If you have a website that does well, don't even think about considering HostRocket. I dunno where that kid Brendan is, but his staff is no help whatsoever. I would have posted a message on their forum, but they're busy deleting all the truthful posts.

I have been suspended from the server because of 'excessive server usage'. Now they won't even give me access to download my files, so that I can move the site. They're treating me like I committed a crime.

Here's the trouble ticket conversation I've been having with their so called support. I had to contact them, because I was never told my account was suspended. Nice eh?


Question:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can't access my site, ftp, or control panel. Every where I try I get access denied or forbidden.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-30 EST at 15:55:55, melissa wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Randy,

We had to suspend your site because of very excessive server usage and we want to recommend that you upgrade to a semi dedicated server, we feel this will best for your account.

By the way, how\'s brockton?

Melissa M.
HostRocket.com Support


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-30 EST at 16:03:24, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you mean by \"very excessive server usage\" exactly? Are you talking about cpu or bandwidth?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-30 EST at 17:12:46, graham wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

We are talking about CPU usage. Do you operate any server intensive scripts on your site?

-Graham McMillan
HostRocket Support


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-30 EST at 17:38:17, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not that I am aware of. If I knew of a script that was out of hand I would kill it immediately.

I don\'t think it\'s really necessary to suggest I move to a dedicated server because of a script. That can be dealt with.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-30 EST at 17:53:00, jrossi wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No... not a dedicated. Semi-dedicated.

Thank you for using HostRocket.com
==
Have A Nice Day!
Joseph Rossi
HostRocket.com Support


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-30 EST at 18:35:53, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well whatever you wanna call it. So what my account is gone? What am I supposed to do about it when I can\'t access it?

This is the 2nd time my account was suspended and the last time you told me it was because of some file I never even had on my site. Is it possible to get a real answer as to what was causing the problems?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-30 EST at 18:39:09, graham wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

Your site is causing extensive load on the server which is why you are being suspended.

-Graham McMillan
HostRocket Support


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-30 EST at 18:50:40, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well yeah I know that. I just wanted to know what is it I can do to rectify the problem. Atleast let me replace the frontpage with a message until I solve the problem.

You people are making it seem like I did this intentionally. There is no reason why you had to suspend my ftp access.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-31 EST at 13:06:29, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can atleast download my site in case I have to move? I\'m guessing this is what you want.


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On 2001-10-31 EST at 13:18:03, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

oops I meant.. \'Can I\' atleast download my site in case I have to move?


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On 2001-10-31 EST at 16:05:32, melissa wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are only asking you to move to a semi-dedicated account. Your account seems to require excessive server usage and we feel that it will be better if you are on a semi-dedicated server (one with very few users). The cost for this type of account is $65/month. Your files are still intact, they have not been touched.

Melissa M.
HostRocket.com Support


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-31 EST at 17:38:53, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can\'t afford $65/mo. The site makes virtually no money.

Can I have ftp access?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-31 EST at 17:43:57, graham wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

We can tar up your files and make them available through the web so you can download them.

-Graham McMillan
HostRocket Support


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-31 EST at 17:49:09, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I also need the mysql tables


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On 2001-10-31 EST at 17:57:20, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, I understand my site used a lot of system resources (I have no choice). Why not just shut down the webserver access? I still don\'t understand why I am being treated like \'I\' did something wrong and not let me get my email, ftp, mysql etc.. Surely that isn\'t going to do much to the system resources.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-01 EST at 11:50:56, dave wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,
Your account files have been archived, and made web accessable;
Home Directory:
http://***************/*****.db.tar


MySQL:
http://***************/*****.tar
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
David Laube
HostRocket.com Support
++++++++++++++++++++++++++


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-01 EST at 15:18:41, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok first of all, I have the mysql tables and data. My access to phpmyadmin was still there.

The other tar file didn\'t even work and I need my whole site not just my Home directory.

Please give me ftp access so I can download it. You can even limit my space so I can\'t upload anything.

I don\'t understand why I\'m being treated like this.


(Yeah the slashes drive me nuts too)

I don't know what it is I did that I became a threat to them and their server. All I want is my files and I would move on peacefully.

Hopefully someone who is considering to move to HostRocket sees this.

They gave you no prior notice?
Just shut down your site and gave you absolutely no access??:eek:
These are the complete conversations?

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
They gave you no prior notice?
Just shut down your site and gave you absolutely no access??:eek:
These are the complete conversations?

Yes

With the cp software, does it give admins much choice? I mean, if the site is suspended, the users are suspended as well? I'm not sure what they are running for cp software, but just wondered.

Originally posted by Chicken
With the cp software, does it give admins much choice? I mean, if the site is suspended, the users are suspended as well? I'm not sure what they are running for cp software, but just wondered.

If that is the case, why can't they explain that to me?

That's not a good way to conduct business on their part. They could of easily contacted you before the just pulled the plug on you, that's ridiculous. And for what it's worth, their server results are BELOW par (Using netmechanic.com etc..etc..) compared to most places that I've been looking at switching over to for my hosting during the past few weeks. They don't appear to be all that they're cranked up to be, especially after reading some of the recent stories on this site about them!

Glad I found this site, it really is a wealth of information...

Good luck,

David

Its kind of a shame that things had to turn out this way for hostrocket. I remember when they were starting out how many good comments people had to say about them...And they just spent all that money on there site and equipment upgrades to.. Hopefully they will make it through. I think after a few monthes go by they willl be more stable. They just totally re did their site and moved into their own data center; things have to be pretty crazy right now for them. I do agree though that the conduct they used with you was not at all professional. Hope things work out for the best.

They could have simply changed the chmod and chown of the script that was causing this until it was resolved, in my opinion.

Its a shame this happens to good people. :(

Please do keep us informed and fill us in on the 411 as it would be an invaluable resource to the rest of the WHT community. :)

-Kyle

Randy, dont worry, you are not the first and definately not the last. There are hundreds of people who have been mistreated by HR. HR is recruiting too many customers, which means they cannot handle customer services properly.
We currently recieve many HR refugees. We even had a client leave, cuz HR was 'offering a better deal'. 1 month later the client came back :stickout

Check this site out...

http://www.hostrocketsucks.com/

I've been to that site before. Very informative... Not saying that I agree with it but not saying I don't agree with it. I'm sure some people would know my reactions, however, I will not post them publically. Just saying its informative, and the guy does it just to express his feelings to himself, he never submitted it to search engines or told many people about it...

-Kyle

Personally I think HostRocket is an awesome hosting company. They responded properly to my question. I don't think they deserve all the insults and negative talks. :dunce:

Originally posted by exentric
Then please share your url that is hosted by them.

Originally posted by exentric
Personally I think HostRocket is an awesome hosting company. They responded properly to my question. I don't think they deserve all the insults and negative talks. :dunce:

They deserve the "negative talks" and you're right no one deserves to be insulted and I'm sorry if I did in fact insult anyone (I wasn't trying to).

I only want my files and that's it. The only reason, now that I can think of, why they won't let me get them is they deleted them. Which I certainly hope isn't the case. I'm still waiting for a response from my last question (which is above).

exentric, I'm glad you're having a good experience with them, but not everyone has the same circumstances as you.

Randy,

Your sites been suspended several times in the past for this same thing, so you kinda have had warnings in the past. I talked to the other support people and your account should be fine on one of the new servers going up today if you would like it moved to one of them as they have alot higher specs than your current one. This should probably go back and fourth through the ticket though so I'll get ahold of you through that.

-Brendan

Randy,

From what I have seen, most hosts don't let you access your site when they suspend your site. I think that's general policy for webhost or something.

What I am saying is it is common for a webhost not allowing you to access suspended account.

Originally posted by HRBrendan
Randy,

Your sites been suspended several times in the past for this same thing, so you kinda have had warnings in the past.
-Brendan

This is the second time it was suspended. Both times I was not notified.

Originally posted by HRBrendan
Randy,

Your sites been suspended several times in the past for this same thing, so you kinda have had warnings in the past. I talked to the other support people and your account should be fine on one of the new servers going up today if you would like it moved to one of them as they have alot higher specs than your current one. This should probably go back and fourth through the ticket though so I'll get ahold of you through that.

-Brendan

Several times? Our site has been suspended twice, this time and one previous time for a script that we had never heard of, a script that wasn't even located in our directory. Some stats analyzer. And what did you say when we sent in a trouble ticket?

"Some script is using excessive resources so we had to suspend your account. Please fix this."

Hello? We had no access at all to "fix" whatever it was. Wasn't even our fault!

While I don't agree that a suspended account should leave the admins without access, I can deal with it. All we are trying to do is collect our files so we can move on. We can't afford the semi-dedicated server and it's obvious we are too much of a strain for HostRocket with the virtual account.

"... so you kinda have had warnings in the past." <-- I have no idea what that is, but it's not the right response for a paying customer. The only "warning" was something that wasn't our fault. We've always paid for the extra bandwidth that we used, but that isn't the issue here (at least I don't think it is.)

"I talked to the other support people and your account should be fine on one of the new servers going up today if you would like it moved to one of them as they have alot higher specs than your current one." <-- And in two months we'll get disabled again for "excessive server usage" and it will be deja vu. No thanks. =/

Anyways, Randy is telling me that we now have FTP access to get the files. As soon as we get the files, we'll be out of your hair. My question is, why was it so difficult to let us have FTP access? The site has been disabled for over 3 days. :(

-dohcan
webmaster@mircscripts.org

Brendan,

You have just suspended my site for the same thing - without any sort of warnings. The reason you gave us was that we were making too much MySQL usage. We had never been suspended before, unlike Randy, so I don't see it as a valid excuse.

All I am asking is this - why are you doing this? Why no warnings? :angry:

This time it's server usage; in a few week's time they might start suspending users for something else. I was recommending this website to everyone but now I can't do anything except discourage people from signing up. What do you expect?

MUTU whats your site? I cant really comment on the specifics of the situation until I look at the notes on the account. We generally dont suspend an account unless they have 20+ mysql connections open at once. This is alot better than what many of the other biggest hosts allow. Jumpline for example allows 5 I believe.

When your site gets up into that range the amount of server resources being consumed by 20 mysql/apache processes can get quite high.

We dont suspend sites for fun, we dont like doing it at all. You are the customer and youre paying for a service not visa versa. Its not a situation where were like the police and are out to catch people doing things wrong, we want everyones sites up as well we're on the same team here, but if one site is dramatically affecting the performance of hundreds of others we have to do something about it. If its something that can't wait we have to suspend the account.

We have signifigantly increased our hardware setups to allow for larger customer accounts. When a site is causing problems on a dual 1ghz machine with 4gb ram something needs to be done about it though.

-Brendan

Howabout actually notifying the paying customer that his site was suspended? Also, why suspend email, ftp, and other services not relating to the root of the problem (website)? I'm not sure how the administration works, whether you click a 'suspend' button or what, but I think your system needs a better way of suspending accounts.

If we can isolate the problem to a specific script which is usually the case with cgi scripts, we try to just disable the one script instead of the entire site, but if we cant then we have to suspend the whole account.

-Brendan

I have had loads of problems with them myself. Started off pretty good for the first 2 months.

Constant downtime came soon after. I'm talking 20-75 down's a day. That is alot. It's true they delete threads dissing the site, I've had one of mine deleted.

Thier website says "We will ensure your site is up no matter what" but thats not the case.

I stuck around for along time, through all the "bad users causing problems" and the "upgrading hardware", "technical difficulties" and many many many other things.

I was pretty upset about dohcan and MUTU's sites. Both are a big part of the community I'm involved with. You took down 2 of the best websites on the internet IMO.

I was not going to sit around and be the next. I ordered diffrent hosting from someone else. I do not see a need to falsly advertise saying you can give 350mb of quota and 15 gigs of bandwith, and not supply it. Infact, isn't that illegal? Couldn't we sue you for that? Probably so, regardless on what you think we should upgrade to.

Like the others, I do not have the fund to pay for a dedicated box; my site generates $0 revenue. I've been through so many webhosts its becoming ridiculious. To many buisness are ran like crap now days... no one really delivers a solid service. I'm now on my 6th webhost in 1year. That to me is sad.

I really hope my new one lives up to their reputation. If not it might turn me off from web development and doing websites for the rest of my life. How on earth are you suppose to do something when the main factor behind it is so hard to find. I cannot spend 20 hours of my day anymore checking if my website is down, explaining the 500 mysql errors you see are not my fault, telling people I'm sorry I did not get your email my email servers have been down for 1 week.

I cannot believe I recommended so many customers to hostrocket, over 6 to be honest. I regret it. Some are small sites and do not have the problems. But just because my website is finally becoming successful after 3 LONG years I should be at fault? Get real.

HRBrendan

I think everyone is trying to get you to notify the paying customer before you suspend the entire site. It's the least you could do and will go a far way in getting these types of problems solved in a more professional manner.

my 1.5 cent :)

Seems I arrived to his party a little late, see all the big names are here.. Dohcan, Grimz, and MUTU.. hey where is Fubar? so lets get down to it

Grimz : thanx for the nice words, ms.org and central where getting up there, good news is that ms is still with us. keep up the good work Dohcan, and Grimz its called @ it doesn't show all those nasty error messages.

Randy : "Howabout actually notifying the paying customer that his site was suspended" that would mean they would have to email customers, and you know how well they respond to trouble tickets :D

Brendan : MUTU is referring to IRCCentral.com a site that you guys will no longer be hosting, And no doubt if a script or site abuses a system to the point of bringing it down then they deserve to be suspended. As for IRCCentral, which I wrote from the ground up. I wrote all code to be streamlined to open and close threads. I believe what your staff called us was "mysql hogs".. well maybe that is true, but when you are offering up a site that is mysql driven to 1000+ hits a day, its gonna put a little lean on the mysql. Some point yesterday we were turned offline, funny this happened after I threatened to pull the account because of the numerous outages I have put up with since we moved in, some outages lasting hours. Once we were suspended I was not notified till someone asked me what Error 403 meant. So I asked why, and I was told

"Your account was suspended for excessive mysql usage. Do you run any scripts on your site that would be mysql hogs"

Upon explaining that all code was done with open and close threads. I was told

"I will let this go as just a warning. Your account has been unsuspended."

So I started to backup my files, knowing it would take a while, and to review my code would require time. Within 5 mins we went back to suspended status. Again no warning or anything. So I ask if I can get back in with ftp or get my files back.. of course they said, sure we will just tar it up and send it to you.. that was 24 hours ago.. and my ticket is still open.

HostRocket : was the home to THREE, irc related web sites, now its not as Grimz choice to leave before facing the 403 error.

Sure if you run a hobbiest site, HostRocket is fine, but if you are gonna be doing stuff and bringing in users, or heck even
e-com, look else where, cause one of their great saturday morning router outages with Brendan voice mail box been full, will put ya out of business

If your account was unsuspended and then suspended again 5 minutes later, then something is definatly wrong with your site. We cannot and dont really have the responsibility to find out what it is for you. You pay for a service and if you are using more than what you are paying for (i.e. overloading the server) then we have to shut you off. Its a business and like it or not that is the professional way of running its. We've tried to be lenient with people and we've been completly ignoring a large section of our TOS which has been there since day 1 and states we will not host any IRC related websites just because we didnt want to have to trouble you guys with having to move. We aren't out to be a pain for our customers.

-Brendan

I know for a fact it did not say that when I signed up. That is the first thing I check.

Also, its not the 'professional' way to do jack crap. The professional way is to stand behind your services, and work with the customer. Afterall, we make you, and we sure the heck can break you.

Now its probably been altered since I've signed up (I wouldn't put it past you guys) but what would be the diffrence if it did not relate to IRC, but strictly web development? Triple the hits as it is now. Exactly my thoughts.

Its unproffesional to advertise such good deals, then expect YOUR customers to not hold you to it. Think about it, I did not even use 1/4th of my quota, and barely tapped 6 gigs of bandwith.

Now correct me if I am wrong here, but your site also says "We can handle fortune 500 companies" I am sure this is meaning dedicated boxes, but ofcourse, your routers go down 5 times a day. So its probably why you don't have any of them.

I am not speaking for the other webmasters just myself. Server load should not be a problem if you can set things up properly. Infact, Someone on your staff obviously knows jack about apache. That was apparent from the get go.

The to top it off, what was amusing is blaming it on run-away scripts. Do you think we are 10 year olds? Do you think we accidently made a for () loop to open 500 connections (you know you can configure the max limit if you have problems with it). I am far from a moron when dealing with PHP and MySQL which is basically what your implying. But as I said what was amusing was blaming it on cgi scripts. I did not run cgi scripts, I do not code perl.

Fact remains, its un-worth any amount of money to go through the bull we all did. Let me host your site, and you have 800-1400+ hits a day, and let me see if I can have your site go down 15-85 times a day OR let me reboot mysql in the mid of your highest peak of the day. I know you would personally sit there for 5-10 minutes waiting for it to kick on thinking "Gee, this host is so good, let me re-order for 5 years" Wouldn't you, honestly? Probably not, and if you would say yes its apparent its only because its your company / job.

Not only do you screw people out of money, you insult them. I recall once I was moved off a server that IRCCentral.com was on you replied to Trystan with "The server should be fine, we just removed a trouble maker" So now you call me (I'm assuming, I know I strained the server) a trouble maker because I try to use 1/10th of what you say I can.

Maybe, just maybe, you guys should not put 15-50 websites on 1 box and expect them to all be 50-100 hit a day websites. It doesn't work that way. Better yet just put this on the page "If your website is going to be successful, popular, and very big try not to use us, we will end up giving you the run around for ages."

Oh well though, replying to this is pretty pointless after this post. However, you cannot delete my posts here like some have on your forums. I can say this though, wether or not my new host is a bit hard to adjust too, or I just quit doing the website all together, I am glad to be off hostrocket.

Enjoy and good luck trying to keep customers that falsely get sucked into a money / stree / hassle trap.

Originally posted by HRBrendan
We've tried to be lenient with people and we've been completly ignoring a large section of our TOS which has been there since day 1 and states we will not host any IRC related websites ...

IRCCentral didn't tweak any buttons? :)

Brendan - just a observation but are you sure these sites are being reported correctly? We got a guy from HR a month or so ago that was tossed for the 'system resource over use'. So far his scripts aren't even causing a blip on CPU usage (800mhz 512 RAM) I'm not trying to be critical as we all rely to some extent on what's getting recorded into logs and the panel, but if somethings' mis-firing on those servers it may be worth looking into.

Greg Moore

Well Brendan you have us there.. but when you guys are setting these up it didn't throw any warning signs off

mircscripts.org : hmm there is IRC in there, and look SCRIPTS
IRCCentral.com : IRC there again..
scriptaz.com : look again there is that nasty SCRIPT word

By the way: your tech guys must not know about this cause as numerous trouble tickets sent from me to them, due to outages.. and I would get

"As of 10:00am EST your site appears to working just fine"
David Laube
HostRocket.com Support

not sure if I can find the one with Graham saying the same thing.. I mean if you loaded my site it was pretty clear what we did.. heck if you loaded ms.org or scriptaz its pretty clear what we did..

Wake up and smell the coffee, or at least brew some your tech guys need it to answer emails all night long.. oh wait they never really do.. this is the most contact I have had with a HR rep..

You really want us out of your hair, close my account finally.. two trouble tickets and no answer. Then we will all be off your box and you can tell all your customers, "we got rid of all those darn IRC people who cause you all those troubles".. course they'll believe that up till the next router outage.

I now step down off my little soap box :)

Originally posted by GrimZ
Also, its not the 'professional' way to do jack crap. The professional way is to stand behind your services, and work with the customer. Afterall, we make you, and we sure the heck can break you.

Sorry, but that's a bunch of bull (gotta love the "we make you, and we sure the heck can break you" kind of crap)

when you have 300 clients in a server, and one of the sites keeps overloading the server, you simply shut it off, do you relly think i woudl put a tech checking file by file on the customer website to see what is causing it ? ..

MAYBE if it's a slow day .. yes, but otherwise .. the confort of the other 299 clients on that server come first .. sorry guys, but everybody thinks they should get the same support for a 9.99 account that a dedicated customer paying 500.00 a month plus 100.00 an hour gets .. sorry, that is not how it works .. sorry, but sometimes we all have to do things (like shutting down people) that we are not happy with.. it's just business, you sacrifice some to keep many.

(yeah, I know it sucks to hear that when your the one beeing shut off)

"MAYBE if it's a slow day .. yes, but otherwise .. the confort of the other 299 clients on that server come first .. sorry guys, but everybody thinks they should get the same support for a 9.99 account that a dedicated customer paying 500.00 a month plus 100.00 an hour gets .. sorry, that is not how it works .. sorry, but sometimes we all have to do things (like shutting down people) that we are not happy with.. it's just business, you sacrifice some to keep many."

No no no, as you started... MAYBE if you cannot handle _what you say_ you can dish out, don't advertise it.

Infact, I was in SSH often, my site did not cause a heavy load. All my tickets never blamed myself doing them, but other people. I also was not the one who was shut off, but I was apologized too often.

Why on earth are you going to stick 300 people on a server and tell them all "Sure, you can handle 150,000+ hits a month w/o problems! Use mysql all you want, 15 gigs too!"

I don't care if you run a company or not you don't tell people one thing then do something diffrent. It's not the fact that they cannot handle the load. It's the fact they lie.

"Sure, you can have this car for $10,000 but if it breaks down in 2 weeks we cannot fix it because we have mister money of their leasing a BMW and well he is more important, we will figure something out when we feel like dealing with you"

Now that is a bunch of bull ;-)

They lied about the reasons the downtime came from, they lied about what you got with your package, they lied about how much things you could run, etc, etc, etc. Also as mentioned *ANYTIME* this was brought up (even not flaming them, but people asking what happened) the threads were deleted. OH YES that is an awesome buisness, lets delete the problems so no one knows they exist, lets blame the problems on other people.

Right, I can see why so many buisnesses suck now days.

I have a friend who has a website that gets 4000 hits a day, I developed the website and it uses MySQL and PHP (more sloppy coded then my own) and its on a virtual account, does it have these problems? No. Does that _not_ tell you its not a load problem of *MINE*, I think so.

Since we are also bringing up lies, how about their network status. Servers would be down left and right (more then 1) and they all showed as online, even with the routers being offline or the boxes being rebooted, so tell me, how *truthful* are they really?

Yah, I rest my case. I mean I could go on and on and _ON_ if you really insist on trying to make excuses for them.

Whatever floats your boat, I have tons of things I could bring up that certainly are not a 'common' occurance on alot of buisnesses.

You honestly have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to what goes on behind the scenes here. Your account is not more important than the other accounts on our servers, and we treat all of our customers equally. We have tons of customers who use mysql etc. responsibly, and if you don't then im sorry but you will need to find a new webhost.

We have lots of customers who get alot more than 150,000 hits a month on their Economy accounts with us, and a lot of customers who more than max out their bandwidth every month, and do so without causing problems for the other users on the servers. As for the 'router downtimes' that you are reporting you honestly have no idea what you are talking about at all and I'll leave it at that. The day there was a router outage 5 times in one day would be a sad day indeed. For you to say we threw you off the server for using '1/10th of what we say you can' is not only ridiculous but it doesnt even make sense, you were using well over 10% of the servers resources. Nowhere do we say on our site '$10/month to render our servers useless for other customers'.

The fact is that the users such as yourself who cause problems on the servers because they either dont know or dont care what they are doing are in the minority, and are not the target customers that we aim to keep happy.

We target our business towards the customers that can and do use the servers responsibly and abide by the terms of service they agreed to from the start. The part of our TOS about IRC scripts has been there since the day we opened shop, it was required to be there by our initial datacenter.

You can lie, sit here and trash us about whatever you care to make up, and write whatever you like about router downtimes etc. but you simply are making that up as we run off of the same routers as many other hosts on these forums and they'll probably agree that VDI's routers are not down 5 times a day, they arent down 5 times a month, and probably not much more than 5 times a year.

Our servers are listed on our network info page to give out server stats because people requested them. The real time network status is available through logging into rocketsupport.com, and is available 24/7 for all accounts. The page did have more meaning back when we had certain servers not up and running yet but now it pretty much serves as a list of server specs.

Oh, right, I forgot I know nothing.

Let me quote you guys, since you seem to not know what your talking about. First off, I was never booted off, I left w/o being 'suspended' as for me not knowing what I'm talking about down time? Allow me:

These 'server down tickets' bare with me, they are plentiful:

On 2001-10-31 EST at 15:15:26, dave wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,
There was temporary network dificulties, it should be fine now.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
David Laube
HostRocket.com Support
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On 2001-10-31 EST at 23:37:25, john wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,
We are currently having a hardware problem that is being worked on. Thank you for your patience.

John Reyes
HostRocket.com Support

On 2001-11-05 EST at 13:39:16, melissa wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Bryan,

Are you still experiencing this problem? Your site seems to be loading fine

Melissa M.
HostRocket.com Support

^^^ Oh , I guess since I violated your 'terms' that were not there when I signed up, I *should* of been terminated, odd huh?

On 2001-11-06 EST at 10:38:27, jrossi wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I\'m able to access your site.

Thank you for using HostRocket.com
==
Have A Nice Day!
Joseph Rossi
HostRocket.com Support

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-06 EST at 10:39:40, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trace Routing... www.scriptaz.com [66.78.8.208] with 32 bytes of data:

01] 114 ms 106 ms 119 ms 64.251.138.2 [union-max1.fidnet.com]
02] 120 ms 109 ms 106 ms 64.251.138.1 [router-max1.fidnet.com]
03] 107 ms 236 ms 129 ms 64.251.136.29 [No DNS Entry]
04] 119 ms 146 ms 112 ms 208.172.7.25 [aar1-serial6-0-0-0.Chicagochd.cw.net]
05] 138 ms 120 ms 117 ms 208.172.2.62 [acr2-loopback.Chicagochd.cw.net]
06] 109 ms 141 ms 139 ms 208.172.1.202 [cable-and-wireless-peering.Chicagochd.cw.net]
07] 113 ms 119 ms 108 ms 209.247.10.161 [so-4-0-0.mp1.Chicago1.Level3.net]
08] 161 ms 153 ms 151 ms 209.247.9.90 [so-2-0-0.mp2.Weehawken1.Level3.net]
09] 165 ms 158 ms 142 ms 209.247.2.3 [loopback0.hsipaccess1.Weehawken1.Level3.net]
10] 164 ms 148 ms * * * ms 63.211.89.150 [p4-0.core1.cftnnj.inet.vdi.net]
11] 152 ms 136 ms 166 ms 66.78.63.254 [vlan1.edge1.cftnnj.inet.vdi.net]
12] 144 ms 159 ms 179 ms 66.78.8.208 [scriptaz.com]

Trace Route statistics for: 66.78.8.208
Packets: Sent = 36 Received = 35 Loss = 1 [2.78%]
RT Times: Min = 106ms Max = 236ms Avg = 137.58ms

----
By time you got this it was back up with 5000 mysql errors.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-06 EST at 12:22:47, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ITs down AGAIN

Trace Routing... www.scriptaz.com [66.78.8.208] with 32 bytes of data:

01] 125 ms 123 ms 096 ms 64.251.138.2 [union-max1.fidnet.com]
02] 112 ms 127 ms 114 ms 64.251.138.1 [router-max1.fidnet.com]
03] 138 ms 140 ms 137 ms 64.251.136.29 [No DNS Entry]
04] * * * ms * * * ms * * * ms 64.251.136.29 [No DNS Entry] Dest Host Not Reachable

Trace Route statistics for: 66.78.8.208
Packets: Sent = 12 Received = 9 Loss = 3 [25.00%]
RT Times: Min = 96ms Max = 140ms Avg = 123.17ms

Dont reply with \"its a hardware upgrade\" or techincally difficulties because Im sick of them excuses.

You need either better backbones, or someone who can setup things properly.

I think the \"We ensure your site will be up no matter what\" on your website\'s page is a crock.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-06 EST at 12:56:29, melissa wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

VDI our network provider has been having intermittant network problems this morning which are clearing up right now. This had the majority of our customers sites and our ticket system unavailable for part of today, Friday and over the weekend(which is why you wernt getting ticket responses).

We are in the process of moving our ticket system along with another site to another network so that we can provide support and keep customers updated during an outage such as this. We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience.

Melissa M.
HostRocket.com Support

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-06 EST at 16:55:27, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10] * * * ms 160 ms 162 ms 63.211.89.150 [p4-0.core1.cftnnj.inet.vdi.net]
11] 159 ms 152 ms 150 ms 66.78.63.254 [vlan1.edge1.cftnnj.inet.vdi.net]
12] 152 ms 135 ms 153 ms 66.78.8.208 [scriptaz.com]


*sigh* down again

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-06 EST at 19:49:56, graham wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

We just had some load problems on the server caused by a users runaway script. You should be able to access your site now.

-Graham McMillan
HostRocket Support

Hmm, another staff saw my site, not 'tos' violation there. Oh, and its clear it was not my 'run away script' hmm yes network problems but not with your routers that are so stable. Guess you guys telling me to paste traceroutes came back atcha...

On 2001-11-12 EST at 13:34:47, jrossi wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was someone violating the TOS and we are in the process of terminating his account. Sorry for any incovenience that this might have caused.

Thank you for using HostRocket.com
==
Have A Nice Day!
Joseph Rossi
HostRocket.com Support

Question:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

How long does irc.scriptaz.com take to resolve ?

Thank you

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-15 EST at 09:22:41, jrossi wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It should be fine now.

Thank you for using HostRocket.com
==
Have A Nice Day!
Joseph Rossi
HostRocket.com Support

Question:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ø DNS » Failed to resolve irc.scriptaz.com

ITs been a few days.. maybe you forgot

216.39.157.139 is the IP

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-17 EST at 12:53:10, jrossi wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please try now.

Thank you for using HostRocket.com
==
Have A Nice Day!
Joseph Rossi
HostRocket.com Support

Question:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

I have requested that irc.scriptaz.com be pointed to 216.39.157.139 about 6 times this week and each time I have been replied with that it has been done, yet it still does not resolve.

... ?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-19 EST at 09:27:03, jrossi wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you look below you will see that it is properly setup on the server. I don\'t understand why it\'s not working on your end.
--
root@host18 [~]# ping irc.scriptaz.com
PING irc.scriptaz.com (216.39.157.139) from 66.78.57.250 : 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from sphinx.intellstat.com (216.39.157.139): icmp_seq=0 ttl=47 time=108.216 msec
64 bytes from sphinx.intellstat.com (216.39.157.139): icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=112.169 msec

Thank you for using HostRocket.com
==
Have A Nice Day!
Joseph Rossi
HostRocket.com Support


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-19 EST at 09:41:12, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[root@darktides /]$ nslookup www.scriptaz.com ns10.hrwebservices.net
*** Can\'t find server name for address 216.74.100.110: Timed out
*** Default servers are not available

Looks like your DNS servers are broke ...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-19 EST at 09:47:00, jrossi wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, our nameservers are working fine. This is from a none local account:
--
[root@localhost /]# nslookup scriptaz.com
Note: nslookup is deprecated and may be removed from future releases.
Consider using the `dig\' or `host\' programs instead. Run nslookup with
the `-sil[ent]\' option to prevent this message from appearing.
Server: 24.92.33.2
Address: 24.92.33.2#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: scriptaz.com
Address: 66.78.57.250

Thank you for using HostRocket.com
==
Have A Nice Day!
Joseph Rossi
HostRocket.com Support

^ You look up scriptaz.com , but not irc.scriptaz.com obviously the domain worked.. hehe. Staff seems a bit lacking, 3rd time a charm? Nope...

-- continued on another post --

Question:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2) in /home/darktid/public_html/header.php on line 416

Why is it every time a problem goes away more come about. This has happened about 3 times every day, all of my 900 regular day visitors are getting pissed off.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-20 EST at 11:09:15, dave wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello
I have restarted mySQL, give it a try now.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
David Laube
HostRocket.com Support
++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Was I told about "Hi bryan you should upgrade to a dedicated server" -> No

Was I told "Hi bryan, you are running some heavy load scripts" -> Never, I was never told that.

Question:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[grimz@sphinx:/usr/home/grimz]% nslookup irc.scriptaz.com
Server: uts.intellstat.com
Address: 192.168.1.3

*** uts.intellstat.com can't find irc.scriptaz.com: Non-existent host/domain

still nothing.. been 2 weeks or so

Still no anwser ...

Question:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

can I have irc.scriptaz.com resetup to point to 216.39.157.139

thanks alot

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-10-29 EST at 18:22:07, graham wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Done.

-Graham McMillan
HostRocket Support

*FINALLY* got it to work

Anyway, before coming off telling me I know nothing about this and that you need to stop and take a look at yourself.

Now your backbones might be reliable, but you still fail to know how to setup things properly, and I'm sorry that I have alot of visitors and its noticeable to me, because theres always users on my site.

But either way, as I said, you just accused me of bad coding which all 3-5 of you never accused me of it, but blamed it on other people.

As for the TOS: *IF* you 'crackdown on that' type of site, you obviously should of noticed it on one of your 20 visits to it, Guess it *slipped* by.

Anyway, let the staff speak for themself, its quite apparent who is lieing and who isn't. What do I have to gain from speaking the truth? Nada darn thing.

It was a nice comeback though, let the above speak for itself is all I can say.

Oh, btw, if your curious why the 'server downs' have not questions above them, its because their system does not prompt you for a description of the problem with that ticket.

But yes.. its quite apparent my bad coding caused the high load (which was never pointed out) and that your routers and connections are solid as a rock (darn them traceroutes) and that I have no idea what-so-ever what I'm talking about.

Not just that though, staff takes what.. hrm... what is that 19 days for you to setup a DNS alias? That's sad... took 4-5 attempts from multi staff to get it to work.

If you insist on bring up more of my 'stupidity' into it, I'm sure I can show alot more 'idoiticness' on your behalf.

For all of you who haven't yet understood the bombastic and play of words by the HR staff here shall I please explain what *I* believe is happening behind the scenes:

HR is getting lots of customers entering ... hell, there are only positive comments on their forums - they must be an extremely great company. Oh, oh .... too much customers, what shall we do ... it's not feasible to upgrade and add servers at the moment ... oh, we can try to drive the most popular sites around.

I am so sure that many others were suspended but since we're in a community (IRC) we tend to communicate and probably the others who were suspended don't know about this thread cos they'd be here complaining too.

CRego3D, it definitely isn't professional. I have lost my email. And I receive a lot of important email. And I'm losing it right now. If this happened a month ago, I'd even have lost a job.

Had we been informed we would have tried to limit the MySQL use. But they look down to us like an evil god waiting for us to do something bad (which we didn't even know was bad) and sending us straight to hell.

Yeah, HostRocket have time and money to rebuild their site with fancy animations but they haven't yet made a simple system that enables them to just suspend web access. If you said we made excess use of MySQL you should have disabled that; not even http, ftp, pop3, smtp, control panel .... everything. :disagree:

:uzi: HostRocket :smash:

I think there must be some kind of problem with the mysql programs you guys are running, or someone doesn't have the server configured correctly, or someone is misreading the cpu usage.

We hosted thekinetik.com for free for a month to help them out (they'd been kicked from their old provider). They got thousands of hits a day and didn't have any CPU problems. They also were using less than 10GB of bandwidth a month. We let them go after the month though, because hey that's all we'd agreed to provide them with for free, and they couldn't afford to pay after that. We actually let it go past 30 days, and gave them a few days warning.

We have hosted boards that were bandwidth hogs because the vbulletin had WAY too much graphics, and just wasn't configured very well. But still, they used less than 20GB a month.

The only problem we've had with hosting these types of forums is that they are targets for DOS attacks. We believe because of the nature of their content, it will probably always be so. And we have canceled users for such reasons, but always at the end of the month, and always with ample warning. We can't afford to host those types of sites anymore without charging extra for security administration.

Just my past experiences with this issue.

Originally posted by GrimZ
ITs down AGAIN

Trace Routing... www.scriptaz.com [66.78.8.208] with 32 bytes of data:

01] 125 ms 123 ms 096 ms 64.251.138.2 [union-max1.fidnet.com]
02] 112 ms 127 ms 114 ms 64.251.138.1 [router-max1.fidnet.com]
03] 138 ms 140 ms 137 ms 64.251.136.29 [No DNS Entry]
04] * * * ms * * * ms * * * ms 64.251.136.29 [No DNS Entry] Dest Host Not Reachable



Curious about this one - the fourth hop to 64.251.136.29 - the one that comes up as unreachable - is a machine within your own network:

11/13/01 09:16:50 IP block 64.251.136.29
Trying 64.251.136.29 at ARIN
Trying 64.251.136 at ARIN
Fidelity Communication International Inc. (NETBLK-NETBLK2-FIDN)
64 N. Clark
Sullivan, MO 63080
US

Netname: NETBLK2-FIDN
Netblock: 64.251.128.0 - 64.251.143.255
Maintainer: FIDN

Coordinator:
Davis, Mike (MD872-ARIN) <address>@fidnet.com
573-468-1289

Domain System inverse mapping provided by:

NS1.FIDNET.COM 216.229.72.9
NS2.FIDNET.COM 216.229.73.9



Unless I'm misreading your post/traceroute results, this one isn't HR's or VDI's fault.


-Bob

Now correct me if I am wrong, but a few posts ago, Brendan said "IRC" sites were not allowed..


then why early this morning did he turn my site back on? puts notes on the account, but never reads the trouble tickets submitted it for that account.

Do you really want it turned off? We're trying to be nice.

-Brendan

Brendan

You can be nice all you want, saving face is good. But when you get four request to close a site.

1. Before being turned off, problems with the server I ask, how do I clsoe my account. Funny a few hours later you turn me off.

2. After being disabled : I asked about what it takes to close an account, your techs instead of answering that turned our account back on

3. I get disabled again, I ask about closing again, I am ignored, till we make a big scream here on the boards about it.

4. I send another one, hoping someone will at least read it, what happens you turn the site back on.

If a site is clearly going to break your TOS, which you have said IRC sites are against your TOS, then why are you bothering to keep it alive. Why not close it and be done with us.

Keeping us on HostRocket only continues to drive me batty, as I wait for replies to my trouble tickets.

As the starter of this thread I figured I would give everyone an update on my site (if you're interested)...

As of today my account on HostRocket is cancelled. I moved my site to Tera-Byte and I hopefully will be there for a long time.

My only issues with HostRocket were the way I was treated at the end there. My account was suspended due to excessive server usage. Ok fine, maybe it was my site causing problems, maybe we had a 'runaway script'. I realized my site was too big for hostrocket's servers and I was willing to move everything, but they wouldn't let me back to retrieve my files until I posted here complaining. Thank you WHT for allowing me to spew my problems, it's too bad this is the only way I could get some actual support from HostRocket.

As far as the no IRC related sites being in the TOS, I signed up in January and I don't remember seeing it. Maybe I missed it *shrug*. Doesn't matter now (to me anyway).



oh and to Trystan, "hey where is Fubar?" ...Hi

(Note, I had posted something of this sort to HR's own forum but it was deleted, so I thought I'd add it to this thread as my experience is similar to the person who started this thread.)

I too have had my account suspended by HR. It is back up again now - but I still have not gotten HR to tell me what exactly went wrong. You see, they say it was a links.cgi script, but I don't believe I had any on my site. All my scripts are PHP driven as far as I know. I had installed PHP nuke on a test site that I hadn't publicized. I've deleted that now - but it worries me that I have no idea what was causing the problem, that I could be suspended again for whatever the problem is, and that HR is either unable or unwilling to help me identify the problem. I am also surprised that when a problem like this occurs they really need to take down the entire site - including my e-mail (and that of those people who have accounts on my site as well).

I think Brenden is speaking truthfully when he says that most people are satisfied with HR - and for the most part so am I. However, whenever there have been real problems I have found them slow to respond, and when I do get responses they are often terse, telegraphic statements that don't really provide useful information. My guess is that they simply have more customers than they can provide *quality* support for. When I first joined the support was much better.

I would be more inclined to give HR the benefit of the doubt if it didn't seem like all the tech support staff spends 1/2 their time on the forums at webhosttalk and sitepointforums, as well as deleting negative posts from their forums. (My own post about this issue is gone.) What it comes down to is that I cannot depend 100% on HR and I am going to have to move my e-mail somewhere else so that it won't go down. For now I intend to keep my site on HR if I can do so under their TOS (I have an outstanding ticket on the topic I am still waiting to get a reply on). This is a complicated work around, but if HR is unable to address server overloads without taking out e-mail, I don't see how I have any choice.

kerim

"We generally dont suspend an account unless they have 20+ mysql connections open at once. This is alot better than what many of the other biggest hosts allow. Jumpline for example allows 5 I believe."

Shame on Hostrocket for bringing other companies into their arguments.

:nuts: Guys, guys, guys, c'mon! give Brendan a break! he's doing a good job. Hostrocket is an awesome privately funded hosting company with tons of happy customers ( and I'm one of them! ) That's why they're getting bigger and better with their new freshly design site, and new awesome plans.

I simply :love: HostRocket. :smokin:

Hi Brendan,

Today my account (51.ca) seems to be suspended also, when I tried to access my site, it came up with a 403 Forbidden error.

I wonder if it's due to the diak usage. Yesterday my control panel displayed: "Disk Usage 322.90 Megabytes Disk Space Available 27.10 Megabytes". It looks like my disk usage raises almost 30M every day.

But it is impossible! My website have only 300-600 visitors each day. The growing speed of the disk usage is unreasonable. :mad:

I had tried to find what's wrong, but I failed. And I have sent several tickets, and no response.

Could you check it for me? :rolleyes:

Thanks!

Paul Zhao
mailto:pyzhao@yahoo.com
http://www.51.ca

Thanks, Brendan.

I like Hostrocket.:)

I've decided to post on here, in attempt for someone at Hostrocket to do something about my suspended account (http://www.holmesdale.net), which has now been unavailable for 10 days.

I originally posted in deperation on the hostrocket forums, but my post got deleted.

Here is the (limited) conversation I have had through the trouble tickets system.

Question:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My domain is not responding....The web server, ftp and mail seem to be down...

Please could you look at this ASAP


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-23 EST at 12:37:27, dave wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

Your account has been suspended due to a terms of service violation. Please review our terms of service by sending an email to tos@hostrocket.com

It will auto-reply with an updated version of the terms of service.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++
David Laube
HostRocket.com Support
++++++++++++++++++++++++++


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-24 EST at 09:46:07, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Could you please tell me what part of the TOS I violated....?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-26 EST at 19:32:07, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is getting ridiculous....My site has now been down for 4-5 days, and still no proper responce.


----------------------

As I got no responce by the 28th Nov, I sent a new trouble ticket in (conversation as follows)....


Question:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-28 EST at 20:06:44, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My site has been down now for over a week, can you please tell me which part of the TOS I violated so I can solve the problem, and have my account resumed.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-11-30 EST at 17:55:42, graham wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

You have already sent in a ticket about this and your account is being reviewed. Please do not send in duplicate tickets.

-Graham McMillan
HostRocket Support


-------------------

How amazingly helpful.... rolleyes:

All I want to know is a simple answer to a simple question...which part of the TOS I violated....I would then fix the problem that they had with me, in attempt to get my account resumed.

I've now decided to cut my losses and move away, as I can't let my customers wait any longer. I hope that hostrocket try to persuade me otherwise....

Since something similar happened to me I have been researching other hosting experiences by people I know and many say that your host should be able to disable any script that is causing a problem without disabling the entire account (including e-mail).

Originally posted by 51.ca
Hi Brendan,

Today my account (51.ca) seems to be suspended also, when I tried to access my site, it came up with a 403 Forbidden error.

I wonder if it's due to the diak usage. Yesterday my control panel displayed: "Disk Usage 322.90 Megabytes Disk Space Available 27.10 Megabytes". It looks like my disk usage raises almost 30M every day.

But it is impossible! My website have only 300-600 visitors each day. The growing speed of the disk usage is unreasonable. :mad:

I had tried to find what's wrong, but I failed. And I have sent several tickets, and no response.

Could you check it for me? :rolleyes:

Thanks!

Paul Zhao
mailto:pyzhao@yahoo.com
http://www.51.ca


You might want to check your log files. That is often a major source of overage.

--Tina

Hi!
I guess hostrocket must just notify the user saying that your site takes more resources than allowed we'd be disabling it in 5 days time or you can upgrade to a dedicated server with us.
This would make things better.
Also, I think the support must be more understanding.
A support team must first be the customer and solve the problem...... Customer Care is very important....
And one of the most important things in that having informed customers. Most of these poblems would have been avoided this way.
I hope hostrocket solves all these problems and try to retain these customers rather than make them angry.
I wish hostrocket all the best in future.

Have great day :)

regards
amar

Originally posted by bobcares
Hi!
I guess hostrocket must just notify the user saying that your site takes more resources than allowed we'd be disabling it in 5 days time or you can upgrade to a dedicated server with us.
This would make things better.
Also, I think the support must be more understanding.
A support team must first be the customer and solve the problem...... Customer Care is very important....
And one of the most important things in that having informed customers. Most of these poblems would have been avoided this way.
I hope hostrocket solves all these problems and try to retain these customers rather than make them angry.
I wish hostrocket all the best in future.

Have great day :)

regards
amar

I agree. It's been my experience that customers are generally understanding when the inevitable "glitch" arrises. As much as we all hate when things go wrong - EVERY hosting company has "glitches" now and then. The important thing for a host to do is to HANDLE THE CUSTOMER RELATIONS in a friendly manner.

No matter how difficult a customer is being - you should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS remain friendly and professional. Getting angry, or telling a customer/former customer that they "don't know what they're talking about" is not a good way to build up a good reputation. It is almost always better to say "Hey, we screwed up - here, have a free month of hosting, on us." or "I'm sorry things didn't work out, if there is anything we can do for you in the future - let me know.".

It is just plain business suicide to piss off a customer/former customer. Especially when you start having huge numbers of customers. The ones who are unhappy may be the small, small minority...but if you don't handle them right (learn about "spin control"), they will be the ones that make the most noise and run your reputation into the ground.

Fortunately, I had a business mentor...a long time ago...drill this concept into my head. It really works.

--Tina

Wow tina,
that is cool.
I fully agree with you.
The bottom line is
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT..... :))

Originally posted by bobcares
Wow tina,
that is cool.
I fully agree with you.
The bottom line is
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT..... :))

Actually, the customer isn't always right....but you don't tell them that to their face (or in email). You just smile and say "I'm sorry things aren't working out as you had planned." ...then offer them a fix, a refund, or the URL to another good host.

--Tina

FWIW, I've been following hostrocket.com off and on for a while now. I had been planning on heading in their direction because of the price + features, but after reading this, I'd rather not. (Customer communication being the greatest problem I see)

Even though no site I'm likely to host with HR would have that many hits, I feel no need to even bother. I'll find somewhere else, thank you.

Originally posted by AffordableHost


Actually, the customer isn't always right....but you don't tell them that to their face (or in email). You just smile and say "I'm sorry things aren't working out as you had planned." ...then offer them a fix, a refund, or the URL to another good host.

--Tina

Tina,
With all of your knowledge you have just bestowed upon me, I can see you are very sagacious. I agree with what you said 100% and I strive to be as cunning with ideals and words and you one day. :)

-Kyle

Originally posted by AffordableHost



You might want to check your log files. That is often a major source of overage.

--Tina Thank you!

But I'm not sure which files I can delete?

Originally posted by 51.ca
Thank you!

But I'm not sure which files I can delete?

You'll have to contact your host for that info. I'm guessing that most hosts have the really important log files set so that you can't delete them. :)

--Tina

I see.

Thank you!

Originally posted by 51.ca
Thank you!

But I'm not sure which files I can delete?
I think you should del the /home/YOUR_USERNAME/tmp/analog/cache.out

oh yes host rocket after being down most the day they finally come back online & my batabase is curupt now I'll have to wait god knows how log before they well enable shell on my account again so I can upload last nights back up grrrrrrrrrrrrr

server 14 crash
moved to server 19 4 days later they deleted my account
turned out to be 2 over lapping account.
server19 data move to server 21 crash
now my database all messed up becuase of what ever they did today grrrrrrrrrrrr
I'v been with them less then 6 months
there is a word for this Host SXXks
there not even nice about it

Just to keep everyone up to date on my situation, is the continuing 'conversation', through the trouble tickets...

On 2001-12-03 EST at 14:14:00, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Could you please make my MySql database, and the contents of my website for www.holmesdale.net made available for me to download.

I cannot wait any longer for your responce to my question, and I wish to move on to another host.

Your support in this matter has been appalling.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-12-04 EST at 13:42:35, brendan wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this will be dont within an hour or two.

-Brendan Brader
HostRocket.Com


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-12-04 EST at 13:42:42, brendan wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this will be dont within an hour or two.

-Brendan Brader
HostRocket.Com


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 2001-12-05 EST at 04:26:19, he/she wrote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

about 15 hours have passed.....




-----------------------------
If you make a promise......stick to it :rolleyes:

Randy
This is apalling. It must be fun suspending the sites of customers who have paid in advance. I suppose!

Oh where oh where have my filiiiiiles gone, oh where of where can they be?

Hostrocket has them, and they AREN't going to give them to you.

Wait, you can beg! oh you've tried that...

Or!!!! I got it you can tell them you are moving, oh they responded? only 13 hours late??? really?

Oh that is not bad at all! that is enough time to retrieve them from the hard drive in the garbage can out back!

As hostrocket turns.


Save a buck or two and start a ticking time :bomb: when your host FAILS you.

We're not a current customer of the company in question, nor have we ever been. But what I see here in terms of customer relations seems to be a very poor effort on the part of the company. I mean the responses even here in the thread are less than professional. Not to mention what I think of the ticket responses themselves.

We fired off an email to the company's (in question) sales department asking for some basic account information that they might provide us for guiding a decision as to what plans might favor our ideas, budget, business model ideas, etc.... The regular I need help questions.

We have yet to receive a reply. I won't even mention how long it has been. It doesn't make any difference. Let's just say the email wasn't sent off today.

Curious as to if it were possible for what I'm reading here I just had to find out for myself if this company could be even a fraction as bad as what I am reading here for posts, for support tickets, responses, etc.... To find out if the responses from the company representives being posted here was just out of deress. Which I could unfortunately understand under the circumstances.

This company hasn't taken an ounce of effort to provide the information asked for in any way or fashion. I've given it plenty of time for a response. No more or less time than I would expect from any legitimate or professional company or business of anykind.

I then wanted to give this a shot with another company to be "fair" with my test of this effort and fired off the same email to verio.com.

Verio answered within 15 minutes and in fact called the office and asked for me. I ended up talking to verio for over a half hour on a 3 way call between their tech, sales, departments about setting up a business account and mysql limitations etc... per server package.

I want to assure you that I am currently with neither of these companies. But the test proved to me what I've known for many years.

One person or even maybe a couple complain, we listen and hope there is resolve between the parties. A rational and professional response focused on the "problem areas". A genuine effort on both parts to aquire a true business partnership.

More complaints than this and we begin to believe it may be true.
at this point it is a good idea if you haven't already to check with the BBB and other agencies to see if you can find any other "registered complaints" against the business. Most will inform you to try this before you purchase a product. If you find unresolved complaints over the course of the 3 year period, then you'll have identified a legitimate problem. Especially if there are quite a number of them.

Now, for those of you who realize that businesses do not have to belong to the BBB or other organizations that provide this information, they have no option of not being sent a complaint against their company or being listed on the BBB if indeed they are a registered company in any fashion. You file it, they get it whether they like it or not. They then have the option of working towards resolving the situation or leaving it unresolved and written as such for all to view.

Now I'm not endorsing turning companies into the BBB and other releated types of services. In fact I discourage the practice highly.
I don't even care for the organization myself simply because someone can turn you in for anything or any reason without any prior knowledge given to you.

This more of a "last resort" practice should only be used if you could not get any sort of satisfaction whatsoever from the company that provides the service or product that you find a problem with. I say this simply because enough complaints files through the appropriate sources can simply spark investigations into business practices that will not be controlled by the company in question. This in turn will create a real hard way to go for any business. So you never play games with this practice, but it's there to ensure an opportunity to those that truly suffer from the hands of indecent business practices.

Laymens terms: A company that truly screwed you, stole, cheated and lied, gave no refund nor reasons for their actions. Then took the opportunity to enjoy laughing about it.

I tried a simple test. I would no more give someone who wouldn't respond to a pre-sales question a minute of my day. Sure all companies in this profession have legitimate problems and situations that arise without notice. And for the most part I have faith that the online community responds with empathy towards these scenarios. I have been around long enough to believe that for the most part people do not enjoy being angry and complaining. There are exceptions of course, but these exceptions are a minority.

If pre-sales Q and A, which are motivated by the concept of a new client and more income wouldn't motivate a company, then obviously their support would be less adequate than needed.


It doesn't take a "rocket" scientist to figure this thread out. It wasn't at all hard for me to make a judgment based on what I see. But it doesn't give me a good feeling after I judged the test results either. I feel rather bad for all those involved.

Hi,

Just wanted to point out that this thread is over 3 months old. I doubt that anybody involved wants to go through the pain again. Please use a little sense when using the search function and resurrecting threads that deserve to be left where they were. ;)