What a poor excuse for a hosting company interserver.net has proven to be. There are no back-up means of communicating with them when they go down - such as phone numbers that actually give you tech support or any human for that matter to talk with. You cannot post a support ticket, there's no backup forum hosted on a different server for clients to post when the main site goes down. Their "emergency reboot server" request telephone number connects you to someone's residential answering machine. No one ever responds to any messages you leave on said machine either.

Yesterday we apparently had a very simple problem that only required reboot of our server. It took us over 13 hours to reach them and get them to reboot.

Today, once again, their site is down, our sites are down and we are left to dangle in dead air.

My advice: Stay the HE___ away from this hosting company!

Their ticket systems at http://www.trouble-free.net/newticket.html seems to be reachable. They normally respond fairly quick to their ticket system.

Yes, we are currently up again. My point is when their support site goes down for prolonged periods, as happened yesterday, there is NO communication possible with them. That is unacceptable. I have requested someone in authority at Interserver to contact me via phone and/or email to discuss issues surrounding our very lengthy downtime (over 13 hours) without response by them, and I will post their response once I have it.

They have AIM and ICQ you can contact them with.

Good luck trying to get them to answer IM or ICQ, they are logged on but I have never had good luck getting any response.

For Sales it's disabled.

For Tech Support - seems to be in a permanent state of "off line" -at least every time I've accessed their contact info page (when their site is actually accessible), they are always listed as offline.

they always response in reasonable time to me. anyway, i don't see there site going down until vdi.net itself was down. also support icq remains online for about 12 hrs ( i have never used it - not needed yet).

i am with them since last 4-5 months and they are very good for me. actually i feel cool until my server goes down for more then 1 hrs. after that i become mad. :D

yeah, i have called 3-4 time and always got answering machine but i don't think it is home machine.

cheersss
:cartman:

Well, gee, I'm happy for you; glad you've had such a good experience. :rolleyes: Wish I could say the same.

You are mistaken as to their not being down except when VDI went down. The last 13 hours of downtime we had, VDI was up, Interserver was down many more hours than it was up. And even when it was up, and we finally were able to follow up on hours and hours of numerous contact attemps via phone and email - and actually able to access their site to get a support ticket started, it took a number of hours for them to get us back online. Not to mention they never responded to the phone calls and/or the requests for them to contact us regarding downtime. To this very moment they have not yet responded.

They, in fact, had downtime for a few minutes today as well. Perhaps you aren't online quite as much as I and other Nuke.to support team members, or not monitoring quite as closely.

I will only post what I know first-hand to be factual.

If they had ICQ support up for even an hour yesterday, I would have certainly pursued that avenue, just as I did each and every other possible avenue. At least their site certainly listed ICQ contact as being off-line everytime I looked. In any event, another poster here has indicated pursuing that avenue hasn't been effective for him.

Not a home answering machine? ... suggest you call the number and see if you want to come back here and tell me it's not a residential answering machine: 401-935-5199.

Now look, bottom line, I'm not seeking to involve posters in an argument here as to whether posters' experience has been the same as outlined in my original post. I'm simply posting the experience thus far Nuke.to has had with Interserver, which is something no one outside of Nuke.to or Interserver can dispute. And I would invite Internetserver to dispute anything they feel I've said not to be factual.

I've been with intererver around two months now. The support has been excellent. Last support ticket was actioned in less than 10 minutes (this was only last week) and the one prior to that in less than half an hour.

SerenaG.., I was online when you made that post about interservers IP address not having a website etc, I thought WTF, and went to check it out. Interserver was online, just figured you were losing the plot.

Personally as a webhost when I strike a customer like you...moaing, bitching and totally freaking out..., I tend to ignore them so hopefully they piss off and go elsewhere. :op

Well, peteW, my man, I could send you the page I got several times yesterday when they were down. I saved it off line. The page related to Apache software having been successfully installed but the site owner (Interserver) needing to upload their site files. Want me to send it? Perhaps then you wouldn't be so quick to dispute facts you couldn't possibly be in a position to dispute.

Re your approach to web hosting ... amazing and hilarious you'd cop to it. ROFLMAO

I represent a web hosting company myself, Nuke.to, and we intend to give the best possible support to our members, and to keep them fully informed regarding any outages. They, as do I, have a right to complain loudly when presented with the experience we have had.

Because we are taking a proactive approach, our members are happy with our support services. In fact, we just permanently upgraded everyone's monthly bandwidth allowance by 1 gig for each account - our way of thanking them for their patience during the outages related to VDI and Interserver.

So, if it's all the same to you, you can continue to host your way, and we'll host our way.

BTW, anyone who doubts interserver.net has been down on and off, or that they are not responding, you can take a look at posts of other interserver clients in the Tech Support forum at:

http://boards.interserver.net/

Originally posted by SerenaG
BTW, anyone who doubts interserver.net has been down on and off, or that they are not responding, you can take a look at posts of other interserver clients in the Tech Support forum at:

http://boards.interserver.net/ :eek::eek2::eek:
Not much more to say, after reading in that forum. :rolleyes:
Sure feel sorry for all those folks though.
It doesn't look good.

At least, they never deleted the bad posts in their forum ...
I know of a host that deleted my complaint in their forum, not once ... but twice! And you probably won't find anything bad about the host in that forum either ... go figure ..

I have mixed feeling about interserver ... I have chatted with Mike (ICQ) quite many times. The people at inteserver are honest, though they (which host 120 servers) may need more people by this time. I have not really taste anything bad with them that partly is due to their own fault/lack of response (Except today, for 30 minutes my server was dropped off the internet though VDI was fine)... I also have experienced 13 hours delay for reboot (With different NOC) and other worse things imaginable ... Never really had issue with Interserver and I hope they can get things better.

Truely sorry about nuke.to .... (Are you sure it's just a matter of simple reboot?)

cheers,
:beer:

their forum didnt show up for me...maybe it is busy.

Originally posted by goodness0001
their forum didnt show up for me...maybe it is busy. Maybe they don't like you :D
I just went there again. No problems.
Pretty sad for all their customers though :(

Thanks, dektong, your empathy is appreciated. :)

One our Nuke.to techs mentioned reviewing some logs that seemed to indicate a script hung things up and would have required a server reboot - but I'd have to go back and reread his comments to be sure - I've slept since then. ;)

Under the circumstances, the answer is, no, I can't say I'm 100% sure about that, especially in light of the fact that interserver.net's own site has been down on and off throughout our Nuke.to downtime. (It would have been nice to have interserver's input regarding the source of the downtime problems.)

We also have some domain POP problems occuring since 11/02/01 about which there's been no response from them.

Originally posted by peteW
Personally as a webhost when I strike a customer like you...moaing, bitching and totally freaking out..., I tend to ignore them so hopefully they piss off and go elsewhere. :op

I think when the server goes down for 13 hours (2 days after the VDI outage) due to a company not getting off their @$$es to reboot it, we have a reason to "moan, bitch and totally freak out".

Regards,
Josh.

What is the site you have hosted with them that you've been so happy with peteW?

i feel sorry about nuke.to

but i want to say few things about interserver.net

1. there may be dealy in response or support from interserver ( i never had - they alway response to me with reasonable time) but they are hosnest host. if they make any mistake they agree it. i had another host which is such a sick after making mistakes never accept it. hey, i don't want to make name out.

2. they never delete any post on there forms. there are always some people don't like service that does n't make interserver.net a bad host.

3. since yesterady i was able to browse interserver.net web site. (not all times it may be down but i gone to there web site 2-5 times in day). it may be possible your ip address or block of ip addresses from you may be blocked.

nothing else. . .

:cartman:

No disrespect mahinder, but when I read through their forum, it wasn't just nuke.to having problems.
And the problems weren't just today. There have been serious things going on for some time now.
If I were hosted by interserver, I'd be pretty nervous about now.
There are serious issues being posed in their forums. And they don't address them.
If they would just say, "We know there is a problem with [blablabla] we will efectuate a solution post haste." People would be more at ease. Ignoring problems isn't going to make them go away. It's going to make customers go away.
Maybe it's true; you don't have a problem with them. But, maybe you're not on the same box that the people that are having problems are.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
No disrespect mahinder, but when I read through their forum, it wasn't just nuke.to having problems.
And the problems weren't just today. There have been serious things going on for some time now.
If I were hosted by interserver, I'd be pretty nervous about now.
There are serious issues being posed in their forums. And they don't address them.
If they would just say, "We know there is a problem with [blablabla] we will efectuate a solution post haste." People would be more at ease. Ignoring problems isn't going to make them go away. It's going to make customers go away.
Maybe it's true; you don't have a problem with them. But, maybe you're not on the same box that the people that are having problems are.

no comments on all you said, but i have dedicateds with them.

Y'all are missing one big possibility.
That one of a dozen servers is having some major problem. Everyone's cool except your one server.

I also happen to know that Interserver's ISP had some problems with their main OC3 lines. They went down once, went to the backup fibers, then the phone company decided to run tests on all the wires without telling anyone, knocking them off again.

Originally posted by nolie
Y'all are missing one big possibility.
That one of a dozen servers is having some major problem. Everyone's cool except your one server.

We've thought of that and agree that it is a big possibility.
The other big concern is that it took them 13 hours to respond to us. We would have liked a reply, even if it said "we are working on it". For 13 hours we had nothing to tell our customers except "we have absolutely no idea when we'll be up again".

Regards,
Josh.

When Josh says we thought of it, he's referring to the problem being on one server. The internet server ISP outage (VDI) involved two prior downtimes. At the time of this last 13-hour outage, VDI was not down and hasn't been down since.

Said another way, the outages wherein VDI was down were on 11/02/01 - we were down for approximately 10 hours that day; 11/02/01 - we were down for approximately 2 hours 25 minutes.

The last outage occurring over 11/03/01 through 11/05/01 (approximately 13 hours total), VDI was not down. Interserver was off and on (more down than up) during the 11/03 - 11/05/01 period.

We thought of lots of different scenarious for why we experienced the 13-hour outage. Problem is, interserver failed and continues to fail to communicate with us with any kind of explanation for the outage or their lack of response to our emails and phone calls during that period of time. Even though no host wants to be down for 13 hours, our main bone of contention is not the downtime itself, but rather interserver's poor handling and communication related thereto.

Hope this completely clarifies the situation.

Said another way, the outages wherein VDI was down were on 11/02/01 - we were down for approximately 10 hours that day; 11/02/01 - we were down for approximately 2 hours 25 minutes. The last outage occurring over 11/03/01 through 11/05/01 (approximately 13 hours total), VDI was not down. Interserver was off and on (more down than up) during the 11/03 - 11/05/01 period.



VDI was down on:
11/02/01 around 1am to 1:15am
11/02/01 around 10:30am to 1:30pm
11/04/01 around 10:45am to 11:45am

Not sure whether this is VDI/Interserver's downtime:
11/04/01 around 12:15pm to 12:45pm

Interserver's:
11/06/01 around 12:15pm to 12:45pm

cheers,
:beer:

Normally I do not post in public. But, I thought I would let you guys know what’s up. Yes we make mistakes, but all we can do is learn from them.

As far as our support, right now we are a bit overloaded. Starting December first we should have 5 more people. If everything goes to plan the average reply time will be 15 minutes and 24 hours a day support.

Serena M. Giddens, your server was down because the CPU went bad. I am not sure how long you were down for. But I remember going there the same day to replace it.

Also our dedicated / colo clients can email me and get my cell phone number for emergencies.

hi,
i never post here about interserver because never had problem with this guys. But since we have a big problem with a server there and begin to loose customers its time to write...
Right now our server has no space free on HD. 4 days ago I emailed sales ask to replace with bigger HD. No Response.
Then i spoke with mike by ICQ he gave me only "telegraphik"answers. OK seems the guys are busy...
I hope they can do this asap (withing 12hours)... because some clients cannot recive e-mails or pubblic by FTP... thats a very very bad situation...
---------

Now the problem that our HD goes "Under" was an WHM error (or bug) In other words, if we or a reseller cancell an account by WHM the account will not really be cancelled on server but they stay there with all files in it. that happens for differend months.
I think that problem should be checked by CPanel guys to.
Now i 'lpaying upgrades to bigger HD because our 20GB is full but with domains that use only 9 GB of real disk space...
Of course thats not interservers foult....

if anyone use WHM check out what's happen when you delet a domain by WHM.... :crap:

Originally posted by markter
Right now our server has no space free on HD

can you check what partition is full ?
go to the tmp/ directory and remove any .wrk files.

Originally posted by markter
hi,
i never post here about interserver because never had problem with this guys. But since we have a big problem with a server there and begin to loose customers its time to write...
Right now our server has no space free on HD.


From the way you speak, you don't seem (sorry if I am wrong) to know how to admin a server yet you are a webhost! I feel sorry for you, but I also feel sorry for Interserver ... You depend too much on them to run your webhosting biz ... But, how much are you paying them for the ded server? They don't charge much (in fact, they are few hosts out there that do not charge any setup fee on ded server and no contract!). They are willing to help you on sysadmin, but please ... as a webhost, do not depend on others to run your biz ...

Now, about your problem, please be more specific ... Go into your shell, and type "df" and give out the listing here (if needed, open a new thread). I don't think all your hard-disk is full ... I bet it's only the root directory (/) that is full and most of it usually is due to /tmp being full .... And when the root directory is full, your webserver won't function! Many things can be done to fix this ... including removing some unnecessary files, doing symbolic links, or even compressing some files ... Do you know how to do any of these? If not ... I don't know what else to say ... (contact me (us) though, I am (we are) more than willing to help)


---------


Now the problem that our HD goes "Under" was an WHM error (or bug) In other words, if we or a reseller cancell an account by WHM the account will not really be cancelled on server but they stay there with all files in it. that happens for differend months.


I had the same issues ... I think (Anybody CMIIW) you should not try to delete the account while the user is still have an open Telnet/SSH/FTP session ... Deleting a user account while the user still have an open connection to the server will just remove the corresponding settings on httpd.conf, but won't remove the /home/user directory ... Again, anybody please cmiiw ...


if anyone use WHM check out what's happen when you delet a domain by WHM.... :crap:

I just deleted 3 accounts from my WHM Reseller ... Works fine ... /home/users were deleted correspondingly ... Nothing is :crap: ... Perharps you need to sit down and study WHM/Cpanel more? :rolleyes:

cheers,
:beer:

hi "dektong"
hmm.. that type of problem we have only on that server.
We have 11 linux servers around (3 are on interserver)
other 5 servers has CPanel another server has plesk installed
an other are on colossus with there web interface.
As i sayd i had never problems with interserver and will move other servers over in the next month.
I think i can say that we are not "very new in that business"
------
that's the situation:
/dev/hda8 256667 166523 76892 68% /
/dev/hda1 23302 1418 20681 6% /boot
/dev/hda6 8760096 8296488 18612 100% /home
/dev/hda5 8760096 8192436 122664 99% /usr
/dev/hda7 256667 104839 138576 43% /var
/dev/hdb1 19773724 18293944 1479780 92% /ide


Thi situation above change very fast... could be that /ide goes up to 99% in 3 hours


i moving over accounts from /home to /ide

Ah... there are no Temp files now to cancell...

In addition to the post by Mike of interserver.net, I also received the following email message related to our first support ticket:

"The processor died on the server which caused it to go down first. The problem needed to be identified. Once replaced it was still non bootable and the entire motherboard was replaced on it. Once done we were able to boot the server up and keep it running. If you have any questions on the replacement of the server send them to mike as he will be able to tell you exactly what he did."

We appreciate the information. I have two questions remaining:

We were down starting at 8:25 a.m. on November 5. What happened at interserver.net that your site was inaccessible for so long that day and, therefore, we could not get a support ticket started until after 7 p.m. ?

Is your explanation regarding our emails and phone calls of November 5 prior to 7 p.m. which went unanswered until November 8, that the lack of response was due to interserver.net not having adequate support staff to respond to the emails and phone calls?

Originally posted by markter
hi "dektong"
hmm.. that type of problem we have only on that server.
We have 11 linux servers around (3 are on interserver)
other 5 servers has CPanel another server has plesk installed
an other are on colossus with there web interface.
As i sayd i had never problems with interserver and will move other servers over in the next month.
I think i can say that we are not "very new in that business"
------
that's the situation:
/dev/hda8 256667 166523 76892 68% /
/dev/hda1 23302 1418 20681 6% /boot
/dev/hda6 8760096 8296488 18612 100% /home
/dev/hda5 8760096 8192436 122664 99% /usr
/dev/hda7 256667 104839 138576 43% /var
/dev/hdb1 19773724 18293944 1479780 92% /ide


Thi situation above change very fast... could be that /ide goes up to 99% in 3 hours


i moving over accounts from /home to /ide

Ah... there are no Temp files now to cancell...

hi,

i had same problem but when i investigate i found this is not problem with WHM. this happens if you stop execution of script between it complete its operations.

I face this problem some time because I have 56 k modem lines and they hang up some time. but then I use to delete user accounts my self and it goes fine.

cheers, also interserver is working with cpanel guys to have cpanel at interserver instead of webpanel.

(at present we use webpanel developed by vdi.net on interserver servers)

also the only thing I expect from my provider is to turn my server on within 30 minutes it goes down.


:cartman:

Originally posted by SerenaG

Is your explanation regarding our emails and phone calls of November 5 prior to 7 p.m. which went unanswered until November 8, that the lack of response was due to interserver.net not having adequate support staff to respond to the emails and phone calls?

:confused:

:uhh:

Originally posted by markter
I think i can say that we are not "very new in that business"


Good to hear that ...
Now, what makes me wonder ...


/dev/hda8 256667 166523 76892 68% /
/dev/hda1 23302 1418 20681 6% /boot
/dev/hda6 8760096 8296488 18612 100% /home
/dev/hda5 8760096 8192436 122664 99% /usr
/dev/hda7 256667 104839 138576 43% /var
/dev/hdb1 19773724 18293944 1479780 92% /ide


What is in /ide? I think that's supposed to be your backup HD for /dev/hda? I just can't believe that the backup HD (/dev/hdb) is bigger than /dev/hda (could happen since the backup takes both daily and weekly backup)... If /ide is a backup drive, make sure you are not just copying files from the first drive to the second drive, but instead ... tar the files and compress it ...

Gee... how many accounts do you have on your server? With 140 accounts, I only use 2.7GB of /home and 1.3GB of /usr ... My partitions:

Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda1 248895 64277 171768 27% /
/dev/hda8 23474136 2706980 19574736 12% /home
/dev/hda5 4538124 1394708 2912888 32% /usr
/dev/hda6 1011928 422796 537728 44% /var
/dev/hdd1 29544228 2901528 25141944 10% /ide


regards,
-dave

Originally posted by markter

/dev/hda5 8760096 8192436 122664 99% /usr




umm.. look into /usr and go to tmp/ and remove any*.wrk files. I just removed 30+ .wrk files on one of our cpanel server and /usr is now back to 70% :D .

----------------------------------
Gee... how many accounts do you have on your server?
----------------------------------

yes there where alot of accounts ... nowbody use them... an they doesn't exist in WHM...
that 's why WHM does not really cancell accounts for about 1 year.. :(
Then we had there a reseller that use his reseller account to setup (a lot of ) one-page accounts for 2 weeks and deled them and setup another account an so on...
-----------
i had same problem but when i investigate i found this is not problem with WHM. this happens if you stop execution of script between it complete its operations.
-----------
"mahinder" i dont now if this is the problem.... We have no problem with connections (we have DSL)


anyway... we are still waiting new Hard Drives...

:mad:

should corerct me.... HD ar on server but not working.. :mad: