Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : VPS Hosting : Power VPS review

[chihpih]

I did my research for a long time and decided to get a VPS from them. Got it in the end of March and in the beginning everything was fairly ok. Some things that I had to ask support to help me which for some reason I was not able to do on my own via admin. On Friday all of a sudden my server went down. It took support 45 minutes to respond to my email and to restart my server. I was not able to login into virtuozzo at that time to reboot the server because I couldnt connect to other ports from my job (corporate firewall). Saturday the same thing happened and I didnt know know about it (just saw emails that reported that a few services were down) and finally today my server goes down again and my root l/p is rejected at virtuozzo and I have to wait 30+ minutes for server to be rebooted.

You come to your own conclusions. While most people had good experiences with PowerVPS I have to disagree based on my 3 downtime experiences this week. My downtime this week was ~ 1.5 hour and I didnt get a VPS to have daily downtime.

[GigabitONE]

did you check whether the problem caused by your application.

[Bilco105]

Is it just your VPS failing or the entire node?

[themidge]

Most likely the single VPS. I operate a VPS from Power VPS and had some teething problems. It's almost inevitable with any new server. My server now runs 24 hours a day no problem. Just have patience; find out what's causing the problem and work with them to solve it. I have found their support to be exceptional.

Regards,
Matt

[chihpih]

Friday and today httpd, ftpd, cpsrvd that failed, Saturday exim failed 3 times in a row

httpd failed @ Sun Apr 16 16:35:29 2006. A restart was attempted
automagicly.

So far I have not been able to get from them what the cause is but I am emailing them back & forth an dworking on the issue

[TomK]

Originally Posted by chihpih

I did my research for a long time and decided to get a VPS from them. Got it in the end of March and in the beginning everything was fairly ok. Some things that I had to ask support to help me which for some reason I was not able to do on my own via admin. On Friday all of a sudden my server went down. It took support 45 minutes to respond to my email and to restart my server. I was not able to login into virtuozzo at that time to reboot the server because I couldnt connect to other ports from my job (corporate firewall). Saturday the same thing happened and I didnt know know about it (just saw emails that reported that a few services were down) and finally today my server goes down again and my root l/p is rejected at virtuozzo and I have to wait 30+ minutes for server to be rebooted.

You come to your own conclusions. While most people had good experiences with PowerVPS I have to disagree based on my 3 downtime experiences this week. My downtime this week was ~ 1.5 hour and I didnt get a VPS to have daily downtime.

Actually, I don't recall a 30 minute wait time, as I called you back today personally as I was in the office covering some support issues today due to the holidays, then Tony called you back a few minutes later as well.

I've asked Rob to check your support ticket history just to make we haven't let any emergency tickets go as long as you have claimed.

And no, the node hasn't been down since the VZ3 upgrade:

[root@vz62 ~]# uptime
20:24:48 up 23 days, 9:14, 0 users, load average: 0.48, 1.04, 1.52
[root@vz62 ~]#

[Rob@PowerVPS]

Hello,

Using the IP of the site in your signature, I was able to get your server's IP and was able to look up the tickets with that IP in it.

I'm not sure how you are seeing a 45 minute response to your tickets. On Friday, you submitted the ticket at 2:24 PM and at 2:37 PM. That's 13 minutes for the reply.

Fri Apr 14 2006 02:51PM: clint changed status to resolved.
Fri Apr 14 2006 02:51PM: clint replied to requester(s).
Fri Apr 14 2006 02:51PM: tony changed status to resolved.
Fri Apr 14 2006 02:51PM: tony replied to requester(s).
Fri Apr 14 2006 02:51PM: josh changed status to resolved.
Fri Apr 14 2006 02:51PM: josh replied to requester(s).
Fri Apr 14 2006 02:47PM: Requester responded to ticket.
Fri Apr 14 2006 02:37PM: david replied to requester(s).
Fri Apr 14 2006 02:37PM: tony replied to requester(s).
Fri Apr 14 2006 02:24PM: Ticket created.

The ticket opened today also did not have a 45 minute reply time.

Sun Apr 16 2006 07:01PM: david changed status to awaiting-reply.
Sun Apr 16 2006 07:01PM: david replied to requester(s).
Sun Apr 16 2006 06:09PM: Requester responded to ticket.
Sun Apr 16 2006 05:41PM: david assigned to Nobody.
Sun Apr 16 2006 05:41PM: david changed status to awaiting-reply.
Sun Apr 16 2006 05:41PM: david replied to requester(s).
Sun Apr 16 2006 05:21PM: david commented on ticket.
Sun Apr 16 2006 05:09PM: david assigned to David Pape.
Sun Apr 16 2006 05:09PM: david changed status to in progress.
Sun Apr 16 2006 05:09PM: david assigned to David Pape.
Sun Apr 16 2006 05:09PM: david changed status to in progress.
Sun Apr 16 2006 05:07PM: Requester responded to ticket.
Sun Apr 16 2006 04:46PM: david replied to requester(s).
Sun Apr 16 2006 04:45PM: david changed status to awaiting-reply.
Sun Apr 16 2006 04:45PM: david replied to requester(s).
Sun Apr 16 2006 04:23PM: Requester responded to ticket.
Sun Apr 16 2006 04:16PM: tony changed status to awaiting-reply.
Sun Apr 16 2006 04:16PM: tony replied to requester(s).
Sun Apr 16 2006 03:51PM: Requester responded to ticket.
Sun Apr 16 2006 03:38PM: josh assigned to Nobody.
Sun Apr 16 2006 03:38PM: josh replied to requester(s).
Sun Apr 16 2006 03:34PM: josh assigned to Josh Abbott.
Sun Apr 16 2006 03:31PM: Ticket created.

As shown above, the ticket was created at 3:31 PM and at 3:38 PM Josh replied back to you. In that ticket, it was a 7 minute reply.

So I'm not sure how you are seeing a 45 minute response time in support responding. The tickets I'm looking at are:

LUZ-25036-666 CRITICAL my server is down AGAIN (resolved) PowerVPS Support Sun Apr 16 2006 03:31PM
KUY-92556-254 CRITICAL my server is down (resolved) PowerVPS Support Fri Apr 14 2006 02:24PM

If I'm missing something here, I'm more than happy to look into it.

[Rob@PowerVPS]

Originally Posted by chihpih

Friday and today httpd, ftpd, cpsrvd that failed, Saturday exim failed 3 times in a row

httpd failed @ Sun Apr 16 16:35:29 2006. A restart was attempted
automagicly.

So far I have not been able to get from them what the cause is but I am emailing them back & forth an dworking on the issue

I can show the server itself has not been down. :-) There are access logs in the /var/log/messages file as well as the Apache access_log for the last 24 hours showing the server responding at least every 15 minutes.

That individual message you recieved regarding Apache was submitted after you asked support to reboot your VPS. When the server is rebooted, CPanel runs it's chkservd program which checks for failed programs and sends those notices. It runs BEFORE Apache is started so anytime the server is restarted, typically you'll see those messages.

I'm not saying there might not be a problem somewhere on the VPS. However it's not just "the server is down". There might be something with your firewall, or a problem between your ISP and your server, or something else preventing access, but I can see from the server's logs that in the last 24 hours for sure that it has been "on" other than the times in which you asked support to reboot the server.

[chihpih]

Originally Posted by TomK

Actually, I don't recall a 30 minute wait time, as I called you back today personally as I was in the office covering some support issues today due to the holidays, then Tony called you back a few minutes later as well.

I've asked Rob to check your support ticket history just to make we haven't let any emergency tickets go as long as you have claimed.

And no, the node hasn't been down since the VZ3 upgrade:

[root@vz62 ~]# uptime
20:24:48 up 23 days, 9:14, 0 users, load average: 0.48, 1.04, 1.52
[root@vz62 ~]#

PowerVPS guys dont think that I am bashing you. I did a few months of research before I got VPS with you. I guess I am just not having good luck or something but nevertheless I had services fail on 3 days in a row, it took around 15 mins to get failed service email (I knew about failure before I had email). I provided all info in the email I sent you 25 mins ago.

[chihpih]

Originally Posted by Rob@PowerVPS

I'm not saying there might not be a problem somewhere on the VPS. However it's not just "the server is down". There might be something with your firewall, or a problem between your ISP and your server, or something else preventing access, but I can see from the server's logs that in the last 24 hours for sure that it has been "on" other than the times in which you asked support to reboot the server.

On Friday the downtime was reported by customers of one of the websites hosted. They reported it to the owner and owner contacted me. It was definately not a firewall or dns or any other isp related problem.

I provided you with time I received failed emails. Hope you figure out the cause, I do not want Monday to be another downtime. It will surely be noticed by someone other then me if it happens during the day.

[fatal1980]

Sounds like you may have had a bad experience...

Me on the other hand have now been with them for only about a week, but so far have had superior support, quick responses and no downtime.

Fatal.

[tpetersen]

Originally Posted by chihpih

On Friday the downtime was reported by customers of one of the websites hosted. They reported it to the owner and owner contacted me. It was definately not a firewall or dns or any other isp related problem.

I provided you with time I received failed emails. Hope you figure out the cause, I do not want Monday to be another downtime. It will surely be noticed by someone other then me if it happens during the day.

No offense, but I'm going to say what others are undoubtedly thinking - what are _you_ doing to troubleshoot the issue (other than posting on WHT)? Have you logged into the server and reviewed logs, checked the process list etc etc ?

Cpanel is a nifty little program, but sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and perform some basic system administration tasks in order for everything to work correctly - it is a linux server after all.

I really think you should try to be a little more patient and try to work with the PVPS folks - Tom K. runs a tight shop and I'm quite confident whatever the issue is they will get to the bottom of it.


Tom

[WireNine]

Looks like the issue is with something on your VPS alone, not the VPS node. You cannot be blaming them for it since its something which you are running on your VPS which is crashing your services alone.

Work with them to figure out the problem, I am sure they will be able to help you out