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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Posts
    90

    * Cirtexhosting 9 months review

    I signed up with Cirtexhosting in October 2006. I had the Economy plan, with 20 Gb disk space and 1.000 Gb monthly bandwidth for 9,99$ every month.

    I was put on server Baby. I encountered a lot of problems since signup and until I left. Server stability was always the source of problems. If you browse a website hosted on that server you will see that very often you receive Connection timed up error.

    FTP is also very slow and very often it fails in the middle of transfer. After every FTP fail there is also the Connection Timeout error if you try to browse a website. Then in a minute the service is restored. This happened very often, sometimes more than 10 times every hour.

    I contacted the support team very often on the support chat but, until I got connected and the support answered, the service was restored. Of course when I reported the problem they always answered: "Your website is up and running.". A lot of my forum members reported that they had lost a lot of posts because during the time when they wrote the post and the moment when they pressed the publish button, the server was unreachable.

    At one moment my website was suspended for sending phishing email. Or this is what the support guy told me. He showed me an email sent by one of my scripts and told me that this is a phishing email. It was a legitimate email sent by my script and it has not even one characteristics of a phishing email I told him this, and he replied that he suspended my account not for phishing, but for sending spam. That this message was sent 35 times and this is spam.

    I talked with the person who wrote that script and he told me that it was not possible that the script to send that message 35 times because after the message is sent 1 time the script clear it's information from database. The support guy didn't showed me any proofs that the message was sent 35 times. That was a warning signal for me.

    Then, more and more downtimes. I know that most of it was because of Burst Datacenter, but it is Cirtex the one who decide were they keep their servers. Maybe that uptime is acceptable for other users but for my websites and for my projects is not acceptable.

    Poor maintenance and monitoring of the server: for a lot of times I contacted the support team to tell them that the hard disks are full and that the mysql and php fails because they have no free space on the disks. My website was down numerous times because of disks being full. I even experienced problems with my email because of full hard disks.

    Also, numerous times my visitors including myself were blocked by the server's firewall. Their support team told me that this is because of a high number of concurrent connections. How can this happened when my visitors was just browsing? I don't know.

    All this time I hoped for a better service. But unfortunately, only in the last week there was 3 major downtimes (more than 30 mins), 2 because of Burst and 1 because of disks being full, and a lot of other minor downtimes (each one no longer than 20 minutes).

    In this situation I decided that I cannot continue using their services and I started to move my websites els were.

    The good part of their hosting business is that they offer free months of hosting whenever a major downtime occur. I got one month for free because of a downtime. Another good part is their fast reply for support inquires. The problems are not always solved as quick as they reply, but there's someone there most of the time.

    I don't know if I was just out of luck or this is a general situation with all Cirtexhosting customers. But this is how I experienced their web hosting. All this time I had around 35 support tickets opened. However I didn't opened a new support ticket every time I experienced a problem.

    My ratings regarding Cirtexhosting:

    Reliability: 5/10
    Chat support (level 1 for simple problems): 6/10
    Ticket support (level 1 and up to administrators): 7/10
    Pricing: 9/10
    Overall: 5/10
    Will I consider Cirtexhosting for hosting my websites in the future?: No

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    7,406
    Hi Alexro

    Thanks for your very thorough review. All feedback is well appreciated. We are aware of the issues at burstnet which your server is located as it's one of our "Older" Servers and the increasing amount if issues they're having simply by seeing the WHT Downtime forums, we're hoping things will get better with them in the near future and definitely are taking actions if not.

    Thank you again for writing a review.
    Take care
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  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    EU - east side
    Posts
    21,920
    I know that most of it was because of Burst Datacenter
    Indeed it does look like only part of the issues can be pinpointed to Burstnet.

    In any case, it's nice to see a thread where both the customer and the host keep a very civil tone.

  4. #4
    Thats a very good excuse Cirtex, old servers??

    Hahaa no matter they should still work if its old servers get em outta there man. Why would you sell someone an old server. I doubt its that. But thoughs are some of the many painful events that come with shared hosting.

    Try VPS maybe it could be an update to actually go around these events man. I know your probably tired of writing these reviews. Although i only read about 3 paragraphs before posting this i could tell your fed up.

    So go for the more proffesional type hosting offers is what i can say man.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Posts
    90
    I know that what Cirtex told us is true. The server is one of the first servers Cirtex got. So it's not appropriate to bash around this. Part of the problem is the server, part of the problem is the datacenter and part of the problem is the server management (and this is where Cirtex should look first).

    Look, for starter users this offer is ok. But I needed higher quality and that's why I moved.

    I didn't make this thread to bash Cirtex. I wanted just to raise some concerns regarding all the weak spots I found during my stay with Cirtex. I don't hate Cirtex and I'm sure that after this review their service quality will rise.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    852
    Nice review, has anyone got a review on one of there newer servers then.
    Backup about the server being a older server.

    ,Ashley

  7. #7
    So far as I'm concerned, their service has not improved. I've just had a rough time with Cirtex and recommend against this host. Details would take too long, and I'm pressed for time to change my sites over to a more reliable host.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    EU - east side
    Posts
    21,920
    Quote Originally Posted by Potentmix View Post
    So far as I'm concerned, their service has not improved. I've just had a rough time with Cirtex and recommend against this host. Details would take too long, and I'm pressed for time to change my sites over to a more reliable host.
    Details are everything. Do come back and give us an in depth account of your experience once you've got the time.

  9. #9
    My string has run out with Cirtex. It's difficult to be brief, but here's a chronology.

    1. I installed two sites using the WordPress platform. All went well until it became apparent that loading times were upwards of three minutes on broadband.

    2. At the same time, my static html sites on the same server loaded in about one second (Ya gotta love that).

    3. I asked Cirtex support to correct the problem believing the difficulty to reside with their server.

    4. They responded saying the problem was fixed.

    5. Problem not fixed. More email exchanges.

    6. I responded to a request for certain data residing on my computer. They said that the problem was routing and downtime with my ISP. My ISP has not been down. My WordPress installations on other hosts work just fine.

    7. I pointed out that the static sites consistently loaded with no problem. How could it be blamed on my ISP?

    8. They closed the ticket.

    9. I complained, but they never provided resolution. Today, the sites load anywhere from two to 15 seconds. Better, but not ideal. The static sites - no problem still - one second.

    10. I ceased seeing updates to Awstats and Webalizer for several days. I opened a ticket and that was resolved.

    11. No Awstats or Webalizer was being provided for the two WordPress sites. Another ticket brought that to a successful conclusion.

    12. I asked that the "Update now" button be added to Awstats for all sites. They added it to the main domain and not to subdomain/add-ons. Was advised it can't be done for add-ons. I replied that I knew that, would they please include it for subdomains which just happen to be add-ons.

    13. "Update now" button successfully added to Awstats for subdomains.

    14. "Update now" button removed today from Awstats for all sites. Emailed them again. They added it to the main domain. I then requested once again that it be added to the subdomains.

    15. They responded that it is impossible to add the button to subdomains. This is untrue. They actually provided it for a few days and Hostagator does it without asking.

    I dont' want to belabor this. It's been totally frustrating dealing with Cirtex support. I think they are simply incompetent. They do respond to tickets and requests in a timely fashion. But, in my experience, that's where decent support ends. My eyes glaze over when it comes to discussing hosting and servers. I just want things to work, and have been quite satisfied with several hosts. I've never had as much hassle as I've experienced with Cirtex. I'm anything but a chronic complainer.

    It's not easy to change hosts with sites on a WordPress platform for dummies like me and preserve all content and settings. I hope I don't have to develop that skill as well.

  10. #10
    Here's the latest response from Cirtex:

    we have escalating a issue to higher level support.
    Whatever that means.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    Paradise
    Posts
    12,052
    We particularly have disabled the "update now" button for Awstats, it tend to be a problem when some people "play" with it updating stats every 10 minutes, on a server where you have almost 100 accounts hosted, if the 20% do the same, you have a potential load issue arising.
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  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Phoenix, AZ, United State
    Posts
    1,525
    Quote Originally Posted by Jedito View Post
    We particularly have disabled the "update now" button for Awstats, it tend to be a problem when some people "play" with it updating stats every 10 minutes, on a server where you have almost 100 accounts hosted, if the 20% do the same, you have a potential load issue arising.
    Thats a completely fair point.

    I think the problem really is that they said it was impossible.
    drew@slicie.com - Vertical Scaling Servers
    30 Minute Backups - Pay for what you use

  13. #13
    Sorry double post.
    Last edited by Potentmix; 07-10-2007 at 09:19 AM.

  14. #14
    Now they've restored the update button to subdomains. This is not an earthshaking issue, but it illustrates the hurdles to receiving decent support. More aggravating is the problem with load times on the Wordpress sites.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Posts
    9,264
    Potentmix,

    You would be surprised at how easy a wordpress installation can be moved. Wordpress provides a very easy-to-use export/import system that would allow even the 'newbiest' of users to move a Wordpress site.

    As always, there's hosts out there that will migrate them free of charge as well. I am sorry to hear that you're unsatisfied by Cirtex' offerings but corners have to be cut when pricing is your selling point.

    Try shopping based on reviews & quality the next time around, rather than pricing & resources offered. Do you utilize 20+ gigabytes of storage?

    If not, why buy it!

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    7,406
    Quote Originally Posted by Potentmix View Post
    Now they've restored the update button to subdomains. This is not an earthshaking issue, but it illustrates the hurdles to receiving decent support. More aggravating is the problem with load times on the Wordpress sites.
    Hi

    Feel free to Private Message me your ticket ID and I'll take a look and review it. Tickets are escalated from level 1 support to 2 and 3 in order to reach a higher level admin/support representative.

    We'll do our best to work with you and if needed I'll personally get ya moved over to a new server in our new equipment/facility myself this week.

    Cheers
    █• Taskade - To-Do List & Tasks All-in-One To-Do List & Mind Map App for Remote Teams
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  17. #17
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Posts
    1,909
    Cirtex,

    It is great to see your willing to work with this client to get the matter resolved. Regardless of the outcome with this customer, it would only be fitting to move all current customers from that old server to a new one to avoid similar issues in the future. Then get the server fixed or drop burstnet all together.

    Just my suggestion. Not ideal for you, but perfect for the customers.


  18. #18
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    7,406
    Quote Originally Posted by jerett View Post
    Cirtex,

    It is great to see your willing to work with this client to get the matter resolved. Regardless of the outcome with this customer, it would only be fitting to move all current customers from that old server to a new one to avoid similar issues in the future. Then get the server fixed or drop burstnet all together.

    Just my suggestion. Not ideal for you, but perfect for the customers.
    Thanks for the suggestion, that's exactly what we're doing, moving out from some of the older servers to brand new equipment which we have already updated our customers on our forums + blog.

    Cheers
    █• Taskade - To-Do List & Tasks All-in-One To-Do List & Mind Map App for Remote Teams
    █• Simple and shareable to-do lists for web, mobile, and desktop
    █• To-Do List Templates 300+ shareable templates and productivity workflows
    █• Get things done, faster and smarter! I eat penguins for breakfast ...

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Phoenix, AZ, United State
    Posts
    1,525
    Is minty.cirtexhosting.com already on new technology?
    drew@slicie.com - Vertical Scaling Servers
    30 Minute Backups - Pay for what you use

  20. #20
    Cirtex:

    I did pm you. Hope you received it.

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    7,406
    Quote Originally Posted by HostSentry View Post
    Is minty.cirtexhosting.com already on new technology?
    Yes it is, we';; be doing some load balancing on it and migrate few customers off when needed.

    Quote Originally Posted by Potentmix View Post
    Cirtex:

    I did pm you. Hope you received it.
    Will do, I'll get back to you about it asap.
    █• Taskade - To-Do List & Tasks All-in-One To-Do List & Mind Map App for Remote Teams
    █• Simple and shareable to-do lists for web, mobile, and desktop
    █• To-Do List Templates 300+ shareable templates and productivity workflows
    █• Get things done, faster and smarter! I eat penguins for breakfast ...

  22. #22
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    New York City, NY, USA
    Posts
    18
    Hiya Potentmix,

    I just sent you a PM regarding your issue, I'm going to get your sites moved to the new hardware right now, please e-mail me at the address I specified in the PM.

    Thanks!
    █• CirtexHosting • Senior Systems Administrator & Level 2 Tech Support
    █• I'm the Penguin John is trying to eat!

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Chennai , India
    Posts
    4,632
    Quote Originally Posted by Cirtex View Post
    Hi Alexro

    Thanks for your very thorough review. All feedback is well appreciated. We are aware of the issues at burstnet which your server is located as it's one of our "Older" Servers and the increasing amount if issues they're having simply by seeing the WHT Downtime forums, we're hoping things will get better with them in the near future and definitely are taking actions if not.

    Thank you again for writing a review.
    Take care
    This is nice to hear from a host where the review is negative about their host. I like people who accept their faults and try to recover from it, instead of being silent.

  24. #24
    It is nice to see the gentlemanly reaction from cirtex with negative review. Also hope to resolve the problem for all customers that encouter the similar issues once and forever.
    www.seek4job.com - Information for job seeker and career objective Discussion here.Publish job postings or Post your job requests here.

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Posts
    90
    A little history of my problems with Cirtex in this 9 months period:

    27 Oct 2006 - website down, cpanel down. Up after 30 mins, very unstable (apache was getting stopped every 3-4 minutes)

    28 Oct 2006 - website down, DNS servers down, for 50 minutes, the support told me that it was a DOS attack

    30 Oct 2006 - reported to the support the server load up to 60

    01 Nov 2006 - ticket opened: server load 66, memory 76%, problem resolved in an hour

    06 Nov 2006 - server down, datacenter outage

    20 Nov 2006 - server down

    21 Nov 2006 - my IP was blocked by the server. Unblocked after opening a ticket

    23 Nov 2006 - server load over 60, websites not loading. support said that it's a DOS attack

    01 Dec 2006 - server down. support said it's because of some databases overload

    05 Dec 2006 - server and DNS servers down. it was a datacenter outage.

    10 Dec 2006 - my IP was blocked by the server. Unblocked after opening a ticket

    14 Dec 2006 - server down because of a DOS attack

    15 Dec 2006 - in the last 24 hours the server was down for approx 10 times. Small outages, max 20 mins each.

    15 Dec 2006 - the server is more and more unstable. It was down every 7-15 minutes. httpd was failing every time in Cpanel Status. support said it was because of a faulty php script of some customer.

    16 - 17 Dec 2006 - frequent downtimes, over 30 downtimes in 6 hours. Each downtime was short, 7-15 mins each. Support said the server is fine. I provided Cpanel status screenshots but the support told me everything is ok

    23 Dec 2006 - ticket oppened, my awstats showed no data since 19 Dec

    03 Jan 2007 - the server is crawling - support said that it's a DOS attack

    05 Jan 2007 - my IP was blocked by the server. Unblocked after opening a ticket

    09 Jan 2007 - my IP was blocked by the server. Unblocked after opening a ticket

    09 Jan 2007 - server down for more than 30 minutes

    10 Jan 2007 - my IP was blocked by the server. Unblocked after opening a ticket

    16 Jan 2007 - for the last 24 hours: server load 20 - 30; memory 90%; mysql databases unavailable. Server load spikes up to 153. Support said it's a DOS attack, and later a hardware problem.

    27 Jan 2007 - /usr disk is full

    14 Mar 2007 - server down, datacenter outage

    03 Apr 2007 - /usr disk full

    12 Apr 2007 - server down for approx 1 hour

    13 Apr 2007 - websites unavailable due to unknown reasons (we are working on the server), also Cpanel unavailable

    23 Apr 2007 - my website is suspended for phishing. I requested proofs, they show me a legitimate email sent by a script on my server. Then support told me that my website is not suspended for pishing, but for sending spam. But the email they show me is a legitimate one. They say that the script sent the email 35 times, and this is spam. I contacted the programmer that made the script he told me it's impossible for the script to send 35 copies of the email. I requested proof that the email was sent 35 times, but support didn't gave me such proofs. After a few hours my website was unsuspended.

    27 Apr 2007 - my IP and the IPs of some friends of mine was blocked by the server. Unblocked after opening a ticket

    10 May 2007 - server down, datacenter outage, credit offered

    11 May 2007 - my IP and the IPs of some friends of mine was blocked by the server. Unblocked after opening a ticket

    21 Jun 2007 - mysql down, Cpanel down. Error: "Sorry for the inconvenience! The filesystem mounted at /home/## on this server is running out of disk space."

    24 Jun 2007 - server down, datacenter outage

    24 Jun 2007 - canceled my account

    Please note that this list is not the full list of problems I experienced during my stay at Cirtexhosting. These are only the tickets opened by myself. For other problems I contacted the support via their live chat.

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