Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Site suspended by Streamline.net and FastHosts.Co.Uk - Please Help

[emmett1979]

I'm hoping somebody with more experience than me might have some advice to offer in relation to this problem I'm faced with.

I run a a simple, friendly, fan site for a musician friend of mine. It is hosted with Streamline.net - which apparently hosts it with a company called FastHosts.co.uk. It's been fine since I joined last summer, however, this morning the site was shut down, the FTP access was stopped and my e-mail is not working. If somebody sends me an e-mail they get an error and it is returned to them.

In my control panel I get this warning:

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Your domain has been suspended because its operation was in breach of our Terms and Conditions. Our Abuse Team is nvestigating this issue, and will contact you during office hours to discuss the suspension. If you wish to progress this matter, please contact our Abuse Team at abuse@fasthosts.co.uk. Please beware that our Technical Support and Account Management advisors will not be able to help, until our Abuse Team has resolved the matter.
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I then e-mailed and phoned FastHosts.co.uk and, after being on hold for 40 minutes, was told that Streamline.net would have to contact them, not me. However, I can't get any response from Streamline.net either!! I've been on the phone and e-mailing both companies all day, but nobody will explain what has happened.

I have some songs available for download with the musician's full approval, and that of his management company who own 100% of the rights in this case. It is in no way in breach of any copyright laws. I don't even know if this is the reason the site was closed, as nobody will respond to me. It's a very friendly, family-oriented site and I can't imagine why anyone would consider shutting it down?!!?! There are about 1500 people who use the site every day .

There is absolutely no reason for my site to be closed down, and I'm
really upset that this could happen without any warning. Is this normal???

Please, please if you have any advice, I would really appreciate your help.

Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it.

emmett murphy
EskimoFriends.com

[David]

Theres really nothing we can do - however it sounds like it may (and this is just a guess) have been a misunderstanding.

[MMMedia]

It may not have been a copyright issue, but a resource issue regarding any music or video files on the site. Or alternately, some hosting companies do not allow mp3 or avi files at all.

[cywkevin]

I'd shop for a new host at this point. On a side note. If streamline is a reseller of fasthosts than you need to go through them for support on this because fasthosts is not responsible for the actions of their resellers and in many cases will not act on their reseller's behalf. This is true in many companies because going over the reseller to do something is considered backstabbing your client.

[dkitchen]

FastHosts have one of the most complicated reseller systems there are, they also offer unlimited bandwidth to resellers which isn't a good idea...

Perhaps the reseller got suspended, not actually yourself. Now might be a good time to look elsewhere.

Dan

[emmett1979]

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate it.

I guess I will have to look at other hosts, I didn't even know streamline.net was a re-seller until this morning. Can anyone recommend a realiable alternative that has a similarly inexpensive price for unlimited bandwidth and allows you to host media files such as mp3s? Also, it would be a plus if they didn't randomly shut the site down without any warning!

[dkitchen]

If you're looking for unmetered bandwidth in the UK, there's a price to pay for it.

What's your budget, and how much bandwidth do you actually think you'll need ...

Dan

[cywkevin]

You have to sacrifice unlimited bandwidth if you want that last part to work out with you. Unlimited bandwidth hosts will shut your site down without warning.

[MMMedia]

From Streamline.net's TOS and Abuse Policy

http://streamline.net/atac.php

1.2) StreamlineNet offer unlimited web space and bandwidth with some account types. By this, we mean unlimited space for legitimate web site content and bandwidth for visitors to view it. All files on a domain must be part of the active website and linked to the site. Sites should not contain any backups, downloads, or other non-web based content.

1.4.4) Sites must not contain MP3 files, as they do not represent active web content. Other multimedia files are acceptable if they are configured to stream to the client rather than download (Please see section 1.2 of this policy).

It looks to me like you had downloads and that is a no-no according to their policy.

I would look for another host, you may wish to request from them a chance to download a backup.

You may want to look into ways of truning your media files into flash files (you can encode both music and video files to flash). That is what I have done on my sites.

[E:magine - Aaron]

Originally posted by MMMedia
You may want to look into ways of truning your media files into flash files (you can encode both music and video files to flash). That is what I have done on my sites. [/B]

for some reason now (costly wise) this seems to be the norm now.

regards to bandwidth and unlimited i wouldn't go with unlimited or unmetered its a con.

i would pay for what you think you would use, and then upgrade accordingly.

fasthosts aren't very good anyway. i used to have them as a host but gave them up rapidly.

[Disgruntled]

I've had some browsers in linux choke on Flash files. I think Realplayer might give more consistent compatibility.
Then again, some Windows users don't download Realplayer. If your new host provides enough bandwidth, maybe you should use Real plus Flash and/or Windows streaming media.