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First, let me say this -- I never trusted RackShack. After reading about so many problems in the past, I was really cautious. But this offer they have for 300 Gb for $99/month -- I couldn't pass. Well, it's a dedicated server, I said to myself, so it shouldn't require too much interference from RackShack guys, maybe a reboot or two once in a while. How bad can it be? Plus, they were saying in different forums, that they did have problems in the past, but now all is good. Boy, did I make a mistake.

I ordered that beefed up special server last Friday (512 Mb RAM and 2 HDDs for $130/month). I spent the whole Friday night moving the site from Tera-Byte's RAQ3 to this new server. Everything went smooth, and the site went live Saturday morning. By Saturday evening I started getting user complaints about problems with the site that I couldn't reproduce. Then by Sunday morning I had like 50 complaints, and when I looked at "last -10" the server actually crashed and rebooted twice!

So I started looking very close at what was wrong. Everything seemed to be fine -- load average is normal, plenty of free RAM, no errors in the Apache log. Then I ran integrity check for my custom database that the site is based on. It reported about a hundred of very bizarre problems. And when I looked at the data files, it turns out some of them had single zero bytes (as in hex 0x00) written at random locations. And when I went to my backup files that were still on the server from the initial setup -- two out of eight .gz file I couldn't extract because of corrupt data.

Now I knew something was wrong with the server. After all, I haven't had any serious problems with the RAQ3 I have with Tera-Byte for the last six months -- it's running smooth as we speak http://gameknot.com . So I logged to the RackShack customer support chat and asked for help. I got a reply from one of the guys -- did I make sure to install all the latest patches from Cobalt? Even though I couldn't see the connection, I went back to my server and did all that. (didn't have a problem installing latest Apache update too). I also updated to the same version of Perl -- 5.6.1 -- I had running on my Tera-Byte's RAQ3. After I checked immediately as I received another complain about problems with the server within an hour (I have very loyal visitors on my site, they complain about every single detail :) ), those zero bytes were still happening to my data files. So I went back to RackShack chat and this time they said I need to e-mail tech support. Which I did. And then I waited, and waited, and waited. Now I started getting very bad feeling that I'm scr**** -- I never had to wait more than an hour for a reply from Tera-Byte's support, and they usually reply within 10 minutes. The reply from RackShack came 10 HOURS later, and basically said that there was a trouble ticket created for me. I was already restoring the site on the old Tera-Byte server and salvaging any data I can, as I knew this RackShack server isn't going to work.

What happened next was just ridiculous -- the trouble ticket was closed about 24 hours after it was open with the comment "make sure to upload your files in binary and not ascii". It would've funny if it wasn't so sad. So e-mailed the support for the second time asking to cancel the account and requesting the full refund -- I had the server for only 4 days at that time, half of which I was waiting for the support team to respond. They replied that I need to call the customer support. And I did. After explaining the situation to a nice lady and requesting the full refund, I was immediately transferred to another guy. He listened to me, asked to spell my last name, apparently checked something on his computer and then transferred me to someone else. I explained what happened for the third time, and as I was asking for refund, the lady simply HUNG UP ON ME. This was looking worse with every minute. I was out of $450 (setup fee + first month + taxes) with defective server, RackShack claiming that there was nothing with it and no way to get my money back. So I e-mailed the main guy at RackShack -- HeadSurfer (I found his e-mail on the contact page) and CC'd it to their Vice President of Technical Support. It's been two days and I have yet to receive any reply from them.

So here you have it. Lessons learned (besides the main one -- never have any business with RackShack) -- never trust anybody who claim that even though they had problems in the past, all is well now. Not going to happen, my friends. Not with RackShack at least. Plus, never trust anyone who has large setup fees -- that's the only way to make people tolerate their poor service as they afraid to lose their initial investment in the server.

As for me -- I'm still giving RackShack a chance to make it right, otherwise I will be contacting my bank to dispute the CC charges and I will definitely file a formal complaint with Better Business Bureau.

This is too bad. However I am sure there are 9 positives for this negative.

I explained what happened for the third time, and as I was asking for refund, the lady simply HUNG UP ON ME.

I am sure there is more to it. A person just doesn't "Hang up" on a customer unless the person is very rude, cursing, or just being an ***hole. If they did, shame on that employee.

Well, you can probably imagine that I was very upset at that time as I was clearly getting the run-around from them. But I can assure you I wasn't doing any of those things you mentioned above. Unfortunately I have no way to prove it of course.

Although, I have an idea -- try it for yourself. Call them, complain about poor service and support and request a full refund of your money. It would be interesting to see what you get in response.

Originally posted by UmBillyCord
This is too bad. However I am sure there are 9 positives for this negative.Almost all of the positives I've read are on the order of, "I just signed up with Rackshack yesterday and so far it's great!" Rackshack has only been around for a few months, and is totally unproven as far as reliability and customer service goes. I realize that their "parent company" has been around longer (providing DSL and virtual hosting), but that has little relevance when it comes to the question of whether they can sell and support dedicated servers at bargain-basement prices.

Doing business with *any* company is a gamble. The question is, what are the odds you're willing to accept? If you spend more and go with a proven company like Rackspace, you're dramatically increasing the odds in your favor. Go with an unproven company and the odds turn against you. I'm not saying it's impossible to have a good experience with a new company that's offering a brand-name dedicated server with 300 GB data transfer for $99 a month, but I personally wouldn't want to bet my income and the reputation of my business on it.

That's my 2 cents (or 60 megabytes of Rackshack data transfer, whichever you prefer).

Originally posted by Intelligent Hosting
That's my 2 cents (or 60 megabytes of Rackshack data transfer, whichever you prefer).

:D

Originally posted by Intelligent Hosting

That's my 2 cents (or 60 megabytes of Rackshack data transfer, whichever you prefer).

lmfao :laugh:

Originally posted by fatale
when I looked at the data files, it turns out some of them had single zero bytes (as in hex 0x00) written at random locationsHmm... I got exactly the same symptoms (MySQL database corrupted, and 0x00 bytes are written at random) with my RackShack server. What is it? A Linux virus?

My best guess is that it's something wrong with the memory or the motherboard -- when the data is written to the disk it get corrupted in the buffers or when being passed over the system bus. Could be the hard disk, but I doubt it -- in my experience if a hard disk starts to fail, it fails for good. Virus is also highly unlikely as this was a brand new just initialized RAQ4.

I am sure if RackShack CEO gets to read your message you'll get full refund and apologies immediately.

Keep us updated.

Originally posted by Intelligent Hosting
Almost all of the positives I've read are on the order of, "I just signed up with Rackshack yesterday and so far it's great!" Rackshack has only been around for a few months, and is totally unproven as far as reliability and customer service goes. I realize that their "parent company" has been around longer (providing DSL and virtual hosting), but that has little relevance when it comes to the question of whether they can sell and support dedicated servers at bargain-basement prices.

I've been with Rackshack for about 6 months now, and I'm still very happy with them. As you are another host, it looks like you're just taking this opportunity to dig at a competitor.

Moreover, has anyone here even considered that the problems might not have been caused by a hardware fault, but rather a dodgy software installation? Just something to keep in mind.

All that said, I feel very sorry for the customer who had the said problems.

Aloha

first off Chris that was a great line ;)

well Fatale know one likes to have glitches
I have had mine (do a search if ya want no reason to beat a dead horse they say)
I must say though I am inmpressed with them for the fact of the way they seem to be trying to get things resolved etc..

you say First off I never trusted rackshack ???
well if you never trusted them why did you give them $400 ????
man I would not give money to someone I did not trust

I am pretty cautious my server went down with them for 3 days I was furious but I really only had one person on them that was new and wasn't cool but I took that risk all the other sites were my play sites. I knew that anything new has to be wiggled and tweaked a bit.

I would say that to get a machine friday and to have to switch it all that day and have it up the next is not the way I would do it
I would get a machine run it and make sur eeverything looked over good and then upload the stuff test em out with a few sites etc... let a few of my good clients know what is up ask em to test it out etc....

then I would have moved it all over ????

kinda like going and getting a car then going on a country wide trek the second ya drive it off the lot ???

I am bummed to hear for ya and trust me I know how it can feel.
but being cautious and not giving money to someone you dont trust is a good thing to read in a fortune cookie.

I will agree that the trouble ticket thing is kinda funky they close em without doing much ???
as far as getting hanged up on I will take half of what you say and half of what I could imagine.
I was a manager/trainer for high vol stores CompUSA office Dpot etc.. for HP so I got to talk to a lot of people and I pretty much always got somekind of chewing which is fine after wards they calmed down
most people say sorry did not mean to raise my voice ;)
might not have known you were raising it ???
still they should have not given you the un around or hung up on you (if indeed you were not swearing etc.. even if you were they should say sir please quit talking like this or I will have to hang up on you)

one other thing I have always done when I know I am going to make a bad call to someone
I always start out with I am mad not mad at you just mad at the situation so if I get excited and raise my voice I am sorry I hope you understand this postiion I am in and sure you have been in one before.
this can go along way to breaking the ice and having people help you.

Such a small problem? The tech support person may underestimated your problem, but what you are experiencing is a rare situation and at least you can explain more to the support staff.

They at least did not wipe out your data.

Having files write as 0 byte files and corrupt files, usually means the disk or partition is full, your disk quota for the account in question is exceeded or topped off, or the drive is corrupt. Of course, it surely can be other issues, such as another user mentioned above, but I'm not sure how it would be anything other than hardware issues or lack of disk space?

A little more information about how and what was happening and what checks you did, specifically (and what you checked and verified was good or bad), would be helpful in gauging the situation better. We got some systems from someone by a name similar to "RackShack", but I don't recall whom -- and it very well may have been another company (I really don't know) -- and the two systems we got, both of their hard drives failed pretty quickly in the same exact manner.

I'll have to check and see whom we got these systems from -- because I'm not saying it was RackShack at all (I really don't know, I just recall either Rack or Shack (or both) words being in the name), because that might indicate a large batch of bad drives or just cheap drives in that case -- but for the last time, to be clear, this very well might not have been rackshack at all. However, if it was, maybe that'd explain something.

Originally posted by avara
I've been with Rackshack for about 6 months now, and I'm still very happy with them. As you are another host, it looks like you're just taking this opportunity to dig at a competitor.
...I guess any time a host posts anything critical of another host they're going to be accused of being self serving. I personally have 4 RaQs at Datapipe and Dialtone, so in this case I was speaking as a "customer" and not a "competitor." With that said, I have edited my original post slightly so it will hopefully be interpreted as more of a general statement about selecting a proven company vs. an unproven one (which was my original intent) and not a "dig."

By the way, according to this post: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10657&highlight=rackshack you've been with them 4 months, not 6.

I have waited to post a reply to this thread until we had the facts. In a situation such as this, there is always two sides. This situation is no different.

Before I specifically respond, I'd like to say that we'll work as hard for any customer as we possibly can. We provide many support forums including telephone, email, chat, and our forum.

However, getting a resolution is a two way street. You have to help us help you by responding to requests for further information and by providing your admin password.

In this specific case, we placed dozens of calls to this customer without a response. When we did finally get a response, he refused to give us the admin password so that we could get in and test the box. On yet a further call by a Rackshack manager, last night we were finally able to get the customer to release the password.

Upon review of the equipment, we were able to find nothing wrong. We uploaded many files, unzipped and untarred them, and had no difficulty. At this point, we can find nothing wrong with the box.

My point is, we certainly tried to help this customer. We asked the customer to call us in an email response to his first inquiry, but he did not call us until he just demanded a refund. We tried dozens fo times to contact him but the only thing he wanted to talk about was a refund and cancelling his account.

I'll be the first to admit we don't always have the right answers, but we will work as hard as possible for our customers, you just have to let us.

Robert Marsh
Head Surfer Rackshack.net

By the way, according to this post: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showt...light=rackshack you've been with them 4 months, not 6.

Can't get away with anything on WHT. :D


Honu, help me out. You have almost 1000 post and I can't understand one. Read what you type. You may want your wife to proof read. :stickout

Originally posted by UmBillyCord


Can't get away with anything on WHT. :D


Honu, help me out. You have almost 1000 post and I can't understand one. Read what you type. You may want your wife to proof read. :stickout

Aloha

sorry I just write my thoughts not real sentences ;(
sorry you can not understand em
I know I type bad when responding to these messages
agian sorry I'll quit now ;)

I just love it when the company representatives just start lying to save the face. No offence, headsurfer, I do realize that you have the company to run, but tell me this -- wouldn't it be easier to just give me what I want (i.e. the refund) instead of continuing to insist that there's nothing wrong with the server and it's all my fault? Do you really need all this bad publicity?

About getting the facts straight. I don't know if it was one of your staff who lied to you, but what is this about me refusing to give you the admin password? This is simply ridiculous as I never changed it from the initial installation, it matches my account password which you already have, and I saw at least two logins from your servers on Monday. I don't know if I still have access to that server, but do you want me to log in and post the "last -100" command output? Or are you saying they closed my initial trouble ticket without even logging in to the server?! Also, when exactly did I refuse to give you the password anyway as the only time I had a chance to talk to any of your tech support guys was yesterday night? Yes, when I got home yesterday I had 11 messages on my answering machine. Although not sure why the guy insisted calling my home when you have my work number and my e-mail and everything. Anyway, he didn't leave the number where I could reach him, so I sent an e-mail instead. He called me back within 15 minutes and we talked. Turns out he wanted to help me with the server. When I said that I'm not interested in keeping the server any more and I don't care if he can fix it in the next half an hour, it's too late now (FIVE days late in fact). And when I mentioned the refund, he said he can't do it but is going to tell it to his supervisor. That was the only single phone conversation with anybody with RackShack tech support. There was no manager calling me, there was no "finally able to get the customer to release the password".

Now about "We provide many support forums including telephone, email, chat, and our forum". If you read my initial post carefully, you will see that I used all of them (except the forum) without any luck. When I went to the chat (twice) I was told to e-mail, when I e-mailed (also twice) first time there was a trouble ticket created for me in your system (which was closed with a ridiculous resolution), second time I was told to call your customer support. When I called your customer support, I got transferred three times and then the lady hung up on me. After which I e-mailed YOU directly (and your VP of tech support). With Tera-Byte/4webspace all I usually need to do is to e-mail them and I get a helpful response within an hour. What do I have to do with your company to get this resolved?! And by "resolved" I mean "get my money back". Drive to Texas and start a hunger strike in front of your headquarters?

One last thing, can you tell me please, after spending over 48 hour working on this server, what exactly are my inclinations to lie to you about the random zero bytes in the data files? Another thing, when you did your tests by uploading files and unzipping them, was the server under load? Was it serving about 8 requests per second and 4k pageviews per hour? Do you want me to explain the difference between a single file uploaded and then a single file unzipped, vs multithreaded server touching over
300 Mb of RAM and writing out multiple files simultaneously under load average of 0.5-1?

Could the 'random zero bytes' be a result of packet loss during your uploads?

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18187

Originally posted by lotuslnd
i had a raq at rackshack.net about a month or two ago ... things were good, except that i always got packet loss when pinging my machine (i was told that it was normal, but i've never seen that before) and ping replies were always high (roughly 90 ms, from multiple connections). this was one of the reasons i did not stay with them. if i didn't experience these two issues though, i would have stayed for sure.

Drive to Texas and start a hunger strike in front of your headquarters?

gotta love this idea, never thought about it ;)

seriously, it's possible fatale made a mistake while uploading his files, but its definitely not acceptable what he has to do to get some answers to his problem. you won't save your reputation by turning him into some kind of idiots on this forum. i would suggest that you remove this '24 hour live operator support' from your main page...

Guys, it's not the uploading that corrupts the data. The .gz files that I uploaded when setting up the site were fine initially. I would've noticed that something was wrong with it right away. It's when I finished setting it up and the site went live and started getting visitors, and serving pages, and updating the database, that's when the data corruption started manifesting itself.

In any case, this is not the issue here. Hardware fails, hard disks have defects, etc. etc. -- that happens quite regularly with everybody. The issue here is the poor customer support (or should I say non-existent?) from RackShack and their refusal to refund the money I paid for this defective server.

The issue here is the poor customer support (or should I say non-existent?) from RackShack and their refusal to refund the money I paid for this defective server.

I do have to admit that RS has had some rather poor support. They are, however, getting better. You have to remember that RS hasn't been out there for too long and the support is just starting to get comfortable with the Cobalt system. I haven't had any issues with support, mainly because I am able to fix most of my problems. However, in your case, I would see how you would be frustrated. My advice is to call EV1 directly and speak to a representative.

I have to side with fatale here, my server with Site5 was doing great until I put some traffic on it. Once that happened, it started rebooting for no reason. Fortunately Site5 seems a little more responsive to admitting their own faults and they ordered me a new server (a better one in fact) and are putting my old hard drive in it so that I don't have to start over securing and setting up my server. Believe me though, I'm not trying to glorify Site5 here, it took a REALLY long time from the point when I ordered my server to when it was finally workable. They were going to let me get a refund though had I wanted it.

Just a short update to this situation. I finally decided to call the customer support again and try to talk to them one last time before submitting the dispute form with my bank. It turns out my account was already cancelled and the money were refunded. After calling the bank I confirmed that the money were refunded indeed. Thus I consider this matter completely resolved. I wish I didn't have to spend so much time on it though... Anyways. I wish all the good luck to RackShack in improving their customer support, as they certainly seem to be getting there.

P.S. I was going to put a note at the top of this thread that the issue has been successfully resolved, but I'm unable to edit my previous posts as the 9800 minutes limit has passed. Could any of the moderators reading this do it for me please? Thank you.

I think it's written on their TOS that they do not support MYSQL.