Here is a warning for those that are thinking of cancleing their Hosting Provider. Download everything you need before telling them you are going to cancle them. I was hosting with Halfpricehosting.com
and I sent them an email that I wanted to cancle my account with them. They sent me back an email with a link to their cancle account page. The page said it would take up to 72 hours to complete. So I filled out the form for cancleing. Then an hour later I when to download all the .htlm documents from the directory and the site and my FTP access was shut down!! I called them to see if I could retrive the files and after talking to three diffrent people they would NOT let me get the files. They said that the only way I could get the files was to pay for another contract with them. So I lost three weeks worth of data. :(

ALWAYS keep a local updated version of your web site, including db listing, etc...
you never know when it can crash... and you never know if the backup your host has are up to date or contains everything.

Originally posted by Félix C.Courtemanche
ALWAYS keep a local updated version of your web site, including db listing, etc...
you never know when it can crash... and you never know if the backup your host has are up to date or contains everything.


And if space is an issue you can zip your site and upload it to a free storage place http://www.driveway.com is good and it allows file sharing

bane,

You're absolutely right. Retrieve all files from the server before you even hint about leaving. I've got that as part of the advice on the information resource section of my site (http://techcellence.net right side menu).

Unfortunately, we have to assume the hosting company to be unprofessional (unless we know otherwise) and irresponsible. Too many have proven to be that so it is difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt. They act like bratty children throwing a temper tantrum instead of business people. In fact, some of them are bratty children and some aren't acting.

Case in point (and this is one of the nicer examples), I got a call this morning from someone who had to leave his present host. It was a referral from another customer of mine. He was set up while we were on the phone (why do some companies charge setup up fees for several seconds worth of work?). We spoke again a while ago (he has his site transferred already) and he told me what happened.

On his last problem, he e-mailed them on a Tuesday. he didn;t get a response until the following Monday, nearly a week later. Their service was always slow. When he asked that they take care of the problem "not like they have with their track record", they got upset and told him they were closing his account.

They have already disabled his e-mail for his domain, so I was unable to reply to his most recent message. When I called to advise him of that (and answer his inquiry), he told ne the story and that it didn't surprise him.

That's actually one of the nices cases like this. There are too many lke yours, where hosts closed an account and deny access to all files.

If the three weeks worth of files is importnat to you, I would suggest the following. Calmly contact the head person at the company. Advise them that you want your data and that if they refuse to allow you access to it, you will be contacting the state attorney in their area, as well as the better Business Bureau. The first has legal muscle, the BBB is just public relations.

If they have any sense, they will give you access and let your retrieve your data. At no time resort to cursing at them or lose your temper. Keep them totally in the wrong with no justification whatsoever from you.

Good luck.

I love that advise and heartily agree with it. As driven to distraction as these people can make you, it's always better to try and stay focused on the problem. After all, if the halfasses you're trying to get information from can't keep their mind on the job at least one of has to *lol*

As for files, I always have a current copy online at the domain, one local on my harddrive for editing, as well as another backup on zip disk. Edit a site locally, store it on zip. With the changing areas I'll collect the dynamic sections and download them every now and then as well and back that up. So between the three I always have a reasonably current version onhand in case I need to get something back online quickly.

It's annoying, slow and time wasting, but worth it's weight in gold the day everything goes to hell and my site drops offline. I also make sure I do it for clients sites too though don't mention it to them directly. If I see a change in their site that doesn't reflect my own copy I'll download it as a secondary back up for them, and yes, it's paid off once already.

After all it's the little extras that customers really love right?

Greg Moore
http://www.akashik.net