Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : My Hostican.com Review: Why Hostican is Really HostiCan't!

[individend]

The short version: Stay Away!

The long version:

When I first got the idea to start a forum, I heard about hostican. I got up a shared hosting plan ("Tera-Host") and the forum went smoothly. But in mid-January, barely two months after signing up (and one month after my 30-day money back guarantee ended), they pulled a dirty trick that me, and more than twenty others, didn't see coming.

I started getting a message at random times when browsing my forum. It was a "You are using way way waaaay too many resources" message, and it blocked me from viewing my site. Odd, I thought, since there were only 5 people on my forum at the time, and I've frequently had as many as seventeen online at once. I took a screenshot, thinking it was just a temporary server issue.

I got the same message four more times that day. I called support. They told me to check my cpu-log folder for anything out of the ordinary. I found nothing. Phoned them again, asking why 5 people online at once could possibly blow out my resources. Their answer, and future answers, proved both unhelpful and uninformed. They couldn't tell me how I was supposed to monitor my cpu use, nor why this problem started happening all of a sudden.

Then I found hostican's support forum, and it turned out I wasn't the only one who was having problems. There were fifteen different threads of customers trying to understand what was going on. I started browsing them, and learned a great deal of many things hostican didn't seem to think it was necessary for me to know.

First was their explanation: They had recently started using software that could monitor resource use better. That way, more people on the shared servers were being caught for their "unfair memory-hogging."

They also said all the people who were having problems with this issue had been using too many resources from the very beginning (but were NEVER told). So the quality of service I got during those first 30 days was not the same as it is now.

I had no idea hostican's shared server could not handel my forum during the first 30 days. I had signed up for two years of shared hosting with hostican, only to find that my site was incapable of being on their shared server after the money-back guarantee was gone. They were telling people to optimize, upgrade to VPS, or get out. Is this a nasty trick or what?

I was told that vbulletin used a lot of resources, and they suggested I switch to phpbb. I did, losing a lot of posts in the process. But even with all those posts gone, the new forum barely had 100 posts before I saw that same error screen of death. It looked like they couldn't handle anything but plain HTML pages!

If that doesn't sound absurd enough, you'll love hearing about some of hostican's claims and trends on their forum during the next week. Here's a nice long list:


- Several customers found that the resources error would appear immediately after executing a query that took longer than a few seconds. This is despite hostican's policy that we canot exceed our share of resources for more than 60 seconds (not 1 second).

- They also found some queries took as long as 13 seconds, even on very simple pages that usually took a fraction of a second to load. It looked as though these long queries were the result of overloaded servers, and that hostican was not only punishing CPU hogs, but innocent people whose sites were slowing down due to those hogs.

- hostican never announced their stricter CPU limits until people began to complain. Not on their forum, site, email, or anywhere. It just blew up in everyone's faces. They've also conveniently not answered posts saying how they should have.

- hosticananswers.com/questions/101/Server+resource+limits
Their policy on resources limits say:
The customer must not: Use 25% or more of system resources for longer then 60 seconds.

However, it never says what exactly 25% is. 25% of what? Of whatever's convenient for the company to say it is at the time? Two different customers on the forums got two different answers from support. Again, uninformed and unhelpful.

- Unless you happen to visit your site while an error is occurring, then you'll never know about it. No email, nothing.

- Among the software people said the servers can no longer handle are: wordpres blogs, phpbb and vbulletin forums, Joomla, and the ability to backup the files on their site. Surely any decent hosting company would give their customers enough resources to do a backup without crashing their site?

-Want more proof that hostican has issues? They want their CUSTOMERS' help in developing CPU monitoring software (this thread might be deleted soon):
forum.hostican.com/5126-post21.html

- They've since merged all those CPU-error/frustration threads into one, and then deleted it. However, it's been saved to another location before it was deleted! If you want 380 posts of evidence, look no further:
gayteenforum.org/stuff/HostICan/

Here are some other blog pages their customers directed me to, both of which posted about this mess:
vhxn.com/hostican-really-really-sucks/
scriptygoddess.com/archives/2008/01/18/hostican-also-known-as-hostisuck-hosticant-and-a-pleothra-of-other-nicknames/

I certainly wasn't going to stay with them after this. Forget VPS. I've since gotten a new domain and hosting from a different host (Hostgator), and was able to copy my forum thanks to a backup I did before this mess started. Lost a lot of posts and money, yes, but the nightmare is over. If this message will help offset the cash those cheaters gained from me, then you'll make this message worth it, and you'll save yourself in the process.

I have no idea if this was an experimental money-making tactic by hostican gone horribly wrong, or how many people were affected. It's possible it's only a few dozen. I don't know. But if it happened to 20+ people, it can happen to you.

In summary, don't go with hostican, and do not sign up for 2 years of hosting unless you're confident in your host.

I apologize if this review seems overly long and negative. But it's all true.

[Captain Marvel]

The short version is that I'm sorry that a few people have decided that flaming rather than truth-telling is the order of the day.

I'm sure many of you have seen similar comments with regard to other hosts that are discussed in this forum.

But let me be brief.

Despite what you have read, there has been no change whatever in HostICan's resource limitation policy, which is done to protect people on shared systems from a very few who will abuse resources and slow a server to a crawl. This practice is a normal part of this industry.

These limitations are the ones this person and all shared hosting customers agree to when they sign up. HostICan has always monitored resource use, but recently the monitoring tools were enhanced. This is no different from what, for example, Bluehost does with its customer base.

Moreover, HostICan is working on a Flash-based tool to make it easier for Webmasters on shared systems to monitor their own resource use, but such things take time to produce.

The claim about the number of threads on the subject in HostiCan's Community Forum is also false. There were a number of messages on the subject, but they came essentially from a handful of people posting over and over again. Most of them, alas, misrepresented the resource requirements in the very same fashion.

These people claimed that they were not, in fact, abusing resources and it must be the host's fault. Some were investigated and their claims were found to be erroneous. In one case, a customer actually was using a beta version of vBulletin 3.7 (not even the latest beta) and 15 plugins, including a shoutbox. The latter feature is generally frowned upon, and often prohibited, in shared hosting systems.

While no company can expect 100% customer satisfaction, it's unfortunate that a few people choose to create flamewars and misrepresent the facts about their experiences with a company. I will, not, however, disclose this specific customer's true experiences, but will only urge you to view the claims with skepticism, unfortunately.

[individend]

They also said all the people who were having problems with this issue had been using too many resources from the very beginning (but were NEVER told). So the quality of service I got during those first 30 days was not the same as it is now.

I had no idea hostican's shared server could not handel my forum during the first 30 days. I had signed up for two years of shared hosting with hostican, only to find that my site was incapable of being on their shared server after the money-back guarantee was gone.

These two paras are the most important, I feel. That's the main key thing I want to tell. I did not know I would have to upgrade and pay more until you already had my money.

[Captain Marvel]

Originally Posted by individend

"They also said all the people who were having problems with this issue had been using too many resources from the very beginning (but were NEVER told). So the quality of service I got during those first 30 days was not the same as it is now.

I had no idea hostican's shared server could not handel my forum during the first 30 days. I had signed up for two years of shared hosting with hostican, only to find that my site was incapable of being on their shared server after the money-back guarantee was gone."

These two paras are the most important, I feel. That's the main key thing I want to tell. I did not know I would have to upgrade/pay more until you already had my money.

As I said, I won't embarrass you with the specifics of your particular account, beyond the fact that, despite claiming it was a light-duty board, you had over 250 messages a day, and a five figures worth of posts in less than a month. Nor will I ask you how many hosts you've had since leaving HostICan.

I wish you luck with your current host, but please stop posting misleading information about HostICan. If you want hate us, so be it, but let's leave it at that.

[Orien]

Originally Posted by Captain Marvel

As I said, I won't embarrass you with the specifics of your particular forum, beyond the fact that, despite claiming it was a light-duty board, you had over 250 messages a day, and a five figures worth of posts in less than a month. Nor will I ask you how many hosts you've had since leaving HostICan.

I wish you luck with your current host, but please stop posting misleading information. Let's leave it at that.

Unless it was using an inefficient script or filled with mods, over 250 messages a day doesn't sound too extreme for a forum, but I don't know the actual situation, so I can't accurately comment on that.

[Crucial Web Host]

Originally Posted by Captain Marvel

As I said, I won't embarrass you with the specifics of your particular account, beyond the fact that, despite claiming it was a light-duty board, you had over 250 messages a day, and a five figures worth of posts in less than a month. Nor will I ask you how many hosts you've had since leaving HostICan.

I wish you luck with your current host, but please stop posting misleading information about HostICan. If you want hate us, so be it, but let's leave it at that.

Probably wont make many fans with these comments.

you had over 250 messages a day

Quite a forum. Assuming your talking about email messages thats about 10 an hour - If your talking about posts I dont quite see how it's relevant.

five figures worth of posts in less than a month.

So if we assume he had 99999 posts in 30 days we have <4K posts a day.

This doesnt smell right. 4K posts a day would generate a lot more than 250 emails daily on a standard forum.

If the op is genuinely doing >4K posts a day, shared hosting is not in his future for long, but... Somethings not counted right here.

[Outlaw Web Master]

When are people going to learn that 600gb space + 6500gb BW accounts for $6.95 and suchlike will always have their limitations.

WHT is full of such horror stories but it's not about blasting the webhost...more a case of self education.

You only get what you pay for.

Tough times make monkeys eat green peppers.

OWM

[level3hosting]

Its just hosticant Blaming their customers again. I had the same problem on a vps with them. They kept saying it was a vbulletin problem. Its a server configuration problem from the get go. Look on vb.com and you will see others about this company.

[Crucial Web Host]

Originally Posted by chopperb

Its just hosticant Blaming their customers again. I had the same problem on a vps with them. They kept saying it was a vbulletin problem. Its a server configuration problem from the get go. Look on vb.com and you will see others about this company.

I doubt it.

vB is a highly optimized forum environment. We have working examples with 1000+ online at a time that do not generate problems.

The likely problem here is poorly optimized scripts/addons to vB. You might want to try disabling your plugins one at a time to see if things improve. I have a real hard time believing the problem has anything to do with vBulletin.

Kindly,

[individend]

Yeah, it's not vbulletin. I got the resource errors with phpbb too, and some other wordpress bloggers were also getting it.

Def. not getting 4000 posts a day. Never have, still haven't. 250's more like it.

[RLvB]

Originally Posted by individend

- They've since merged all those CPU-error/frustration threads into one, and then deleted it. However, it's been saved to another location before it was deleted! If you want 380 posts of evidence, look no further:
gayteenforum.org/stuff/HostICan/

Originally Posted by Captain Marvel

As I said, I won't embarrass you with the specifics of your particular account, beyond the fact that, despite claiming it was a light-duty board, you had over 250 messages a day, and a five figures worth of posts in less than a month.

Gene, please stop assuming people are me just because they cite my copy of the deleted thread. : rollseyes :

Originally Posted by Captain Marvel

Nor will I ask you how many hosts you've had since leaving HostICan.

Just the one.

Originally Posted by Crucial Web Host

I doubt it.

vB is a highly optimized forum environment. We have working examples with 1000+ online at a time that do not generate problems.

The likely problem here is poorly optimized scripts/addons to vB. You might want to try disabling your plugins one at a time to see if things improve. I have a real hard time believing the problem has anything to do with vBulletin.

I was running phpBB (which HostICan advised me to use because it was so much less resource-intensive than vBulletin). Barebone installation, no mods/add-ons/plug-ins. I turned off gzip compression, attachments and search indexing at the request of the support people, but that didn't make any difference. I even gave "Captain Marvel" here administrator access so he could confirm that I was telling the truth, because he wouldn't believe me.

I don't know why they even suggested that the forum was causing this. I couldn't even make a database backup from cPanel without causing a high-load error. There was clearly something wrong with the server itself. People are supposed to be able to run backups.

Originally Posted by Crucial Web Host

So if we assume he had 99999 posts in 30 days we have <4K posts a day.

This doesnt smell right. 4K posts a day would generate a lot more than 250 emails daily on a standard forum.

If the op is genuinely doing >4K posts a day, shared hosting is not in his future for long, but... Somethings not counted right here.

They were 250 posts per day, not e-mails, and this 5-figure post count was around 14,000, not 99,999.

The post frequency was at just under 1000 before the New Year, but dropped sharply afterwards. When the errors started coming, on the 7th of January, it was around 250 posts per day.
At the times the site was taken down, there were invariably fewer than 15 people online.
Note that HostICan said that a vBulletin installation on shared hosting should be able to handle 75-100 people, and phpBB was less resource-intensive and should be able to handle even more. Before the errors came, the record number of people online was 46. I was there when this number was reached, and performance wasn't affected at all. Since the 7th of January, it took only 5-15 people to take down the entire site.

But none of this matters: HostICan's own CPU logs actually confirmed that the limit stated in their policy was not broken. I tried to point this out, but my support tickets were ignored.

Fortunately, unlike most of the people affected, I was still within the 30-day refund term. After trying in vain to work out this problem with the support people for another two frustrating weeks, I left for a different host. My forum is now running beautifully, with search indexing, attachments, etc. turned back on, and 0 resource errors.

For a full account of my experience with HostICan, read my review (posted under the name RLvB on the 30th of January) at awardwinninghosts.com/shared-hosting/hostican/#comment-7949.

[ldcdc]

This is no different from what, for example, Bluehost does with its customer base.

Is that a defense? People have complained about Bluehost too.

Moreover, HostICan is working on a Flash-based tool to make it easier for Webmasters on shared systems to monitor their own resource use, but such things take time to produce.

Perhaps the monitoring system should be designed first, before "enhancing" the monitoring tools.

there has been no change whatever in HostICan's resource limitation policy

HostICan has always monitored resource use, but recently the monitoring tools were enhanced.

Looks like a change to me.

[ak7861]

In summary, don't go with hostican, and do not sign up for 2 years of hosting unless you're confident in your host.

Even if it was hosting by Google I wouldn't recommend paying for more than a year's worth.

When are people going to learn that 600gb space + 6500gb BW accounts for $6.95 and suchlike will always have their limitations.

WHT is full of such horror stories but it's not about blasting the webhost...more a case of self education.

You only get what you pay for.

Tough times make monkeys eat green peppers.

Thank you!

[individend]

Originally Posted by Captain Marvel

As I said, I won't embarrass you with the specifics of your particular account, beyond the fact that, despite claiming it was a light-duty board, you had over 250 messages a day, and a five figures worth of posts in less than a month. Nor will I ask you how many hosts you've had since leaving HostICan.

I wish you luck with your current host, but please stop posting misleading information about HostICan. If you want hate us, so be it, but let's leave it at that.

I've no idea why you quoted my key point, because you conveniently did not answer it: You forced me to pay you more money once I couldn't get my already-paid money back. That's what my frustration boils down to.

You know, your sudden change in subject (an irrelevant accusation that I can't find a suitable host AND that I should just be quiet) speaks for itself. HostGator's working fine, thank you very much.

[RLvB]

Originally Posted by Outlaw Web Master

When are people going to learn that 600gb space + 6500gb BW accounts for $6.95 and suchlike will always have their limitations.

WHT is full of such horror stories but it's not about blasting the webhost...more a case of self education.

You only get what you pay for.

Would you not expect to be able to run a forum with more than 5 users, on software that the host itself describes as light-weight?
Especially considering that they say 75-100 online users shouldn't be a problem.

Originally Posted by individend

You know, your sudden change in subject (an irrelevant accusation that I can't find a suitable host AND that I should just be quiet) speaks for itself. HostGator's working fine, thank you very much.

As is DreamHost. Neither of these seem to have any problem with our forums.

It really is quite astonishing how you can maintain that this is all the customers' fault when you can't even run a database backup without having your site taken down, and sites get taken down when the logs confirm that the resource limits weren't violated.