What I can't undestand is why there are not any threads about "Web Hosting.com and Code Red" or "Pair and Code Red" for example. It is all about *****.

My opinion - they suck and were not prepared. Just like they were not prepared to move DNS servers a few years ago. We are located in a NOC with over a 1000 servers, I believe more then *****, yet we had not even had a glitch. ( *knocks on wood*)

Ummmm, pair uses BSD... Don't they? I don't think that was relevent.

OK, I'll dumb it down. Doesn't it seem odd that ***** is the only one (that I have read here) having Code Red issues to such a degree? I know it is affecting the whole Internet, but my point is they were not as prepared as others were. How about Hostway? Dell? Communitech.net? Hosting.com (Adgrafix and Virtualis)? Superb? Should I go on......? Haven't seen any post about them.

Pair uses 4.1.1. Good catch. I'll send you a cookie. ;)

Okay i'll send you the address, please send preferably chocolate chip.

-Thanks
LinuxGuru

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
Pair uses 4.1.1. Good catch. I'll send you a cookie. ;)

Hi Teresa,

Acutually, I've been with ***** for almost 3 months. I tried to stick it out, and get past the rude, incompetent csr's - the regularly scheduled downtimes, and the poor quality of scripts that I was looking forward to "playing with". :(

Oh well, it was a live and learn experience.


Originally posted by Teresa King
You may have to start scouting around, too.
Was this just your first couple of weeks with *****?

What's your server at *****?

propagation.net is what I am using with them.. so is my
friend.

Hi Again...
Well, you gave them a shot.. and though, I have never
had anyone be rude to me... and like I said, I have never
spoken to a "real" human....

The chat support has always been very nice....
When you get through.. I just turn my speakers on loud
and I have everything I want to ask on notepad so I can
copy and paste and not forget what I want to ask about.

I am still browsing through servers until I find a really good
one...

Originally posted by Teresa King
propagation.net is what I am using with them.. so is my
friend.

propagation.net is not a server name. I think you are too new to know if a server is okay or not. I do not pretend to be rude, but can you say your neighbor is save, if you don't know the name of the street where you live?

huh? Babylon...
I am not new to hosting.
I am two months with ***** so am new with them,
and as I said their support is not great... if I were new,
I would never have gotten anything up or done with
them and would have quit before I got started.

Then again, I am not a tech... and don't claim to be.

server name.... I presumed you wanted to know
the ns.server..... or where the thing points.
My box is netswan.propagation.net
*****.com is what all this talk is about.

to name a few
are www.tipsfortop.com
www.moneyswan.com
www.explodeyourhits.com

If there is some other server name.. enlighten me.... to
fail to ask questions, would be totally silly, on this online
learn something new every single day for the rest of one's
life.... which, makes it very exciting.

Don't worry.. I keep calling html - hotmail.... -)
and NT No Trump, because I am a bridge player....-)

Let me know.

Originally posted by webmystress
...the regularly scheduled downtimes...

:eek: scheduled downtime!?!?? :confused::confused::confused:

Hell will freeze over before ***** ever schedules downtime (well...this is hard to say...I think they plan to be down all the time anyway :rolleyes: )

:laugh:

I guess this proves ***** and OCHosting are the same company.

-They use the same support site (www.hostingsupport.com)
-***** has a machine named Propagation? So does OCH.
-I got the same BS code red letter from OCH that others here got from CIH

To think, I dumped CIH for OCH. :p

Um, wasn't there a completely different thread for that topic? :confused:

Yes, was discussed before here: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?&threadid=15363

To anyone defending *****, all you have to do is perform a search on this forum, or any other public forum for that matter, and you'll see that they are one of the worst companies in the hosting business. If that doesn't convince you, then nothing will!

<<MOD EDIT: Please do not promote your web site within you posts.>>

Originally posted by HobbyGal



As is normal up here, a lot of the louder anti-***** posts up here come from people that do not verify that they are with *****, or from newbies that don't provide proof of hosting with them either. I'm not saying you don't, but it would be better to back up your "I have a site with them and they suck" posts with a verifiable URL.

I have posted elsewhere up here that so far ***** has been great for me so I am probaby one of the happy majority. :)

I don't mean to offend anyone here. I just wanted to add another side.


Well, what verification do you want? My Visa statement showing quintuple their charges? The name of the lady who refused to help? It's Helena. THe copies of our emails to them? Our phone records? We were down for 4 days, and got no response for them. We constantly have POP troubles. I assure you, we are going insane trying to cancel them, all attempts so far have failed, and they ignore all emails and faxes etc etc. I suggest that when your mail constantly fails, and you get charged 5 times in one month, and they refuse to do anything about it, you will change your tune. Interestingly enough, since our major problems began, we've done a LOT of checking. I haven't found anyone except you with something nice to say about *****!

I tried again - call me a sucker. Tried to access chat with billing - guess what - it froze!!!!

I reckon that either:
1. They are overloaded with angry customers trying to cancel, so haven't the staff to chat; or
2. they are ignoring us all in the hopes that we won't notice the charges on our credit cards; or
3. THey ignore us and keep our domains up, and then say we have to pay!

Any ideas on how to make them cancel us? We've tried email, fax and phone. Oh, and the online form, but it won't let us refuse to authorise them to charge us whatever they want !

Print out the online form.
Black out the parts you don't like with magic marker, fill out the rest, make four copies of it.
Fax it to them, along with a cover letter stating you are requesting that your bank charge-back all overcharges and additional bills from them.
Send one copy to your bank with a request to charge back the overcharges and any other inappropriate charges, including charges for any time for which you did not receive the services you were paying for.

The three extra copies are for you to include with your complaints to the BBB of Tarrant County, the Attorney General of TX, and the Federal Trade Commission. See the last link in my signature for contact information for all three (it's on the last page).

PLEASE DO NOT NEGLECT TO FILE COMPLAINTS!!! THEY NEED TO BE STOPPED!!!

Another ***** victim.

Originally posted by Deb Suran

PLEASE DO NOT NEGLECT TO FILE COMPLAINTS!!! THEY NEED TO BE STOPPED!!!

I believe I saw a place yesterday that does this, I think it was *****scams (http://www.*****scams.com), they look pretty new though.

File your own complaints, and do it now. Don't rely on or wait for anyone else to do it for you.

Originally posted by brad_nelson1
Im having similar problems.

1 of my accounts cant access ftp,email or the website

another can access ftp,mail but cant get to website


****** claims code-red but these are on UNIX servers and I have not heard anyone else with unix problems such as these.

anyone else? Oh GOD, I remeber the ****** days. I has 16 hours straight downtime, when Code Red first came out, eventhough I was on a UNIX server. I do not see how Code Red can affect UNIX server. I got a brand new server and was already being hit by Code Red. My suggestion is to ditch ****** and find a host that better suits your needs.

Originally posted by iamdave
Oh GOD, I remeber the ****** days. I has 16 hours straight downtime, when Code Red first came out, eventhough I was on a UNIX server. I do not see how Code Red can affect UNIX server. I got a brand new server and was already being hit by Code Red. My suggestion is to ditch ****** and find a host that better suits your needs.
err this thread is VERY old:angry: