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11-16-2006, 03:08 PM #1New Member
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Porblems with ****** (it's a long read)
Okay, this is going to be kind of long, but I have a story to tell.
I work as the webmaster for the forums of a company. Their old webmaster left (he pirated vBuilletin), so after the community Administrator, who worked for the company at the time, talked to their boss, and he offered me the spot (I was already the second community Administrator). I'm by no means a network technician or certified or anything, but I have basic management skills in setting up and maintaining a forum, so I recommended he buy a vBulletin license, he did, and the forums are a go.
Jump back a few years. The company first opens the forums, and since the forums are their own doamin and seperate from their website, it's on another host. That host is ****** (Here we go). I wasn't involved with the company at the point, but back in the forums earlier years, I used it and things were great. Pages were fast, there were no errors, nothing. Now granted it was a smaller, less demanding forum, and it was phpBB at the time, the current forum setup isn't "that" demanding.
Jump skip back to past the first paragraph. It's been half a year since the forums were set up again. ****** has been terrible since then (they actually started going downhill a year ago). What happened. I know that I did more in terms of management and such, like I have a bigger more expanded forums than the previous guy (he did nothing really but set the forum up though, so he didn't care to do anything), and I have a few vBulletin MODs added, but the strain should still be nothing to cause what I'm about to explain.
When I first became involved, right from day one. Any database I created using their control panel software (some proprietary make) wouldn't work with vBulletin. I kept getting the "couldn't find/attach to database" error. It had all the permissions, and all the settings WERE right. Using Plesk, I could see the databases the past webmaster had for the forum and a few other things, BUT they were listed in Plesk and NOT in the ****** panel. Also, any files uploaded via FTP would show in the FTP prigram or a browser if you went there, but it wouldn't show in ******'s control panel. I know what you're thinking and what this sounds like. It's like they're two different servers, but they're not. All of the statistics Plesk shows for the domain (hits, traffic, etc.) stopped updating around the middle of 2004, so it's like things stopped refreshing then between their software and the actual state. Wow, I can't explain it, but they couldn't fix it. Maybe this is setup somehow to where it isn't their fault. As I said, I'm not too savy at this, so maybe I just don't realize the setup of it and how to go about things, but I did explain this to them and they couldn't fix it. I got around it by taking the database from an unused forum. And I did that by looking at the phpBB config file, becuase they're instance of phpMyAdmin for the account leads to a 404 page. I made them aware of that problem and nothing was done. That's right. I'm left with no direct database access or ANYTHING.
Ever since a year ago, the forums would go down, like clockwork, every night. It took this host a few months to up the MySQL connection limit to stop it. This was the only problem they ever fixed, and it took months and the actual owner of the account talking to them to get it done. As far as MySQL and PHP versions go, they're outdated and ****** won't fix that.
Now the most recent, and still occuring problems, are two messages the forums keep getting. The first is this.
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 16777216 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 337251 bytes)
The second is this.
Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded
It's a very simple and a mere few seconds job of changing two settings in php.ini, and they can't even do that. The first happens more often than not so the forums are pretty annoying to use. People make so many doubleposts, the forums will take your post through but it won't be viewable, etc., so many wierd things happen. The second, on the other hand, isn't random, so when it happens to a thread, it always happens and the thread is permanently unuseable (it even once killed a whole categroy). Luckily, the second one doesn't happen as often.
It's been months since the problem first arised, but we contacted them about it first a month ago becuase that's when it became "normal" (it was just rare before). I e-mailed them, and got an instant reply that was automated stating "they would review what I sent and respond to it". Eight days later, I got a response from a real person, stating "they'd review what I sent and respond to it". Ughm, wasn't that what the first automated response was for? It's been a week since that was sent, and a few days ago, I sent another reply pretty much saying the server needs to be running, and running with no slowdown and no errors becuase it's being paid for. I've yet to hear anything from their "support".
Server loads according to the Admin CP are crazy. It is never below around 5.0 or 8.0, and it's normally around 20.0, sometimes reaching the sixties or eighties. I was told by the last webmaster that the server was dedicated, but I'm really thinking it's VPS, and some other customer is slamming the server. The forums could sometimes have 5 users on and get error after error, or sometimes there's fifty on and it happens less (there is never a time where it's free of error though). It has Apache2 and Fedora Red Hat Linux, and I imagine the server hardware is nothing great. Past that, I don't know much about the hardware or environment except that it has nothing but outdated PHP and MySQL versions and that things are left poorly set. The forums probably do require more than they did three years ago, but as I said, it shouldn't be anything "too" demanding. There's other small picky things, like the server's time being set wrong making any timezone set off, but this is long and confusing enough, so I won't get into small stuff.
I'm at the end of it here. The forums can't continue running as badly as they are, and I'm going to recommend the company a new host. The problem is, they've been with them for years, and IF they move now, I have no idea how to transfer domains, copy databases (I have no access for starters), etc., I'm just at a loss having to deal with so many things "not working" that I think I forgot how to do anything. Either way, at this point, just about ANYTHING is better than staying with this hosting company. I'm just really frustrated and don't know what to do.
Does anyone have any comments, recommendations, or maybe if it comes to it, hosting recommendations? As far as I know, the monthly payments are around $160 a month, and I'd imagine the company wouldn't want to go too much higher.
Whew, sorry for the long read, but I figured I'd share becuase this is a nightmare. If ****** is ever come across by anyone looking for hosting, my advice to run, and run fast, and never look back.Last edited by Kiwi76; 11-16-2006 at 03:15 PM.
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11-16-2006, 03:15 PM #2Retired Moderator
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Sorry to hear about your bad experience(s) with ******. If posting the domain in use isn't possible I'd suggest using the report this post link to report your dommain to the mods if not anything else but to add additional credibility to your review.
Hopefully if your boss hasn't done so yet you might be able to still get a db backup (if things are not in the works to move yet, I'd definitely begin doing so).
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11-16-2006, 03:42 PM #3New Member
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Posting links can't be done without five posts, so should I just report my post with the domain(s), and they'll know what to do?
And yes, to make matters worse, it's mainly a kid oriented site, and the forums have been restarted five times already (the past webmaster had a habbit or purging everything every half a year or so), so as you could imagine, it's not easy keeping a group like that patient about error after error. It would be nice to have the forums actually working right for once.
I do have a database backup I was able to get through the AdminCP when it was still smaller, but it's still at least two months back.
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11-16-2006, 04:56 PM #4Junior Guru Wannabe
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Most of the technical suppot team sitting in ****** support doesn't know abc of webhosting.
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11-16-2006, 08:30 PM #5Retired Moderator
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Sorry to read you had such a terrible time there.
To give us your domains for review validation purposes, please use http://www.webhostingtalk.com/report.php?p=4216701. We will post a confirmation here.
The problem is, they've been with them for years, and IF they move now, I have no idea how to transfer domains, copy databases (I have no access for starters), etc., I'm just at a loss having to deal with so many things "not working" that I think I forgot how to do anything. Either way, at this point, just about ANYTHING is better than staying with this hosting company. I'm just really frustrated and don't know what to do.
I don't have experience with vBulletin, but the forums I've used have the ability to do database backups themselves, from the admin interface. Did you try using this?
As far as I know, the monthly payments are around $160 a month, and I'd imagine the company wouldn't want to go too much higher.
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11-16-2006, 08:50 PM #6Junior Guru Wannabe
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I am sorry to hear about problems with ******, its recommended that you switch hosting and transfer your domain to a new host.
However since its a VPS server, you should hire a admin and update your scripts your-self, if you have root access.
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11-16-2006, 08:57 PM #7Junior Guru
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wow server load in the eighties
What CPU does this server have ? what version of PHP & MySQL ?
If it is a dedicated server just for your company you might well be under attack, I've never seen or heard of an attack that has lasted this long but these days anything is possible, and it don't look like ****** would be to bothered if it was
For $160 you can get a very nice server from a good company.. so my advice would be to switch as soon as you can
good luck for the future
P.S.
I recommend iWeb.ca for servers, they have always seen me okwww.NT-Hosts.net
Shared Hosting - Reseller - Email Hosting - Forum Hosting - Linux server admins
Phone: 07092898178 - Fax: 07092898179 - Email:Sales@NT-Hosts.net
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11-16-2006, 09:39 PM #8New Member
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Originally Posted by ldcdcOriginally Posted by ldcdcOriginally Posted by ldcdcOriginally Posted by ldcdcOriginally Posted by NTHosts
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11-16-2006, 09:45 PM #9Retired Moderator
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The OP has provided a domain hosted by ******. Thank you for the cooperation!
I saw that the domain's registrar is actually ******, so, considering the level of support that you witnessed there, it would probably be best to transfer the domain to another registrar, like say Godaddy or Namecheap.
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11-16-2006, 11:00 PM #10New Member
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So I was wrong, and it IS registered by ******? Some of the whois lookups I saw had a registrar listed by ENOM. What would that be if you say ****** is the domain registrar as well as the hosting?
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11-17-2006, 01:15 AM #11Retired Moderator
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I used the wrong terms above, sorry. Fact is though that you did register the domain through ******, who acted as an Enom reseller, which makes you ******'s customer, not Enom's.