After six days of mostly downtime, I tonight received this email from my web host, Optimizer GmbH <www.host-web-site.com>:

"Hello, Dear Client!
Our server was under attacking by group of hackers since April 16th and to the current moment.
All our specialist are working in order to "up" the server.
We hope the server will be working today at evening.
Hosting is free for all clients between the 16th and 23 April.
Please, accept our apologues for problems.
Contact with (....) if you want to cancel hosting with us.
Thank you very much!
Sincerely..."

Though a couple days ago I got an email from them saying that the outage was due to heavy traffic and that a new server was on order.

I've been with them a year, and uptime has been spotty, and access often agonizingly slow. However, support has been lightning quick, they've fixed any problem I've had, though sometimes the language problem has proven confusing. I admit, too, that my site is small and simple and hasn't encountered the technical tests that others here have to contend with.

I like them, they try hard, I want them to succeed. They are cheap. My hair is turning gray (grayer).

About once a month I spend a few hours trolling for a new host. It's how I found this forum. I'm wondering if today is the day I should pull the plug.

I would say to give up right about now.. 6 days is WAY to much downtime for pretty much anything unless there datacenter fell into a crater due to a 9.1 earthquake and they need to rebuild. Also they are not charging you for the "downtime" Geez what a deal that is.. I would email them and ask for like 2 or 3 months free for the downtime if they say no start searching. Most hosts offer a guarantee that they will not have downtime and I know we give a month free for anything over 4 minutes. Post in the requests forum and I am sure you will get some replys from companies with uptime guarantee's that are half decent. Good luck

Yeah, I'd say about now.

as a host i can sympathise with them, there are two possibilities,
1 - they are under attack
2 - they are fibbing and its their messup.

if its 1 then i really do feel sorry for them. some jackass kid somewhere is gettin his kicks outta killing this company, maybe just one persons liveihood maybe many. its up to you, how long can you stand to be down? are you loosing money, or is it that your family just cant see your latest holiday pics (that might sound a little patronising its not meant to be just trying to illustrate two different situations). i think they could do a little more then offer a few days free hosting, a free month of two would be a little more appropriate.
they could of course be lieing, or they may have decided to close the company and that rather then shut and have to pay people off they will drive you away.
it wont do any harm to find an alternative host whether you decide to use them or not.
if you can afford for the site to be down a little while longer and they are being genuine then maybe give them the benefit of the doubt. if you need your site up asap then unfortunately youll have to go elsewhere.

They've almost driven me off a few times (guess I'm not a quitter :)) and I've found a few options... tonight, at one, I got as far at the credit card details page when I got the email from the company, and decided not to pull the trigger.

I don't lose any money from the site being down, it's a personal/weblog site, gets about 500 hits a day, which is nothing. But I post to it everyday religiously and it's frustrating not to have it up.

I agree they should have offered better compensation. Thanks for the viewpoints.

maybe you could email them or phone them asking for a resolution time, if its inside a couple of days give them one last chance and if theyre not up by that date go elsewhere or if its too long then go elsewhere immediately. if they dont reply go elsewhere. also ask for more compensation and a service level agreement.
best wishes and i hope its rectified soon one way or another.

Richy: I should have mentioned in my last reply that the site is back up, email working again. Doesn't mean much, since a couple days ago they told me it was fixed, and everything seemed fine, for about three hours.

Another serious outage and I'm gone.

At least you are getting SOME sort of refund.

Now would be the time to give up!

Originally posted by OKIHost
I know we give a month free for anything over 4 minutes

How do you achieve this? On your website, you only guarante 99.5% (not 99.99%) uptime.

cheers,
:beer:

Well regardless of what anyone else says, you should move hosts when you feel it's no longer in your best interests. Different people have vastly different expectations of their host so what suits one person may not be applicable for another.

At the end of the day you should find a spot on the web that allows you to do things as you want, when you want. You're a valuable customer, evident by your attitude to sticking with them for so long considering their ups and downs. The best way to decide on a change is to look at the history you've had with them and weigh up the chances of it happening again, and then make your decision.

Greg Moore

when you need to make a thread titled 'When do you give up on a host?', it's time.

1. When your budget can no longer afford them (e.g. sudden popularity where your bandwidth is no longer in their "traditional" packages and the customized package is too expensive for you). I had to give up hosting with a good host that I was comfortable with because of this.

2. When one of your CGI files have caused server overload. This only means you have to upgrade to dedicated or have your script converted to PHP...or if you have no other alternative (or you couldn't do any of the above...find a host that specializes in forum hosting).

3. When your site is down for days and nobody answers to your plea for help. *ahem* kikkoooo (and it turns out they couldn't bill me for the secound month...and they never emailed me to tell me that there was something wrong).

4. When they've got too many customers complaining in their support forums and you're in a long queue of people who need immediate attention. *ahem* Tacid*cough*

5. When your site isn't set up in 24-48 hours after your sign up and nobody replies. And when they finally set it up, your control panel configuration is all wrong (And when you decide to leave them, their cpanel and billing system still spam your mailbox). *cough...puke* championhost.


As you can see, I've had my share of host woes...and all because of those instances where my pocket wouldn't listen to WHT advice.

Originally posted by dektong


How do you achieve this? On your website, you only guarante 99.5% (not 99.99%) uptime.

cheers,
:beer:

We guarantee 99.5% uptime. If we go 5 minutes with downtime and customer complains then we offer a free month if they choose to leave us then we credit there CC for one month. May seem like we would loose out but our uptime is good it has not really had to happen yet.

Originally posted by OKIHost
I would say to give up right about now.. 6 days is WAY to much downtime for pretty much anything unless there datacenter fell into a crater due to a 9.1 earthquake and they need to rebuild. Also they are not charging you for the "downtime" Geez what a deal that is.. I would email them and ask for like 2 or 3 months free for the downtime if they say no start searching. Most hosts offer a guarantee that they will not have downtime and I know we give a month free for anything over 4 minutes. Post in the requests forum and I am sure you will get some replys from companies with uptime guarantee's that are half decent. Good luck
Hi, guys!
Our server was "down" only 10-12 hours on the 23th but we had problems between April 16-23.
Thanks!