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  1. #26
    P.S. In the past, Tier II together with Brent, things always worked out... I was, until now, far happier with your hosting than where I came from. Instead of threatening me, why don't you help fix it? Thank you and God Bless!

  2. #27
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    5,849
    Quote Originally Posted by CrazyPete View Post
    when in reality, in HostGator's words,

    "At around 2:30 am CDT on 4/10/2012 an upper tier administrator began an architecture migration on this server. This involved switching the server from a 32 bit over to 64 bit architecture which has many clear benefits, though I believe is likely the cause of this issue."
    If they were making changes to the server OS at around the time your problems started, it would be a natural assumption that those changes might be the cause. Now however, knowing that the problem was a missing RewriteRule, it's very hard to see how the update described could cause that. Did you look for that missing rule in the .htaccess files in your backups, as I suggested earlier?

    HG say they didn't change your files, and they'd have no reason to, so if you didn't do it either then perhaps you need to consider the possibility that someone else has unauthorised access to your account. Given the history of remote shell exploits on the script you're using that wouldn't be too surprising, even if you believe your version isn't vulnerable.

    BTW, is the website working now?
    Chris

    "Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them." - Laurence J. Peter

  3. #28
    foo: The way it was explained to me (from the previous host that created this monster) was that a file above the top-folder directory that I Have access to (perhaps another .htaccess file?) took care of what was being done (and worked fine at both the old host and HG) -- Apparently HG updated something (whatever they said they did in that message I copy/pasted) and didn't make the same changes after the update which caused things to no longer work.

    It appears that what you did is working as it should. I'm a little anal (couldn't you tell? LOL) so I want to go over it with a fine tooth comb.

    At this point, I'd like to compensate you for your help. Donation to a charity or to yourself... PM me or whatever.

    I won't even go into the fact that HG wouldn't help me, and we pay them... that I got help from a total stranger. That much I'm more grateful than you know!

    Thanks again, and PM me!
    Pete

  4. #29
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    London, UK
    Posts
    4,721
    Agreed, let's not go into the discussion about the fact your host is not there to help with your code, unless you are paying them as your developer also. This thread will just go round in circles like a one-legged duck trying to swim.

    I was too lazy to analyse your file line-by-line so fair play to foobic.

    Just glad you're back up and running

  5. #30
    Loon: Thanks for the reply. I've pretty much given up explaining that this has *nothing* to do with my code -- it has to do with the fact that they made a change that removed the code!

    At this point, the gently admitted that they did in fact make changes, my only hope is that down the road they let people know BEFORE they do something that they aren't 100% certain won't impact their site.


  6. #31
    Join Date
    Feb 2005
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    5,849
    Quote Originally Posted by CrazyPete View Post
    I won't even go into the fact that HG wouldn't help me, and we pay them... that I got help from a total stranger.
    Pete, there's a really important point here that you need to understand: Your host is not your developer. HG didn't break your website and they had zero responsibility to pay their devs to fix it for you. If you don't understand how it works, you need to hire someone who does (and in case anyone's wondering, that someone won't be me!). Abusing the host's support staff for being unable / unwilling to do your job (or your developer's) is completely unfair.

    In the end you got some help on a forum, based on a lucky guess. I find this sort of puzzle interesting and I get help all the time from anonymous forum posters (though usually by Googling for answers after others have asked the question I want answered) so I'm glad to give something back. If you want to make a donation anyway, that's great - pick your favourite charity.

    Final point: What you've got now isn't a viable system to continue with. You really do need to start creating a new website based on something more solid and migrating your data. If you don't do this in a planned way then sooner or later (probably sooner) you'll be going through this situation again with extended downtime and all the consequences that brings.

    Again, good luck. I hope it works out for you.
    Chris

    "Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them." - Laurence J. Peter

  7. #32
    Clearly I'm not explaining it right.

    1) Site was working perfectly.
    2) Host made changes that caused site to no longer work perfectly. Site was not changed by anyone.

    Or let's use a parked car as an example. Car is in working order, parked in a safe legal spot. Owner comes out and finds out that Mrs. Smith has driven into your parked car and now I can't open the door. You have done NOTHING wrong. Mrs. Smith made a mistake that caused your car to no longer be like it was.

    I really don't understand what has been so hard to understand about that??

    We can all agree the code isn't -- and I'm certain there are many sites that aren't perfect either. -- however, when the OTHER person makes the mistake, they should own-up to it and help fix it. Not blame the other person.

    At some point, I'm certain we'll migrate to a different method... hopefully HostGator will be better able to help in the future -- and hopefully both parties have learned a lot from this. Especially since we just turned on another site with HostGator that went live yesterday! -- I know, go figure. LOL.

    Thanks.
    Pete

  8. #33
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    texas
    Posts
    1,333
    There are a few problems with all of this………..

    As you said in the ticket the problem started sometime between 3/31/2012 and when you opened your ticket on 4/10/2012 This time gap can be the very reason why we're struggling to track this down.

    "I do not know when it first happened, however it was working, for
    certain around 3/31/2012 - and perhaps later"

    Are you telling me you didn't work on your site in the last 10 days prior to you seeing it not working?

    Your htaaccess didn't work when we transferred your site in. Our tech Xaviar has to recode parts of your site to get it to work, and as a thank you bashed us on wht.

    "This worked perfectly before we transferred out host to HostGator, and then I was able to get it working again on HostGator thanks to Xaviar! Now, today 4/10/2012 "

    This is now the third thread you created on webhostingtalk bashing us because you believe we broke your site and messed with your htaccess. We have better things to do then to go into our customer’s sites editing their htaccess files and breaking their sites. Seriously what would we have to gain from this? We have plenty of work to do without creating more for ourselves.

    This is going to keep happening again and again. It is not our job to continue to recode your site and get bashed in the process. It is proof this isn't a hostgator problem since you're able to fix the problem yourself by fixing your code. If it was a configuration problem on our end we'd have to change our config to get your site to work again.

    Once again I’m going to ask that you find a new host. I’ll be happy to refund you the last 12 months of hosting you paid us for to do so. The only way you’re ever going to believe us that we’re not the problem is when you see this happen elsewhere. It’s not a matter of if but when this same problem happens again as a result of an exploit, you making changes, and or the script breaking itself.

  9. #34
    First things first. Take a breather. You're contradicting yourself as well as what other HG support staff have said.

    Xaviar fixed a problem that was caused by Hostgator, not me. You said you could transfer my site, and when you did, you were unable to do so -- I had to work with Xavier (after a similar battle to get beyond a person like you and to a person that knows what they are doing) Xaviar, as I have said countless times, is a super-star in my opinion. I would be VERY surprised if he even still works there -- he is terrific. To be blunt, he is the complete opposite of you. You are nasty, combative, and of NO help. Let's just call it like it is.

    Your reference to my dates of 3/31-4/10 has nothing to do with the issue. I clearly stated that I don't know when it stopped working -- only what the benchmark date was for when it WAS working. Had HG done what they should have done from the start, and realized that there WERE CHANGES MADE BY HOSTGATOR we could have solved this A LOT sooner!

    Instead, much like you are now, you continue to place the blame on me? I don't know what is wrong with you... READ THE EXPLANATION OF THE PROBLEM!!! The code was located in a place that I DID NOT HAVE ACCESS TO - THE CODE WAS LOCATED IN A FILE ABOVE WHERE I COULD ACCESS IT WAS PLACED THERE BY HOSTGATOR AND YOU REMOVED IT!!

    Instead of continuing to butt heads with me over an error that HostGator made (which does you NO good in a public arena) and taking the nasty road and trying to make me do even more work by having to move again. Keep in mind that have other sites hosted there as well and have never had this kind of trouble.

    Do yourself a favor and drop it. Things are clearly different at HostGator... I don't know if the powers-that-be know what is going on here or not, but the way you are handling it is horrible. To keep saying you want me gone because you can't handle fixing thing tells the world that when the going gets tough HostGator doesn't pull through.

    Until you read the entire situation and have a firm grasp of the situation, please stop wasting my time and move on. Maybe you can "help" another HostGator user in need.

    Or, let's hope that great people like
    Joshua Martin, Xaviar, or Brent the big man himself, stay around long enough to weed people like you out.

    Please don't respond you're only inflaming the issue.

    Thanks,
    Pete

  10. #35
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    London, UK
    Posts
    4,721
    Ok, any value I can offer to this thread is probably decreasing with each post, but it's starting to resemble the one-legged duck I mentioned earlier.

    Pete, I understand your postion, and while I still don't agree 100%, because unless I got confused somewhere, this boils down to a .htaccess entry that was removed and in my experience, no host would have done that.

    If you're not happy with the way they handled this, take the offer of a 12 month refund and move elsewhere, that's a pretty unusual and fair offer IMO. The thread will stand and people can make their own judgement having read both sides.

    Last post from me, but this is going nowhere.

    </thread>

  11. #36
    Loon: Thanks. At this time, the truth is, HG's up time is great and the server performance is wonderful. This bump in the road, that was simply handled really poorly, is no reason to over-react.

    I sent a letter to HG to let them know those that helped and those that hindered... hopefully our resident hostgator.com rep will have the sense to simply let it go.

  12. #37
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    30
    CrazyPete,
    After looking into this, nothing was changed in your htaccess file. You had the exact same issue last year, since when your site was migrated, it required custom httpd.conf changes in order for it to work.
    Last edited by MrCollins; 04-11-2012 at 04:22 PM.

  13. #38
    Join Date
    Dec 2002
    Location
    texas
    Posts
    1,333
    Hi Pete,


    We were finally able to figure out exactly what happened here….


    A year ago when we transferred your site over your site didn't work even though it was an identical copy to your old host. You didn't believe us that it was a coding issue and accused of making changes to your site and bashed us all over WHT.

    The real reason it didn't work is because your coder made a redirect in the servers root httpd config file to make your site work. Since this wasn't in a cPanel include file on the old server it didn't carry over. We worked to correct your .htaccess so that it could be used instead. The site itself was listed under the public_html of an account that required FrontPage extensions. After a couple of changes, it appears that FrontPage extensions were disabled and re-enabled a few times at your request which kept causing the .htaccess for the account to be overwritten. Due to how FrontPage extensions work, this wipes out all .htaccess under the public_html. Some of the custom file references would have required recoding your site to move it out of the public_html to work properly to avoid this issue if FrontPage extensions were enabled in the past.

    To resolve this we coded a custom include (something generally reserved for servers with root access, as updates to our servers would cause this to be wiped out) while this issue was being resolved with your FrontPage extensions to avoid downtime. It appears that the code was never corrected in the .htaccess again after the FrontPage extension issues were resolved. These changes will still need to be made in case you ever need to disable and re-enable FrontPage. The changes required will be to remove any hardcoded file references that include full paths or partial paths outside the current directory. The addon domain will then need to be moved outside the public_html (i.e. /home/username/addondomain.com/ instead of /home/username/public_html/addondomain.com/ ).


    To simplify……

    Your code is terrible and came over to us non working requiring us to do a hack job at root level. We recently upgraded your server from 32bit to 64 bit which caused this hack job to be lost. I suppose you could say we’re at fault for breaking it this time, however this hack job is actually against our policy and something that should have never of been done to begin with. We told you from the very beginning we wouldn’t be able to guarantee it and that you should hire a programmer to recode your site.

    The fact is the entire problem here is your code and you’re going to continue to run into issues with us or any other hosting provider until it’s fixed.

    If you ever enable / disable frontpage extensions you’re going to break your site. If and when you do this whole issue is going to start over again, you’ve been warned. You shouldn’t even be using Frontpage extensions it hasn’t been supported by Microsoft in years!

    It’s also just matter of time before someone exploits your script and destroys your site.

    We can’t continue to be liable for all of your coding issues. I’m going to once again have to request you move to another hosting provider and or hire a programmer to do the dirty work for you.

    Foobic really seems to know his stuff, I’d highly recommend reaching out to him to see if he’d be willing to recode your site for a fee. I’d be happy to chip in your last year of hosting you paid us if means we’re off the hook for your problems.

  14. #39
    I'm beginning to think that this is some kind of joke.

    Where's emoticon for the banging the head against the wall. This guy is a real character. Hopefully he won't be around long.

    I'll spare repeating, yet again, that the site worked perfectly before I moved it, and you simply had a hiccup in getting it working after it was transferred. Then you made a mistake when you made changes to the server and didn't do a proper analysis of how it was previously set up.

    You denied there were changes, then you admitted you did in fact make changes. Good enough, you should have just said, "Hey! I'm very very sorry, we did in fact make changes that effected your site because you had something setup that we don't usually see. I found a better way to fix it so that it is all on directories that you can edit and take care of yourself. Again, please accept our apologies."

    That would have been perfect. Instead, just like you are now, you keep beating the same drum over and over and over and over. Too blind to see that you screwed up and now you're trying to blame me for your screw-up.

    You keep talking about exploits in the site. We've paid a small fortune to insure that there are NO exploits in the site -- if you can find one, please, contact me on my personal cell phone and I'll be happy to listen. Until then, do everyone a favor and be gone.

    Additionally, you are starting to make me feel like you're going to do something on purpose to harm my livelihood and the livelihood of those that work here. I suggest that you either contact me in person to discuss this or just end it. I seriously doubt people are going to want to use a host that makes them feel like you are making me fee right now. Give it some serious thought.

    I guess you just don't get it. But hey -- if you want to keep bumping the thread up instead of letting it subside, go ahead and keep doing it. I'll be happy to post up some links on some other threads to warn others...

    Once again, let it go.

    Thanks,
    Pete

  15. #40
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Florida
    Posts
    1,932
    CrazyPete, I really hope you keep good backups because based on how you're treating HostGator (along with the multiple hints that you should leave) make it look like they won't be keeping you for much longer.

    This is not about who was right or wrong but about making a smart business decision. For you, it would be finding a new host before you go offline. For HostGator, it would be dropping you as a client before more damage is done.
    -Joe @ Secure Dragon LLC.
    + OpenVZ Powered by Wyvern | KVM | cPanel Hosting | Backup VPSs | LowEndBoxes | DDOS Protection
    + Florida | Colorado | Illinois | California | Oregon | Georgia | New Jersey | Arizona | Texas

  16. #41
    ZKuJoe: Understood. Thanks!
    Last edited by CrazyPete; 04-14-2012 at 07:35 AM.

  17. #42
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    /root
    Posts
    23,991
    Looking at the last post of HG, he is saying that you made a custom setup or configuration in your .htaccess or apache from your old server. Correct?

    If that is the case, I agree with HG as cPanel will surely reset the configuration during transfer and it needs to re-configure it manually again if needed.

    Other than this, I don't know. Only HG can tell :-)

    Specially 4 U
    Reseller Hosting: Boost Your Websites | Fully Managed KVM VPS: 3.20 - 5.00 Ghz, Pure Dedicated Power
    JoneSolutions.Com is on the net 24/7 providing stable and reliable web hosting solutions, server management and services since 2001
    Debian|Ubuntu|cPanel|DirectAdmin|Enhance|Webuzo|Acronis|Estela|BitNinja|Nginx

  18. #43
    More to follow...

  19. #44
    Good day:

    FrontPage (which Microsoft stopped supporting -- it is EOL for several years now) and .htaccess don't get along well.

    Thank you.
    ---
    Peter M. Abraham
    LinkedIn Profile

  20. #45
    Join Date
    Jun 2001
    Location
    Kalamazoo
    Posts
    33,412
    Quote Originally Posted by CrazyPete View Post
    More to follow...
    Obviously there's going to be more to follow. Unless, of course, you take everyone's advice and update your site to a more stable solution.

    Lucky that HostGator is so patient. I would have fired you as a customer long ago.

    Good luck to everyone involved.
    There is no best host. There is only the host that's best for you.

  21. #46
    I wish I knew why you're saying that... but I'll leave it alone.

  22. #47
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
    Location
    North of some border
    Posts
    5,613
    As someone with a non-technical background, here's my understanding of what happened based on what's in this thread.

    Your script stopped working when HG made a change, so it appeared on the surface to be HG's fault. But we need to go beyond the surface.

    According to several people in this thread, your script was "a nasty outdated insecure mess." It worked somehow with your previous host, but because it was poorly written and using outdated technologies, it couldn't work instantly when you moved to HG. HG staff recoded it for you -- which wasn't their responsibility -- and warned you that it was a temporary fix and that you should hire a programmer to recode your site.

    You didn't hire a programmer to recode it, and a year later, the script broke the site again.

    Here's an analogy. Imagine that you rent a house and move into it. Once you're there, your stereo system doesn't work although it did work before the move. That isn't the landlord's problem, but he offers to help you with it anyway. He observes that the setup is a nasty outdated insecure mess and somehow manages to get it working, but he informs you that you really need to get it fixed by an electronics specialist or the fix won't last.

    You don't get someone else to fix it, and sure enough, it eventually breaks down. Whether the landlord did something else at the same time is irrelevant -- the stereo system was the problem.

    Imagine that landlords have online reputations like web hosts do. Would any other landlord be willing to rent to you when you publicly blamed and bashed your previous landlord, who had gone beyond his responsibilities to help you and had told you what you needed to do to fix your problem?

    These are the key points I got from this:

    1. The script was the cause of the problem. You'd been told that some time ago. You fixed the problem by adding a line to the script.
    2. The web host isn't responsible for your scripts any more than your landlord is responsible for your stereo system.

    Everyone is telling you the same thing. Other than HG, the participants have no reason to take sides. I've seen members side with the complainant as often as they do with the host. Please pay attention to what they're trying to tell you. It's the only way to keep your site working, and they really are trying to help you.

    Lois
    "Do what you can, where you are, with what you have." – Theodore Roosevelt

  23. #48
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Philadelphia, PA
    Posts
    612
    Read the entire thread and what I don't understand is if your entire livelihood is resting on this one site, why it is being hosted on HostGator's shared servers. It sounds like your previous host did some customizations with httpd.conf and that is outside of the cPanel transfer process. It is not very typical for a large shared host to modify their server configuration from the root level to make one site work on their server, and it isn't a surprise that they overlooked a custom configuration in one file when updating the entire server.

    CrazyPete, just keep in mind that in most host's TOS they reserve the right to terminate their service with you for a number of reasons. Harassment, slander, really anything under their interpretation, they can ask you to leave for. And by ask you to leave, that usually means you will not be given an option to pay for your service past the current end date. With that in mind, as I said previously most cPanel hosts probably won't go that far in their configuration files to make your site work. So it may be in your best interest to work with the HostGator team to ensure that your site is compatible with their servers, or move to a host it is compatible with.

    Or, you could just have someone recode the site and save you a lot of headaches in the future.

    /my2cents

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