eukhost is easily the worst hosting company I've had to deal with in recent times.

Here's a few problems I've had with them recently:

1. They automatically block the post function unless a domain is whitelisted. So if you install a blog or forum with eukhost, you have to specifically request to have the domain whitelisted, or the software won't work. Not great for reseller accounts.

2. They automatically filter your email for you at the server level. I almost lost a contract with a major high street brand because eukhost were filtering out their emails

3. Server performance isn't great. And eukhost always deny any kind of problems. The other day one server was repeatedly inaccessible throughout an 11 hour period. Sometimes down, sometimes just freezing up. First two support emails had replies stating nothing was wrong. When I push the issue, eventually they admited there may have been a very small temporary downtime issue. Get real - the server was completely dysfunctional through the day.

4. Built an important website the other day - just visited it and found that eukhost has kept the database but lost the hosted files. Will have to rebuild the site again. Thanks eukhost.

The amount of time I've had to spend dealing with eukhost issues means it has been by far the most expensive hosting company I've had to deal with.

What's really annoying is that I've got quite a few sites with them now, so going to have to invest time in migrating out.

Waste of time all round.

Those are some pretty bad points.

Can't you adjust the SpamAssassin setting from within your CP? I know our customers can do it with Plesk, but don't know what CP eukhost use.

Hello,

1. This is due to the mod_security settings. Mod_security is there as a security measure and removing it isn't an option. We are conducting a review of this policy to see if we can make the rules more flexible for our customers and at the same time maintain security. As inconvenient as it may be, as your initial post indicated, there is also a current work around for this. You can have full control over this with our VPS or Dedicated server plans.

2. This is related to the filtering that we automatically perform for our shared hosting clients. I have also asked for a review to make sure our existing filter policies are not too tight. With the large amounts of spam around, these filters are necessary for the vast majority of our clients. You can have full control over this with our VPS or Dedicated server plans.

3. If you are not entirely happy, with the support you have received, you can always ask for your ticket to be escalated to a manager. I encourage you to do so if you feel our support department were lacking in any way. Alternatively, please PM your ticket number and I will look into it for you.

4. We do take our backups very seriously but occasionally problems can occur. It is ultimately your responsibility to have at least one backup of your websites, especially if they are of such high value.

I would strongly disagree with your assessment of our pricing, however tongue in cheek it was. It would seem a proper pre-sales chat would have enlightened you to our policies and also alternatives could have been presented to you.

2. They automatically filter your email for you at the server level.The spam fight affecting the end users; I've always had a bit of a beef with this. IMO it should always be the end user who decides how much legitimate email he's willing to lose in the fight against spam. That being said, sometimes it is like it is, and as a customer you can always choose with your wallet.

It would seem a proper pre-sales chat would have enlightened you to our policiesMost of the things I see presented can't be addressed in a simple pre-sales conversation. You just can't know how emails will be affected, or that downtime will occur, or that the backup won't work as designed to.

Ryan, I don't know a single other host who applies the same mod_security settings you do, and I use dozens of hosting companies.

Also, I'm not a shared customer, but a reseller, and it should be up to reseller to filter their mail accordingly IMO.

Support and backup issue aren't exactly rare in the hosting industry, but communication is a premium customer retention strategy - if something goes wrong, and support is open about that, you can keep customers happy. Telling them there is no issue when there plainly is, is rarely encouraging.

Also, may be worth revisiting your invoicing system - I get Paypal receipts for individual payments, but I get different invoices for the totalled amounts for all accounts. My book keeper already hates you for it. :)

At the end of the day, though, I'm venting and posting in anger, which is rarely a good idea.

But, Ryan, eukhost has issues and the longer you leave them addressed, the less likely you can be viewed favourably as a hosting provider.

Hello Brian,

That may be true but the settings we generally have are there for a reason. As previously mentioned, we are reviewing these rules to see if we can be more flexible. I can agree with your stance on filtering your own e-mail and that is something we will look into. For the vast majority of our shared and reseller customers the current filtering is operating without any problems.

We can not fix bad communication problems until we become aware of them. Please PM me your ticket ID and I will look into it.

You can also request your invoices to be split separately.

I have no interest in ignoring issues. We constantly strive to improve and the best way of doing that is to listening to our customers.

What's really annoying is that I've got quite a few sites with them now, so going to have to invest time in migrating out.

Waste of time all round.

You probably already know this, but a lot of hosts will help you migrate to them, especially if it's something like Cpanel to Cpanel. I know it's a pain and a hassle in general, but sometimes it's best to cut your losses as they say........
:)

Well, there was an issue with billing with eUKhost, plus blocked a major site from being unable to republish its own feed to itself. Not entirely unusual with various webhosts, and was resolved fine enough.

But now I cannot access 2 of my reseller accounts - I migrated out the main domains for these after problems with eUKhost, but it appears that since then the accounts have been migrated to different servers - only the first two answers to support tickets have failed in any way to even try to suggest what the new IPs are.

Additionally, on the third reseller account, I cannot access 4 of the 14 shared accounts on there. eUKhost support were very helpful in telling myself that I have 14 accounts on the reseller account, but so far have ignored the fact that I cannot access these.

On my fourth account, a dedicated IP being paid for no longer appears present - in fact, it seems to have been moved to the third reseller account after the server migration.

So, overall, continued **** ups from eUKhost, and support that has yet to even begin to address the issues I'm raising.

eUKhost - please raise the standards on your service, because at the moment it's very substandard.

Their uptime looks quite good though:

http://www.webhostingstuff.com/uptime/eUKhost.html

99.98% over the past couple years. Granted WebHostingStuff only monitors their main domain name.

It doesn't sound too good on their end so far.

Don't forget that on webhostingstuff companys can reset their uptime at anytime, not suggesting they have merely that it should be taken into account.

I'd highly suggest biting the bullet and moving on at this point, Hopefully you'll have better luck with your next host.

Hello Brian,

All of your issues have now been resolved. If you are not entirely satisfied, I can arrange a refund for you. Let me know if you wish to take advantage of this.

I would hope the thread could now be closed. Although I don't want to stop free discussion, I have a strange feeling this is going to turn into a spam fest for certain hosts to advertise their services.

Thanks for the reply, Ryan - all appears fixed now, and it looks like most of the problems were possibly caused by the reseller accounts being migrated to new servers a while back.

The problems caused by this to my reseller accounts was one annoyance.

However, the inability for your support people to address issues as they were raised was the real problem.

Problems happen - it's inevitable at some point. It's how they are resolved which is important.

I think there are definite improvements that can be made to both areas, though, for eukhost.

2c.

Hi Brian,

I'm not denying that there is room for improvement, there was definitely a delay in which I was not too happy about. To be fair though, I think you would have to admit that they weren't handled horribly and your initial post came across as a bit too harsh.

I would rather ask you to speak to a manager before you come and post on WHT. I think that's a reasonable thing to request and possibly even expect.

The problem is one of frustration when support does not appear to be addressing concerns raised. I think it's more reasonable to expect support provided for works as expected.

For example, in the more recent issue, I couldn't access one of my reseller accounts because the password was locked out. The third support reply stated that I was locked out, and would I like the password reset? So I had to send a fourth support email to have the issue raised in the first ticket finally addressed.

You have to expect issues in this industry - but when support requests do not have their initial concerns addressed, it forces the customer into an unwelcome position.

I know there are a lot of crud hosts out there, and I've managed to avoid most of them - eukhost has a reputation of being an established hosting provider, but the degree of issues I've had to address has been more than disappointing.

2c.

Sorry to hear your problems Brian, but at least they are trying to solve the problem from what I am reading. I hope you get it resolved.
Good Luck!

No, not trying to solve the problems - I've had to put in yet another request to have another domain whitelisted from mod_security.

I mean, seriously, webhosts - if you cannot allow clients to run basic website software such as CMS and forum applications on your servers - then please make sure clients are warned that your service will therefore be substandard before sign-up.

Ryan, you asked me to speak to people about issues before now - yet you are still running mod_security to block basic software installs.

eukhost is the only company I know of that does this, and it's a complete pain for resellers to have to deal with.

Hi Brian,

Contacting support is quite a painless experience and only takes a few minutes. We have our reasons for the settings and for the vast majority of our customers it works perfectly well. As previously recommended, if you want your own settings, please consider upgrading to a VPS or Dedicated Server. Alternatively you can seek hosting services elsewhere and we will happily refund you any recent invoices.

I've been a customer of eUKhost for about 6 months now and in general their support has been by far the best compared to other big uk hosting companies.

Yes the mod_security can be a little frustration, but I would rather have a security conscious hosting company than an ignorant one and have any willy nilly script be uploaded and used. Their online chat is normally answered in an instant and domains can be unblocked within 10mins.

What annoys me is many hosting users, whether shared or reseller forget they are not the only account hosted on the server. A shared or reseller user are always at some point going to have to compromise on flexibiity and security, unless they have their own server in which case do what you so wish.

eUKhost do of course have their flaws (and could do with lightening on their mod_security), but you cannot beat their dedication and courteous manner, especially Ryan and Mark.

Chris.

Are these restrictive security policies only on the shared hosting?

I have being looking at Dedicated servers with your company, the one thing that I would want changing from the dedicated security section is that php curl() is turned off, I presume as a dedicated server, the customer would be able to get that enabled?

Hello,

You may use whatever settings you wish on your own server and we will also help to configure it to your personal requirements.

I have contacted the support for some of my PHP scripts but most of them just don't work on this host, while they do on other hosts.

Some scripts started working after I contacted the support and then stop working again without letting me know. I link to iframes on another host until I have time to transfer it.