Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : VPS Hosting : Webfusion VPS - My shocking experience.

[Jobjob]

I signed up for a Windows VPS from Webfusion. It took over a week to finally be setup. For the first week the Plesk control panel was so slow I couldn't use it - I got the feeling they started offering VPS before working out the details.

The thing that I find really disappointing is the fact that every time I have called support with simple questions they tell me that there is nobody available who knows anything about VPS! They said on two occasions they would forward my query to some specialist department but I never heard back...and all I wanted to know the first time was whether I could have extra IPs...heaven forbid if I was actually asking a technical question. Very disappointing...I am looking for an alternative.

And one day later...

Now my experience with my Webfusion VPS has gone from bad to worse. The VPS became unresponsive and since then I have contacted them over and over again and each time they fob me off.
None of the support people know anything about VPS' and always say they have to contact the datacentre in Germany and get back to me. They never got back to me at all after I made repeated contact. To quote the support person "We are still learning about VPS"...!?!?!

They never get back to me and have left my VPS inoperable for over four days now. The support techs don't care at all. The last one I spoke to told me that there was nothing he could do about my VPS being offline and all I was doing was complaining and that I should wait another 9 hours and call administration in the morning.

It's quite clear that if you get a Webfusion VPS and it goes down, you're on your own.

I should also mention that I seriously question how many VPS they have on the server because even when it was working it was incredibly slow - and that was before I put a single site on it.

[Jobjob]

An update on my saga with Webfusion VPS...

Now almost a week and they haven't fixed my VPS let alone replied to my emails, so I call and they either say they'll reboot the server, or contact the German datacentre....again!

They did send me a renewal bill today though...so I guess the reason they don't reply to my support emails isn't because they don't have my email address.

[jayhands]

I have been experiencing the same problems - we have just signed up for a VPS account and are trying to migrate sites across. It is not as straight forward as they lead you to believe...Unfortunatley, we have now invested too much time to pull out after nameserver changes etc etc.

I just phoned up 'support' and after waiting 10 mins to get hold of somebody, ran through my problem and he said 'for f**ks sake'....hmmmm, nice support you have their VPS.

Oh yeah, and they never reply to emails either.

Stay well away...

[Jobjob]

Yep the Webfusion VPS 'support' staff are pretty irritable. They treat you with contempt from the second they answer your call.

[fredelliot]

I'm having similar issues having signed up for the Webfusion trial. It took over a week to get setup and I've emailed support on a couple of occasions with no response.

The VPS has DNS, does anyone understand this comment in the welcome email "
123-reg control panel 'Modify Your Domain', 'Manage DNS' section to point your new domain to your above VPS IP address."

How are you guys managing DNS for domains on your VPS, we have a dedicated server also and just simply change the nameservers to this, I would have thought something similar would be possible with the VPS.

Regards

Fred

[Jobjob]

This is not a technical support thread, however, it is possible. If you're using plesk, go to the main control panel and click 'dns' then setup the NS records for the domain you want to use as your nameservers. Go to your registrar and register the domain name as a nameserver. After that you can delegate any domain to your server.

[jayhands]

hhmmmm, yes i had this problem also and it cost me 50p a minute on a telephone call to rectify it...hopefully this will save you some brass.

I had to go into my 123-reg account and 'manage dns' and change the 'A, CNAME and TXT records' to point to my ips provided by WebFusion. Note, i also had to create some new records such as '*, @, mail' etc.

I tried that configure button and it did'nt work.

Hope this helps you out a bit.

[fredelliot]

jobjob & jayhands thanks for your comments

I realise this isnt a support thread but had to ask the question on DNS because as per the recent comments I was still waiting for an email response back and I presumed everybody probably waited some ridiculous length of time for a response from WF.

The one I did eventually get said - enter your IP in the Windows WebHosting area and click the button. Duh!!! as we already knew that didnt work.... They're definately wet behind the ears as regards VPS.

jobjob - re plesk & DNS thanks, I did that as I got fed up waiting for Webfusion to get back to me with a useful suggestion, the only problem with this is having two nameserver records resolving to a single IP address.

Fred

[Iain[XN3]]

heh i was gonna sign up for their trial, guess i'll give it a miss - cheers

[Jobjob]

Originally Posted by fredelliot

...the only problem with this is having two nameserver records resolving to a single IP address.

Yeah how crap is that...1 IP address, especially when you have your own DNS! When I called Webfusion to ask if I could have more the guy almost laughed at me and said of course you can't have more than one, it's not a dedicated server. I told him to check just about every other VPS provider and he'll see that it is possible and most people offer it. Just another example of how Webfusion know nothing about VPS and also have extremely rude incompetent support staff.

[jayhands]

'...rude incompetent support staff...'

I have a problem now but i can't be arsed to wait for ages on their support line only to get a self-rightous, arrogant, patrionising ar*e on the other end.

[Equaliser]

We're currently on our free trial month with a WebFusion Windows VPS.

I uploaded the first site (ASP VBscript plugging into a MySQL DB) onto webspace on the server, and tested it> everything was fine for the first 2 days

Then the whole server went bananas, with both Plesk and our site returning 500 errors. Any ASP script on our test website was returning the following error:

HTTP/1.1 New Session Failed


We reported the whole issue to WebFusion, and 24 hours later Plesk had re-appeared, but our site was still returning the 500. Interestingly enough, PHP scripts worked fine - it was just the ASP stuff.

A further 24 hours later, and still nothing, so we called again. They told me to reboot the server. I told them we had done this, and it made NO DIFFERENCE. I was told the issue would be escalated to the admins.

The site started working for about 5 minutes during my phone conversation with the support guy, and then just stopped again. The site also appeared for about 30 mins at 8ish one night, then vanished again.

24 hours later, nothing, so I rang tech support AGAIN once again I was invited to reboot the server. SIGHS... Shakes head in dispair. I requested that somebody from the admin team get back to us. Was told this wouldn't happen.

Still the same error another day later, so I ring tech support. They tell me that admin have got back to them and told me it's an issue with our ASP scripts. Ok then - so why did they work to start with? Why are they intermittently working, then vanishing again? Why do the test scripts which are pre-installed by Plesk not work either?

I'm starting to shout now, so I ring off, asking if somebody from admin can get back to me.

Later that day, still the same problem, so I ring back. I'm told that the issue will be escalated to the admins. Apparently it hasn't been escalated to them so far. Why not? And how come the admins knew about it, and spoke to the support team yesterday to blamed our ASP scripts....are they psychic or something?

24 hours later, still nothing. I speak to another support monkey, who tells me that I'm not the only one reporting this problem. FINALLY WE HAVE AN ADMISSION OF GUILT. Says he'll escalate it again to the admins.

12 hours later, still nothing. Our site still shows the same error. An attempt to install another hosting account on the server using Plesk generates an error. I ask another support goon to "ESCALATE IT WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE" - Dunno whether it'll do any good, but it felt good saying it.

On our free trial of Webfusion's Windows VPS, we've had 2 days (at most) of uptime, followed by week's unexplained downtime, with no feedback from Webfusion, and the most LAMENTABLE support it has ever been my misfortune to witness.

So that's about 20% uptime, and no support. Guess who we're NOT going to be hosting with in future?

[jayhands]

We are currently looking again for a new hosting company and most definitely WILL NOT go with these idiots.

It has caused me nowt but trouble.

Stay well clear...

[Equaliser]

UPDATE: After over a week of solid downtime, Our server now returns "Service Unavailable" instead of the old "HTTP 1.1 Session Failed", and Plesk has vanished once again. I'm currently ringing tech support to tell then what shower of useless cretins I think they are, and then we're off to either UKFast or CWCS - Anybody got any other recommendations?

[cyberturk]

every time I have called support with simple questions they tell me that there is nobody available who knows anything about VPS

i advise all of clients, please buy a firm that have it's own data center. Not a reseller. When you ask them a question they ask it to the datacenter admin because they really don't know what a VPS is.