Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : VPS Hosting : VPS rant featuring [VPSland, FsckVPS]

[Karl]

Firstly I found out about VPSland. I was impressed by their prices so I thought "why not give it a go?", so I did. They set the server up pretty quickly and I was emailed my information, everything seemed fine so I got on with uploading my files, etc.

After the first few days the uptime was good and everything was going good. Until my server kept randomly going offline and becoming inaccessable. I opened a ticket about this and received a reply a while later. By while, I mean over 24 hours. They're support is bad and they couldn't see the problem. After they restarted my server it continued to go offline every 20-30 minutes for the next few weeks. VPSland did nothing about this, nothing to try to fix it or compensate me for the loss of uptime.

This later resulted in me cancelling my plan and looking elsewhere.

I then found out about FsckVPS, their prices were really good and unmanaged appealed to me. I paid for one month to test it out, got everything working after a few tickets back and forth, these were answered really quickly and in detail, so thanks. This was until my server went offline because of a RAM failure. I was told they would restart the host node and get it working quickly, only to be disappointed. They had to restart at on off peek hour because other clients were hosted on the server. This is fair enough, however, they said this at around 8PM. At 12PM it wasn't restarted, instead I had to wait another 24 hours for it to be restarted. This is just not acceptable. I lost over 30 hours because of THEIR hardware failure.

I asked if I could be compensated in any way for the time lost. Only to find them say they wouldn't give me any money back, I replied stating I never asked for any money back, obviously for $9.95 a month you can't expect much back, I just wanted the extra 24 hours credited to my account. They refused to do so as they said it wasn't their problem. So wait, RAM failure in a server isn't the companies fault? It's the clients fault? I beg to differ.

I have now been approached by WaveWeb. I was offered one month free hosting on their unmanaged plan. The plan I was offered is exactly the same as the 512MB RAM package FsckVPS offered, which is exactly what I needed.

So far I'm happy, a few things have gone wrong but nothing major and their support has been really good. They've replied quickly.

However, they've just had to make an emergency server migration and I'm now being SPAMmed every 5 minutes about the old server. I've opened a ticket and hopefully it will be resolved, I don't expect them to fix it right away as I'm not actually paying for it yet

Well, I'm done.
Thanks
~Karl

[darkeden]

fsckvps has always been great for me. ive had the same issues with vpsland though. I think one of the reasons you are having issues because your choosing dirt cheap. I was told by fsckvps that all servers are on 8gb ram servers and for the prices they offer its a little sketcy.

[rghf]

I would point out your failure was NOT hardware related. It was related to know bug between KDE and OpenVZ which means the VPS can't be shutdown. A host server needs to be rebooted to fix it and we give customers 24 hours notice that we are going to reboot it hence the period

EDIT: Actual bug report http://www.nabble.com/Bug-513537:-li...d21737853.html

Rus

[Karl]

The only thing which is important for me when looking for a host is security, uptime and connection speed. I can't seem to find anyone with a flawless service.

Originally Posted by a2b2

I would point out your failure was NOT hardware related. It was related to know bug between KDE and OpenVZ which means the VPS can't be shutdown. A host server needs to be rebooted to fix it and we give customers 24 hours notice that we are going to reboot it hence the period

Rus

I was told it was a RAM failure.



EDIT: I also sent an e-mail to the CEO, which I assume is you Rus, I am yet to receive a reply.

From a chat log:
Kody Riker: Because we are replacing RAM in the box.

[rghf]

Originally Posted by -Karl-

The only thing which is important for me when looking for a host is security, uptime and connection speed. I can't seem to find anyone with a flawless service.



I was told it was a RAM failure.

Your VPS hit its allocated RAM limit so your instance failed to allocate RAM and a reboot in turn caused the KDE bug to surface

[Karl]

Why did Kody say this in my live chat session with him?

Kody Riker: Because we are replacing RAM in the box.

He's either misinformed me, or you're covering something up so that you don't have to compensate me for the time lost.

[rghf]

Kody was misinformed and this has already been dealt with interally If you check your HyperVM graphs you shouldn't see any gaps in them as you would do if there was a long period of hardware downtime. Hardware RAM swaps would take a max of 1 hour

[Karl]

My first ticket was opened on 20 May 2009 5:12 PM according to your support system. By the time I was back online this was on 22 May 2009 5:43 AM.

Through using my excellent brain power I can only assume this is more than 1 hour.

Also, what happened to my unanswered e-mail? Was that simply deleted and disregarded?

[rghf]

We did NOT swap the RAM. Your issue was totally a software based issue which require a reboot of the server to fix it. As for you email I don't believe I saw it come through. Please forward it to rghf@vaserv.com

Rus

[Karl]

Maybe you didn't swap the RAM, but was I or was I not down for a period of over 30 hours?

All I can assume is that the communication within your business is pretty poor, Kody thinks it was a RAM failure, you're saying otherwise. Why was I not later informed of this? I was left to believe it was hardware failure.

Also, I can only assume Kody deleted the e-mail, as I was furious with the support I was receiving and I asked him for the e-mail. (manglement@fsckvps.com)

[rghf]

You were down for 30 hours because of a software issue that caused your VPS to hang and we give other users 24 hours notice of reboots. Kody doesn't have access to anything apart from his email and the support desk.

[Karl]

I was down for 30 hours through no fault of my own and I wasn't compensated for it. I was misinformed of the problem and my e-mail has mysteriously disappeared.

Splendid.

[rghf]

Software bugs are a fact of life and we worked to reboot your VPS as quickly as possible with causing minmum effect to other customers. I've asked you to resend the email so I can review it. ITs down to you if you wish to do that and from there I can see if we recieved the original

[Karl]

I've sent it to the e-mail you just provided, let's hope this one doesn't lose it's way through the internet.

Let me know if you haven't received it.

Software bugs aren't a way of life in my life. I really don't see why I should lose out for this.



EDIT:

I almost forgot, a quote from Kody:
There is no ETA but we are working on it. You will receive a credit for this time that we are down.

I didn't receive a thing.

[rghf]

I've got your copy of the email and will review it tommorow for you