Earlier today, after what appears to be the third instance of downtime due to httpd failure on HostRocket.com in less than two weeks, I requested that HostRocket.com close my account.

Any recommendations for HostRocket I might have made in this forum are rescinded.

Did you do a traceroute?

There have been a number of problems routing data into servers at Alabanza over the past few days.

There does not seem to be any pattern to it, but at one point data from the UK was going via Los Angeles on the ATT network to get into some of our accounts.

Its all been very odd and I know it has affected more than one host.

Gordon

Yes, of course, the first thing one does is a tracert.

The type of failure characteristic of the problems HostRocket has evidenced will show tracert's coming back clean as a whistle and the ftp working fine -- but the http pages do not not serve.

HostRocket itself has been down in this and recent instances, and they have acknowledged the problem.

Repeated instances of this compromise site reliability far too much for us to use their servers.

Thats OK
I was just wondering if it had been part of the same thing.

Some Alabanza hosts have been having problems with their servers since the Java servlets were added.

Althogether it has not beena good 10 days or so.

Gordon

Hi,

Just to let you know what happened, the server went down at 3:37am, etLUX paged emergency support, and it was back up by 3:47am. I dont know if im allowed to write this or not here, but getting hammered for a 10 minute down time with immediate response at 3am, on a $10/month account, seems absurd to me. We have had 99.96% uptime this past week.

-Brendan
brendan@hostrocket.com

[Edited by Brendan at HostRocket on 11-07-2000 at 11:43 AM]

Originally posted by Brendan at HostRocket
Hi,

Just to let you know what happened, the server went down at 3:37am, etLUX paged emergency support, and it was back up by 3:47am. I dont know if im allowed to write this or not here, but getting hammered for a 10 minute down time with immediate response at 3am, on a $10/month account, seems absurd to me. We have had 99.96% uptime this past week.

-Brendan
brendan@hostrocket.com

[Edited by Brendan at HostRocket on 11-07-2000 at 11:43 AM]

While I understand your frustruation..maybe the panic is caused by you not having a TOS posted and it making the client wonder what is going to happen or where they stand.

Every client when they sign up gets a url of the TOS, and its available by emailing tos@hostrocket.com, so i dont think thats it : (

-Brendan
brendan@hostrocket.com

Just wondering, why don't you let potential clients read the TOS before they sign up? Seems strange to me that you expect people to agree to a TOS when they can't even read it.

Most ecommerce sites will atleast have the TOS on the order page that has to be agreed to before they submit their info.

I might be wrong, but I couldn't even find anywhere on your site where it states that they will receive the TOS upon signup, or can email tos@hostrocket.com, how are they supposed to know that?

We have a TOS that they have to agree to before sign up, but I don't think this is really a TOS problem.

We all have days like this!

Gordon

Originally posted by Brendan at HostRocket
Every client when they sign up gets a url of the TOS, and its available by emailing tos@hostrocket.com, so i dont think thats it : (

-Brendan
brendan@hostrocket.com

Clients dont get to see it before hand? One reason I didnt pick you for a host (a few months ago) was because there was no TOS I could see..and when I spoke to some one on human click they said you didnt have one and were working on it...thats why I mentioned it:)

This is the last thing I'm going to say on this, as getting into a cat fight was not my intent in posting this thread. Rather, I wished to remove my good name from any recommendation concerning a hosting company that is not properly monitored for problem conditions.

1.)

The down time was quite a bit more substantial than implied above.

2.)

One should NEVER have to tell a HOSTING COMPANY that their OWN SITE is down, and has been down, for some time.

Hi,

There are multiple references to our TOS on our support site, its not like its a secret and isnt really any fine print or anything we are trying to hide. As for server monitoring, we do have server monitoring in place, which runs once every 5 minutes. Your page to us beat the server monitoring, and your site was back up within 10 minutes even at 3am. The downtime was caused by a mistake by another client on the server, which is a risk you run when hosting in a shared hosting environment.

Just to explain what has been happening in a little more detail, the problem was caused by someone with a java servlet installation on their account improperly removing them. There is not alot we can do about this other that to no longer offer java servlets, which is what we have done for the time being. The person who caused the problem last night had installed the servlets before we disabled them.

Since we figured out what the problem was about a week ago, the uptime has been back up where it belongs, 99.96% You flat out will not beat that for $10/month, and will be hard pressed to beat it for $100/month. Hell, I pay around $1300/month to have this server up and monitored 24/7 at the NOC, and our support team be theirs to fixing it. This post probably breaks like 20 rules on this forum, so im not going to post any more about this, but I hate seeing us get grilled over something that simply does not warrant it. One customer who is unhappy with his service can make more noise than the 600+ that are thrilled, and that is very frustrating.

-Brendan
brendan@hostrocket.com

Originally posted by Brendan at HostRocket

on a $10/month account, seems absurd to me.

You flat out will not beat that for $10/month, and will be hard pressed to beat it for $100/month. Hell, I pay around $1300/month to have this server up and monitored 24/7 at the NOC


What are you complaining about? It does NOT matter whether $10 or $1000 a month. The matter is, when you give customers a specific price and they agree to pay, then you have to serve them. Once the agreement between two people is signed, then it's not about money anymore. Nobody cares how much you pay or how much you make, we pay what you ask, and we have the right to ask for what we've AGREED, not for what we've PAID.

About the TOS, I agree with most people here, asking people to email somewhere instead of putting the TOS page on your site, it's ridiculous. Why would you want to make the inconvience to your clients while claiming that you have a good support, I just don't get it.

You get what you've paid for, now I believe it, and I don't want to take risk. Your price is so good to be true, but you told people like that, seems to me that you look down on them. With all due respect, just my personal opinions, peace.

[Edited by Nam on 11-07-2000 at 03:34 PM]

humm .. the funny part is .. my Policies page (TOS) is the least viewed page on my site ,,, :D .. most people don't care

10$ or 1000$ ?

doesn`t mean anything..to me.

is what you say and write on the contract.
____________________________________________________

Nam

My point was that we do provide what we say we provide.

-Brendan

I host 4 sites on HR and even though I hate downtimes as much as any of you, one of the reasons why I moved to HR is because they provide you with what they say they will.

The promise you 99.5% uptime and so far they give you at least 99.96%. You can't expect ANY host to be up 100% so why are you complaining about a 99.96% uptime.

If HR go below 99.5% that you have a reason to worry but so far, they didn't so your argument is pointless.

Boris

Originally posted by CRego3D
humm .. the funny part is .. my Policies page (TOS) is the least viewed page on my site ,,, :D .. most people don't care

Mine is viewed very little as well. There is a link to it on the main page and at the top of the sign-up page just as a reminder to look before leaping.

Originally posted by Nam
What are you complaining about? It does NOT matter whether $10 or $1000 a month. The matter is, when you give customers a specific price and they agree to pay, then you have to serve them.

While I agree that one must honor their service contracts regardless of the price, it certainly does matter whether you pay $10 or $1000 a month. If ones's site is so mission critical that it can't sustain an occasional 10 minutes (or a bit more) of downtime, one shouldn't host it for $10 a month.

Further, it seems to me that HostRocket was providing the service paid for, and was extremely responsive to the crisis at 3 a.m. If a company I was hosting with responded similarly, I'd be ecstatic.

I also understand the frustration of a customer who experienced three episodes of a downtime in two weeks. On the other hand, it seems like HostRocket has identified the root of the problem and has come up with a solution.

As for the TOS, I can see why people would want to read it, and that's good feedback for a host to hear, but I don't really understand how it relates to this episode. Every virtual hosting TOS I've ever read claims 99%+ uptime, with different methods of compensating customers for exceeding the stated percentage of downtime. However, when sites go down, most people want responsive tech support, not to consult the TOS to find out whether the guaranteed uptime was 99.3% or 99.5%.

I don't know Brendan or HostRocket, but it seems to me they are getting slammed hard for responding quickly to a problem and solving it. I, personally, would view them in a positive light after reading this thread.

Brendan,

I recommend you just put the TOS up and move on. One client doesn't hurt you.

If you have 600+ other clients that are satisfied, I don't see why you should spend time on this thread. Time should be spent servicing your clients. Your 600+ (if you have ) will back all that up for you.

The main thing is to put the TOS up ( You said you have it)

I love HostRocket. I signed up before they even wrote the tos. But as i was told over at sitepointforums.com by wluke use your common sense. No host allows warez etc etc so think about it.

They have one or two problems but so do all companys. Would you refuse to goto mcdonalds if they sold you the wrong burger three times in a few weeks too?.

I like Burger King :) hihihi

Originally posted by Technics
Would you refuse to goto mcdonalds if they sold you the wrong burger three times in a few weeks too?.

Actually, I would refuse to go there if they did that. One time, no problem. Two times, I get cautious, but 3 times, and my mind gets made up.

Originally posted by Technics
They have one or two problems but so do all companys. Would you refuse to goto mcdonalds if they sold you the wrong burger three times in a few weeks too?. Well, since you ask, yeah. Especially if there was a Burger King, a Wendy's, a Taco Bell, and a Subway on the same block. Which, if you're really talking hosting instead of fast food, there are.

But I'm only speaking allegorically, since I don't eat meat.

Originally posted by Carol
Originally posted by Nam
What are you complaining about? It does NOT matter whether $10 or $1000 a month. The matter is, when you give customers a specific price and they agree to pay, then you have to serve them.
While I agree that one must honor their service contracts regardless of the price, it certainly does matter whether you pay $10 or $1000 a month. If ones's site is so mission critical that it can't sustain an occasional 10 minutes (or a bit more) of downtime, one shouldn't host it for $10 a month.

I had no problem with Hostrocket, I have never hosted my site with them. In fact, after seeing so many good feedbacks, I'm going to sign up with them. I did not criticize him either, it was just my point of view cuz his sound about ten bucks thing seemed harsh. I didn't mention anything about the site can't be down even just 10mins or similar things.

I also still believe that once the contract is signed, means you are bound with it. If you can't handle it, then don't agree, money is no issue then after. Again, this is general for everything, not just host. So don't misunderstand me. Cheers :).

Brendan, you can't carry out support issues on this forum, however what seems to be discussed is a bit above and beyond mere support. I'll only ask you to email etLux if you have something specific to say to him.

On the issue of HostRocket's services, personally I find any host that is able to take care of a situation at 3 a.m. to be very good. I've never recommended your company, but I find this most impressive.

In a shared hosting enviroment, you will never find a host that can offer you 100% uptime. Never. To me, what seperates the hosts, is how they respond to support and emergencies, not whether there is a problem. There will be problems.

I have services montioring my server. I have a backup service monitoring the server. That isn't to say a human might notice it down and let me know first. There are 5-10 minute windows, plus the actual time it takes to figure out what is wrong and rectify the problem. You'll see horror stories of people down for days.

It would be nice if the TOS was clearly posted and linked to (if it is not already), but that is their choice and your choice to sign up with them. If this is an issue, I'd email the host in question (this goes for any host), or choose another service.

Telling a host why you DIDN'T sign up with them may help them address an issue. I've done this before. I've let hosts know that I saw their page, but due to their claims of "unlimited blah blah", I won't consider them.

Just a few random "blurblings"...

after reading this, i think a tos is the way to go. i really don't feel like writing one from step 1. anyone want to share their tos? :)

I don't condone stealing anything, but you can at least find plenty of examples. I think they all pretty much say the same thing. Not sure how hosts feel about this, but a TOS isn't something I'd personally care about if someone copied it word for word even. It just spells out YOUR terms (so modification would most likely be needed).

well, i wont copy it word for word. i will modify it to suit my needs. i just don't know where to start. i think a lot of people would like to "start" somewhere and have an example.

teck,

Feel free to use and modify our TOS. :)
(atomhost)

thanks :)