Longtime regulars (and longtime lurkers like me) will remember APHosting.com from Andy and Mat's posting here. They stood out because they seemed to always be around to answer questions and especially because of their low prices.

Although I had heard of them from these forums, by coincidence I ended up being hooked up with them via 3rd-party. My friend signed up for a reseller account through them, and I signed on through his account.

My account was activated around December, and my site Slushfactory.com went live on January 15 with no problems. However, the next week my site went down for about 12-13 hours, smack prime in the middle of the day. As a relatively new content entertainment site, this hit me big. Users who were visiting my site for the first time weren't able to reach it, and thus many probably lost interest. First impressions are very important, especially when you are trying to stand out from other sites.

AP told us (via the reseller Jason), that it was the result of a hacking. However, they could provide no evidence whatsoever to back up their claim. We repeatedly asked for basic information such as how did they get in, what was the hacker's IP address, and other such information. They provided nothing.

Over the next few weeks our site would go down for minutes to hours at a time. And it isn't just our site, it's every site on their server, including their APHosting.com site.

As I'm writing this, it is currently almost 3am. My site has been down since 11:30pm. Andy from AP told us that he was working on one of the accounts and he messed up with something, forcing the server to rewrite a file, thus apparently causing it to go offline. When I called him up around midnight he assured me that it would be back up in 20 minutes. That was almost 3 hours ago.

I'm told that someone has bought APHosting.com, which I would ordinarily champion, but apparently this new owner doesn't like the price structures of APHosting, so he wants all of the customers to move to his other, more expensive web service. Why he purchased AP when he didn't like the pricing structures is beyond me. The only reason people are with AP is because of the prices, so he has to know if he wants to raise them he'll lose all customers, thus negating the entire point of the purchase I'd think.

But anyway, just warning everyone to stay away from this mess of a company. With AP, you do get what you pay for, and it ain't much.

Best,
Brian Jacks
Publisher/Founder, Slushfactory.com
viper220ny@aol.com

Ok, I've just been told that Andy has been fired and AP no longer exists as a company. So apparently it's "screw you" to all the current customers I guess because, as I mentioned, the new owner wants everyone to simply come over to his other, more expensive, hosting service. Nice.

Oh, by the way, Andy posts on these boards as "Synergy." The company that owns AP is Xism.net. That's the one that apparently let Andy go tonight.

-Brian

To update, it's now after 6am and my site is still down. Tony, the owner of XISM.net and the tech that is "supposed" to be working on it, both went offline hours ago, literally within seconds of each other. No response to e-mails. I hope they are sleeping well while I'm sitting up drinking coffee trying to keep myself awake so I can update the site for Friday's content as soon as it comes back online.

Blah.

-Brian

(edit: now after 8am and still down)

I am dissapointed now in APHosting too. It's been down for about 12 hours. How do you know they are being bought out? And, does anybody have any suggestions where to go next? I'm thinking of Tera-byte.

They have an obligation to continue your hosting service at your current rate at least for the time you have currently paid. Have they cut your service all-together?

David Kiley

Hi,

This is Jason here, who signed up Brian (above) under my reseller account.

It's now been 13 and a half hours since the sites on the server went offline and it is becoming increasingly worrying that nobody from Xism is reply to my e-mails. Under normal circumstances how ong would it take to redo/fix an http.conf file?

A ray of hope is that my WHM is now working, and lists all of my accounts in the various functions correctly, with the exception of the List Accounts area, strangely enough.

WHM also tells me that Apache is down on the server, which I'm guessing is the cause of the current refused connections. Am I wrong in thinking it's pretty straightforward to restart Apache?

If anyone here has a telephone number for Tony Chau, please PM it to me.


Jason Brice

The rumor is true, I believe. I just spoke to Bryan online who used to work for the company, but he says he is no longer employed and hasn't talked to Andy in two weeks. This new company must have taken over.

Glad I didn't signup with them a few months back. They were one of the handful that I had narrowed down to actually. Thank God I went with my current host, that being Hostmatters, whose absolutely wonderful. I remember email correspondence with Andy and one of my concerns were that they were a new company pretty much, but I was assured they were in it for the "Long haul". Guess that haul wasn't long enough.....

Best of luck,

David

Genaldi Co.

Wow, I'm glad I didn't sign up with them in August when they started, I'd be SOL! I picked a hosting company instead that has been around for a couple years so I knew they were stable, and I'm very glad I did. They had a pretty good pricing plan I thought but I guess higher prices = more profits for the new owner.

Are they permanently closing down?

Anyone run a "whois" for both companies? Andy is listed as the registrant for xism.net also, which has the same mailing address as aphosting.com by the way....

Good luck,

David

Genaldi Co.

Yeah, I was aware that Andy is the registered owner for both of those.

Doesn't do me much good right now, though...

I have FTP access, so iff anyone wants to offer me a cheap reseller account now would be a good time.

I know this isn't a technical support forum, but does anyone know how I can possibly get my database data from APHosting?

Yeah, that's only thing I haven't been able to back-up as well....

The FTP is up, as with everything else, except Apache. Which is the only reason they aren't back up again.

And, Magic2k2, can you please drop me an e-mail?

Nevermind, the database is still accessible. Grab your data while you can.

I sent you an e-mail billy. Hit me up on AIM sn: DavidInc82

If everyone is bailing out on APHosting, please let me know where you're all going.

I'm in the same boat :(

I'm leaning towards Tera-byte, but I'd like to discuss with some of you guys where you are going since we're in the same boat.

Feel free to send an IM to DavidInc82

I can't access CPanel, so I can't get to my databases either...

I was able to.

try this:
http://<ip address>:2082/3rdparty/phpMyAdmin/index.php

Replace <ip address> with your sites ip.

kev,

any idea where you will move your site to?

I got in the way you described. Just waiting for it to finish processing the dump.

No. I had a hard enough time finding this one. :(

I guess it's time to browse the boards again looking for a new one. I came from AletiaHosting. I left them because they were having severe server problems at the time and their support 'disappeared'. Didn't hear from them in days. I just packed up and left and settled on APHosting.

I will not go back to AletiaHosting as they max out the number of users on their shared servers. Slowed the site down alot.

What do you think about tera-byte? They seem to offer good bandwidth for the money. I was looking at the 4U plan.

ok, anyone know the commands and what to do exactly in phpmyadmin to get a vbulletin mysql db out??

im going to venturesonline as soon as i get my db backup in my hands.

The price does look good but they say the plans only have one (1) mysql database. I need more than that.

I can go with just one but that would mean changing php code for me. I don't like putting all my tables into one database.

Originally posted by dadymac
ok, anyone know the commands and what to do exactly in phpmyadmin to get a vbulletin mysql db out??

im going to venturesonline as soon as i get my db backup in my hands.
Click your vboard in the left frame. When the db specs come up in the right frame, scroll down to "View dump (schema) of database
"

Select "Structure and data" , then put a checkmark in the "Save As File" and press "Go".

This will start a file download when it finishes dumping on the server.

that was easy, just click on the db on the left, then where it says View dump (schema) of database below, click "structure and data", "save as file", and hit "go".

a much safer route and usually 100% compatible is to just telnet into the system, but right now that is diasbled. (ARG)

mysqldump -uUSERNAME -pPASSWORD databasename > /path/to/dump.txt;

remember that on aphosting:
usernames look like: APHaccountname_username
and database names look like: APHaccountname_databasename

so anyone know an ETA of them going back up?? i can get into my ftp, and email works.

any word of who bought it out?

Be patient... it took at least five minutes for my dump to complete, then it had to download...

It was 16Mb.

ack, u beat me to it.

but for how long :confused:

painfully slow too.

It's lightning fast here. What are the nameserves though? I accidentally had already switched mine to tera-byte.

Try SSH :)
Watch all the mysql dumps going on using top :)

i cant telnet in, what am i doing wrong??

nm, i got in, im retarded.

Anybody know the APHosting Nameservers? And, does anybody know who runs this company any more and if they are hiking prices or whatever?

I sent you a PM but maybe you didn't get it.

NS are ns1.xism.net and ns2.xism.net

The new company must be xism.net.
I just checked their webpage and they mention the server 'Starnight'. That is the same server that I am on now.

APHosting / Xism was registered by me and we had a major problem yesterday caused by my human error and Tony, the main investor decided to remove me from the roster. Right now the server is back up and for the people who are wanting to move, you files are accessible. For the people on Starnight Server, I'm sorry for the 17 hours of downtime. For the people who have found another host, and need assistance in moving files.

TELNET: is disabled, for shell access please use SSH.

Clarification of the differences of APHosting and Xism:

<quote>
Anybody know the APHosting Nameservers? And, does anybody know who runs this company any more and if they are hiking prices or whatever?
</quote>

There are no price hikes, basically we have been asking people to move over to Xism's servers since last month. For the remainder of the people who were on Starnight and the outage we are sorry. If you have any questions you can email me directly.

::: For the People who have removed their info from the paysystems reoccuring database:::

There is no need to hurry in moving files or rushing, your information/data/emails will not be removed.

::: Refunds :::
Personally I understand your :angry: :angry: :angry:
However, refunds can only be issued to our direct customers (people who signed up directly on APHosting.com). Yearly accounts will be refunded on the basis of prorating (e.g. you paid $100 for 1 year, then 100/12 = X - (2 + # of months used ). For accounts purchased through our resellers, we can not guarantee a refund because you will have to contact the reseller company.

::: Status of Repair :::
Currently some of the domainpointers are not pointing correctly. And if you believe your account is missing or not functioning correctly, please email support@xism.net immediately for express support attention. Please don't email to any APHosting email addresses.

::: Andy Leaving the Company ? :::
For the clients or whoever which spoke with Tony, here is what really happened. After I've noticed the httpd.conf was corrupted after the reboot and i've went in there and found most of the entries missing. I started to print out the account list from WHM and enter it; however, I think a couple of clients got a hold of Tony and made the situation look very bad so he had Tim changed all the passwords and rebooted the server and told me I'm off. As of this afternoon I got an email and I've started to reply to emails via ICQ and AIM. For the people looking for me yesterday, I'm sorry but if you need to have a talk with me please feel free to IM me. Again I'm not leaving APHosting as I am here to assist clients / resellers on whatever they need.

::: For Confused users of Server Starnight :::
In replying to emails, I've have decided to make this public. If you are confused wether you should move to another webhosting company and wondering whats in it for you if you stay at APHosting. Here is the answer:

1) If you want to move, we are not stopping you. If you need help in moving your files, dumping databases. We will even assist you on however we can.

2)For the people that have cancelled / removed their account via removing their entry in paysystems and would like to come back (not likely :( ) you can contact me for a special deal.

If anyone have questions please post, I don't mind bringing everything up to the public. It was our fault and if all the users of starnight server wishes to flame Aphosting.com, you may do it in your own pleasure. However, Xism has nothing to do with APHosting and I apologize for everything. For the people wondering why is Xism and APHosting registered under my name, I have registered these domain names and it will be transfering over to the correct owner in a couple of months. Basically Ownership between Tony and Me is 6:4.

Since its already news that the remainder of the sites will be transfered to Xism, resellers will be given the option to resell agregated resources (something similar to mchost.com ). I will provide more info if the resellers emails me directly.

:::Why phone calls weren't returned:::

I know a couple clients have called me all night. When Tony said I'm out, it really hurts..... Right now if you call and leave a message I will call you back after all the work load on the recovery is done.

I hope this helps.

I am very impressed by Synergy's response. You have really handled a bad situation well!

I hope all works out for you. :)

Some users of APH may remember me... I *WAS* an employee, then just a friend. I was screwed over by Andy, without warning I was deactivated, and my site and ALL of my files taken from me with an error saying I exceeded my bandwidth when I DID NOT. :(

I know a lot about the problems with servers etc, and I would recommend you stay away from the new company unless some large improvements and changes are made soon. :angry:

Originally posted by BryanAPH
Some users of APH may remember me... I *WAS* an employee, then just a friend. I was screwed over by Andy, without warning I was deactivated, and my site and ALL of my files taken from me with an error saying I exceeded my bandwidth when I DID NOT. :(

I know a lot about the problems with servers etc, and I would recommend you stay away from the new company unless some large improvements and changes are made soon. :angry:

Bryan,

If you are regarding to me not adding bandwidth to your site as screwing you over. Please letme clearify it. Personally I do not appreciate the idea of you having your friend iming me about " out of bandwidth" errors and not yourself. Since he is not a client, I can not simply add bandwidth to you every week or 2 because the users sharing your resources are using it up and having them come to me and complain, over and over. If it was you who came up to me and asked "Can I have more resources? " I would have gave you more allowments; however, you have disappeared on me which I really didn't mind. Now what type of work did you do? I do appreciate you had your friend call me and notify me of the server being unreachable few months back and I really appreciate it. I'm a easy going person, if you needed something just say so straight up to me. As you know that your site is out of bandwidth (5 GB allowment) right now, but you never came up to me nor showed up at AIM when I wanted to talk to you about it. All you did was have your user which uses a folder to come to me and complain about the server (which was really only his site). It would be great if you could have went online and talk about it. Now I will not add resources if your users come directly to me simply I don't think its my responsibility. I'm keeping my word on the free domain and free hosting made to you. If you want to change the nameservers or anything to another host or if you want it to stay on APH (I can move it the Xism) go ahead and email or we can have a chat at AIM. I basically considered you as a friend instead of a worker because you didn't really work but you've helped me alot by helping a client design his board and I really appreciate it. Please speak to me via AIM. Your bandwidth limit was not consumed by you but rather its by your users sharing it. You might want to check your webstats to see which folder consumed all of it.

Bryan, (food for thought for you)
Improvements are already on the way. Its because you haven't been online for the past 4-6 weeks. You've might missed our discussions with Mat and Tim.

:::::Off Topic:::::::

Since while I'm here, I would like to announce for the people emailing me why it takes me 2-10 hours for a reply in email. Its simply because you emailed to the wrong email address. Now by emailing andy_w@xism.net you only reached one person for support but if you email support@xism.net , it will be more than just me monitoring it. Please email support@xism.net and to reach billing directly, please email billing@xism.net and not support@xism.net .

I never worked for you??? I got you half of your clients, you were never online to talk to them, I sold the accounts. I even helped them with cgi, php, installations, design, etc, etc. All that for nearly nothing, you weren't on enough to see what all I did, many of these people threatened to leave because it took you weeks to answer their emails. I was the one who kept them with you, I was the one that when the server went down *ALL THOSE TIMES* kept assuring them that everything was fine. When the HD crashed I'm the one who kept them all from leaving. You wouldn't have made it without me simply because you became LAZY! :angry:

I never used 5gigs of bandwidth in a month. You know that, Andy. I'm not worried about the domain or anything else, the reason I haven't been online is because when I'm on your not. I have two people on my account, neither one with a site active enough to consume 5gigs of bandwidth. My site definately doesnt because it had not yet been released. When I do see you on aim you do not message me, you could have at least told me I was in danger of deactivation. Everytime I accessed cpanel it never once showed I was anywhere near 5gigs, then I would go to sleep wake up and the next day it was back to being offline once again. :rolleyes:

Anywhoooo... you each have email addresses right? Let's contact eachother privately...

GO BRYAN WOOOOOOOOOOO lol WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Andy BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Andy BOOOOOOOOOOOOO


2 cents


If it gets Fixed ANDY YAY WOOOOOOOOOOO

BRYAN THE HERO WOOOOOOOOOOOO

This is Mat, I didn't feel like registering for just one post....



http://www.xism.net/bryan-over.gif


Yeah, never used over 5gb.....


I agree that this should be settled in private, but since he wants to lie in public...


Now, I had to take 5 minutes away from working on the server, to answer his post, what would you rather me do? Work on the server, and get your sites up, or respond to your flames.....


I can do either, but frankly, I'd rather get this server up and back running, we are sorry for the downtime, and I'm waiting on a list of users and domains effected from resellers now, so I can go though and fix those also, the main accounts should be back up.....


Because we don't have a record of all resold accounts I have to wait for the resellers to get me this information....

there are so many things wrong with your servers you can't rely on any of that information... andy reactivated me, then two days after it said that same crap.. no way i used that much in two days...

i would email you, but this way i dont have to wait 6months for you to check your email..

the servers are down so much that i doubt i had the opportunity to use that much bandwidth..