Hi at 7th January I signup for a sonataweb WHT special package. (ref: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=472041 - I signup for their RESELLER SPECIAL 1 package) which activated at 8th January.

This special package offers private nameservers with other specials. But I feel uncomfortable when order processing page shown my domain is going to against their nameservers. So in order processing page I place a short note about my demand on private nameservers

But they activate my account (8th January) against their nameservers. So I again request them to assign nameservers against my domain & find a reply (9th January) that “ To setup private nameservers, please point them to the IP's 207.210.85.146 & 207.210.85.147. “

To make sure I reply “ should I assign my nameservers as 207.210.85.146 – for ns1.mydomain.com & 207.210.85.147 – for ns2.mydomain.com ? (because the same ip’s are also assign against ‘ dns11.sonataweb.net & dns12.sonataweb.net)

Yesterday I again ask the same question (if they overlook it anyway ) but still no reply from them.

So it’s not a good start with them.. I worried about their support and response time. In my case response time seems infinite hours (I receive only one reply from 8th January to now) .

I need yours advice on this situation


Thanks.

Exercise your right to ask for money back if you are not getting what you paid for. Otherwise, maybe you can try to send a PM to their rep on WHT to see if you can get help that way.

Do you have an open ticket with us? Right now there is one ticket in our system that doesn't have a response, and that's one dealing with a backup issue.

Submit a ticket, and we'll fix the problem. Until then, we're unaware of any problem that you might have.

continuing Ticket ID: VIN-976173


Thanks.

That ticket was closed and responded to on the 9th, hence why there was no further response.

http://www.sonataweb.net/about/serverinfo.htmlseems they didn't keep their 99.8% uptime guarantee.

I signed up their special reseller plan too.
Had a bad start, but it was all been solved.

The problem is now the server i'm on is currently down, for more than 2 hours now. And this is the second outage of the month. All other servers are up and running, though.

Yeah, I just rolled out of bed to find greenday down. So it`s been offline for over two hours?

Seems like a very problematic server.

yeah, i even submited a ticket as soon as i found it down at about 5 p.m here in my country. still no reply from them.

MY ticket also remains unanswered. Either they`re all in bed, or all hopefully busy working on the problem. The uptime stat for January falls below their guarantee `98.651%`

Anyways, I have to head back to bed. I`m full of a cold, hoping my sites have returned when I resurface :D

yeah, im on ( GNAX ) greenday server too... its almost 3h down... ehh... other servers are fine, i should mention that its probably a problem with apache cause ftp works fine...

ok, greenday is up... no we all wait and see that caused the trouble....

When did it come back up? I never got a response from my ticket this morning. Just out of curiosity, have they restored the sites using a backup from yesterday? Anyways, good to see it the sites operational again, even if the lack of communication is rather worrying.

well i dont have any replied support tickets either , and my refund for their uptime guarantee isnt replied too, but do not worry, they didt had to restore any backups, if you'd checked ftp, you would see that server was operational, it was probably some apache/php issue....

Yeah, I wasn`t too sure. My forum had a few posts missing this morning, I wasn`t sure whether it was because an older backup was used or because my site was unavailable. Looks as though the latter was the case.

They must have a ton of tickets to answer, maybe that`s why our tickets are unanswered.

well its strange that i dont see any posts from terry here , or even at sonata forums ,its a bit disturbing i must say.

well its strange that i dont see any posts from terry here , or even at sonata forums ,its a bit disturbing i must say.Hopefully they'll take care of issues for you guys using their ticketing/support system, their forums and then surely follow up here at the "WHT Secondary Hosting Company Support Forum" where we haven't seen Terry in like almost 24 hours!!! Not to make light of your problems, but see this expectation of constant support and rebuttal on WHT is getting old. :P

http://www.sonataweb.net/about/serverinfo.htmlseems they didn't keep their 99.8% uptime guarantee.

As long as they stand by their guarantee and refund the customers who rightfully request such, there's nothing fishy. In fact one can at least appreciate the honesty of their uptime figures.

SonataWeb.Net strives to maintain a 99.8% network and server uptime service level. This uptime percentage is a monthly figure, and is calculated solely by SonataWeb.Net's monitoring systems or a 3rd party SonatWeb.Net has contracted. If SonataWeb.Net fails to meet it's 99.8% uptime guarantee, and it is not due to one of the exceptions listed below, credits will be made available to each client, upon request on a case-by-case basis. SonataWeb.Net will only credit up to 100% of the monthly fee's of the client's payment. If SonataWeb.Net fails to meet it's uptime guarantee by less than 1% of the monthly figure, a refund of 25% will be given out. If SonataWeb.Net fails to meet it's uptime guarantee by more than 1% but less than 2% a refund of 50% will be given out to the client. If SonataWeb.Net fails to meet it's uptime guarantee by more than 2% but less than 3% a refund of 75% will be given to the client. If SonataWeb.Net fails to meet it's uptime guarantee by more than 3% a 100% refund will be given out to the client.

From http://www.sonataweb.net/about/tos.html .

yet still 10 hours after the server down and still no response from sonata... no tickets, no nothing... oh well... i just hope the issues will be solved and everything will be back normal...

after my previous experiences i hope i chose the RIGHT hosting company....

I'm fairly sure you have... I've been with Sonata for a while now and it's been nothing but top-rate with the exception of one issue I'm currently trying to get worked out.

I saw Terry browsing the Sonata support forums earlier, but he's gone now and never posted...

I too did a lot of research on Sonata and decided that they were the right company to go with...have been with them since December 20th or so and have probably received about 97.5% uptime, support has been questionable. I dunno, hopefully it turns around.

*shrugs*

http://www.sonataweb.net/about/serverinfo.htmlseems they didn't keep their 99.8% uptime guarantee.
No - an uptime guarantee of 99.8 does not mean it will actually achieved, it just means that you will be refunded for anything less than 99.8 (or presumably, anyways). They could have very well refunded each and every affected customer, and how would you know this without being one yourself?

:peace:

edit - Dan beat me to it, didn't notice.

I never did get an answer to my ticket of twelve or so hours ago. Oh well, this morning is the first time I`ve experienced any signigficant downtime since joining SW just before Xmas. Had a few blips everynow and then but nothing big.

The support is questionable at times. Some days the response will be within ten minutes, other days it can be hours or even the next day. Having said, I have rarely had the need for using the ticket system until this morning. Maybe the ticketing system was having a few problems.

I think this is an isolated incident... I honestly believe that things will turn around.

Downtime today was caused by a user not waiting for the account deletion process to finish, which left the entries in the httpd.conf file. When apache went to restart, it failed due to the non-existant user entry still being in the httpd.conf file.

We didn't catch on to the downtime due to the server still being online, which fooled our internal monitor. Our external provider, HyperSpin, the account didn't have any SMS credits left so we weren't notified by them either. All in all, I think it was an issue of a lot of bad luck at the wrong time. Normally we're prepared for this, however we're swamped with work right now on our expansion plans, and getting our new employee's up to speed.

SLA requests can be sent in to the ticket center. We'll refund 100% of your money -- that goes for any of our customers on any server. We've been dropping the ball across the board, and I want to make it up to you. We're going to continue fighting through these problems and come out strong. Expect a better SonataWeb within the coming weeks, we're here to satisfy your needs and you're going to be happy you went with us.

On a related note, for those looking for refunds, please file the tickets with the title;

SLA: Refund Request

Due to our rapid growth lately and some problems we are having, truthfully, coping with it, we are really swamped on the helpdesk. We will get to your refund though, but it will be a non-priority issue.

Thanks for letting us know what the issue was. The growth at SonataWeb sounds encouraging!

inogenius (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/member.php?u=6606)

I am sick of Greenday's down time, sorry, I am leaving Sonataweb.

People from WHT aleays compliment Terry's team. But I only have bad experience with this team, frosty and slow(sometimes) ticket reply, isn't polite at all. When the server is down, the team doesn't apologize, instead they ask my to check my ISP connection.

Terry's team ain't as great as people saying.

Best luck to Terry, sonataweb and Greenday!

I don't think we've ever asked a user to check with their ISP, especially when there is a legitmate problem. We have far too many users to ever even think of getting away with that. Normally if we ask you to do a traceroute, or to check with your ISP it's because we need that information in order to diagnose the issue.

Good luck in the future with your website and your new host.

yes, terry. It will be great if you guys answer more warm and polite in the tickets.

Looking forward greenday be stronger. Cheer up, guys

Terry's team has been pretty reliable in my opinion for the past few years, I'm pretty sure if there are problems they'll get things straightened out sooner or later :)

We have priority policies regarding our tickets. Tickets by dedicated server customers regarding a downed server or having troubles with their servers staying up, we have to help them first. We are working on getting all the tickets resolved.

I am sick of Greenday's down time, sorry, I am leaving Sonataweb.

People from WHT aleays compliment Terry's team. But I only have bad experience with this team, frosty and slow(sometimes) ticket reply, isn't polite at all. When the server is down, the team doesn't apologize, instead they ask my to check my ISP connection.

hmm... i disagree, with you. the greenday had about 4-5h downtime from 22 dec 2005 ... that didnt killed anybody.... i think.
The team isnt polite ? to me at least they were VERY polite and helpful. Mybe your tickes were rude ? i dunno. ive never experiened bad treatment in sonata....

ive read here that every company has problems with support due to rapid growth. Sonata is no different i suppose. THe only reasonable thing to do now is to wait for them to solve their probems, but i think this will take time.

i'm still happy with my new host ,compared to my last one :] good luck terry :]

I agree. Growing pains are almost always a little harder to get through than normal day-to-day operations. Terry and company have been reliable for the 10 months I have been with them. I have occasional grumbles, but generally speaking they either fix the problem or explain what happened, as they did here.

I'm confident that SonataWeb will come through the growing pains and be all the stronger for it.

I have found them to be polite enough, and for the price they charge I really cannot complain. My only gripe, sometimes tickets can take a long time to be answered. Terry has been kind enough to offer a refund for those who wish it.

Terry and his team has been doing wonderful job. I have my hosting with them for past 14 months, there might be some road bumps but overall journey has been excellent. I have noticed, at times they focus more on fixing the problem than giving canned response to tickets. Well, thats ok, till the time servers up and roaring.

For sure they provide no frills, solid hosting!

Terry and his team has been doing wonderful job. I have my hosting with them for past 14 months, there might be some road bumps but overall journey has been excellent. I have noticed, at times they focus more on fixing the problem than giving canned response to tickets. Well, thats ok, till the time servers up and roaring.

For sure they provide no frills, solid hosting!

Seems to be the general consensus here, good job Terry :peace:

well it looks like there are new techs in support , so sonata is doing something to solve the problems. Were talking about refund which means they do keep their word ( i have problem because i cant receive money via paypal, only send - so they suggested me another option for refund ).
Im only curious if it is normal for the server to operate with physical memory used up above 90% ? especially if the machine should be relatively new ?

well it looks like there are new techs in support , so sonata is doing something to solve the problems. Were talking about refund which means they do keep their word ( i have problem because i cant receive money via paypal, only send - so they suggested me another option for refund ).
Im only curious if it is normal for the server to operate with physical memory used up above 90% ? especially if the machine should be relatively new ?
I'm not sure which script you're using to get your memory numbers from, but the server you're on right now has a memory usage of about 30%. Keep in mind, most scripts mis-interpret the fact that Linux cache's most memory for system optimization, and releases it as necessary. It's not actually being used.

http://greenday.secretservers.biz/index.php - this is what i was using ( its much lowe now), but ask only because of curiosity because even with memory usage above 90% it was working ok. in not into *nix systems, this is why i ask :]

http://greenday.secretservers.biz/index.php - this is what i was using ( its much lowe now), but ask only because of curiosity because ewen with memory usage above 90% it was working ok. in not into *nix systems, this is why i ask :]
That script doesn't take into account the caching. You can find the proper memory readings inside cPanel or WHM.

yup, the readings are lower in cpanel :]

Terry, I am sorry to hear you are getting some flak. I remember hosting with you some time back and your service was nothing but excellent. Hope this blows over for you.

well i think Terry's service is much better than my previous hosting company... at least i can say that after only a month of hosting.

OK... I'll agree that Sonataweb WAS better than any hosting company I had been with, up until their acquisition by Synergy.
Since that time, response to problems has slowed to a crawl, and (in my case) resolution has been nil.

C'mon... Closing a support ticket because we " 'fixed' apache so your clients site is now inoperable... Live with it.", is not REAL tech support.

I have tried to get this site working again since the 'repair' they did, for over a week. MANY hours of effort on my behalf, interspersed with once daily "maybe it's" (that's the problem with 24 hour support... It takes 24 hours to get a reply) something in your scripts.

I rebuild the site from the ground up... I install the scripts on another server.
On Sonata... It's hosed... Anywhere else, it's perfect.

Solution?

Sorry, Ticket has been closed. Our configuration no longer supports your web site.

Y'know, I am paying for hosting. This is NOT geocities. And I can't correct their configurations. If my site is to be sacrificed for the sake of somebody elses, at LEAST have the consideration of informing me that I have been disregarded.

It takes a great deal of time and effort to move a reseller site to another host, and as a reseller, I have to face the ire of my customers as well.

Honestly, I suppose you get what you pay for, but I cannot recommend sonataweb if you are truly serious about reselling quality.

As a reseller, you are bound by the capabilities of your provider.

If they can't deliver, YOU can't deliver.


My apologies in advance in the event Terry DOES get the server issues resolved. Meanwhile, I am seeking more reliable and responsive hosting.

Identify yourself please and look into it.

I'll admit, our servers have had some trouble (though we haven't changed any configuration in ... months?) and our billing/accounting department is vastly understaffed at the moment, but right now I feel our support would rival, if not beat what anyone else is offering.

Identify yourself please and look into it.

I'll admit, our servers have had some trouble (though we haven't changed any configuration in ... months?) and our billing/accounting department is vastly understaffed at the moment, but right now I feel our support would rival, if not beat what anyone else is offering.

Trouble ticket VAH-477782

Closed without resolution...

Re-opened by me to verify a fix was not forthcoming.

INSTANT UPDATE:

I just recieved a response from Terry, informing me that the server mod has been disabled.
The site us currently working. (1600 PST)

Tickets are closed after each response to keep the support desk. When you're dealing with as many tickets as we get a day, it's impossible to keep track of which ones need updating.

On this note, I re-establish my personal support of Sonataweb.

Without reservation.