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  1. #1

    Thumbs down Hostmonster - Site shutdown because its busy!

    Wanted to share a bit (read vent a bit if you're cynical ).
    Just got the following e-mail from hostmonster.

    -----------
    Dear Dale:

    Your web hosting account for ibycus.com has been deactivated (reason: site causing performance problems).
    Although your web site has been disabled, your data may still be available for up to 15 days, after which it will be deleted.

    If you feel this deactivation is in error, please contact customer support as soon as possible.

    Thank you,
    Support

    For support go to
    Toll-Free: (866) 573-4678
    -------------

    Apparently, there are two files on my website that are being hit quite a bit, and causing the server to slow down. (I admit, its a busy site, and the files are very big). The files aren't new there, and neither is the traffic, but the plug was pulled with no warning what so ever, and no offer of remediation on their part beyond refunding the remaining portion of my contract (I would hope so too!).

    I can understand that they may not be able to continue to host my site due to the volume of traffic it generates, but they really could have handled this much better.

    Anyways thought I should share.

  2. #2
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    You were disabled, might you were using high cpu. try a VPS

  3. #3
    I know this is probably very stressful for you, and I can understand why. This is really not surprising. Whenever you're in a shared environment, there's always a chance of being suspended for too much CPU use.

    At this point, you can optimize your site so that it doesn't cause resource load, but if it's busy like you said, you may have outgrown standard shared hosting. You may want to look into semi-dedicated hosting, dedicated hosting, or VPS hosting. They're all viable alternatives, but each of them have their pros and cons. VPS and Dedicated solutions require you to either have linux and security knowledge, or purchase thirdparty management, or get it managed by the provider. This is sometimes a more expensive alternative. If you like the way shared hosting works, but you really just need more CPU and Memory flexibility, I would recommend going the semi-dedicated route. It's shared, but there's a lot lower ratio of accounts per server, and you're given a lot more server resources to work with.

    Good luck in your search!
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  4. #4
    Shouldn't they have an error for CPU limit exceeded. That wasn't what I was given. Basically my site has about 4TB of downloads a month (I have one file hosted that is about 4GB that are free GPS maps for download). I can understand totally why they would 'pull the plug', but seriously, they should have given me some warning on it. And given that they did have to pull the plug, you'd think they might at least say "Yeah, it sucks, we had to disable your site so that other people could use the server, but here is the compensation we'll offer you for the inconvenience".

    I've recommended hostmonster to a lot of people, who have set up accounts with them. I was even planning on getting a new subscriber to set up an account with them this coming Sunday. Surely a positive customer experience is worth something to them? Wasn't like I was asking them for much, just a refund of the current service term (I think it would have been about $50 plus the time remaining on the account).

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by UH-Bobby View Post
    I know this is probably very stressful for you, and I can understand why. This is really not surprising. Whenever you're in a shared environment, there's always a chance of being suspended for too much CPU use.
    The problem is, I'm not really making any money off this site, its more of a 'for fun'/service to the community kind of thing. I don't think for the money it brings in (I accepted donations), I can justify a (much) more expensive solution.

    I think what I'll probably do, is shift the download over on to some other server (not paid for by me, like maybe download.com or something like that), and move to another provider.

    Like I told them, there were things I could do to cut the load if they'd told me they were getting ready to pull the plug, but I had 0 warning of this, which is the part that bugs me.

  6. #6
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    The other item is your allowing downloads. In most of these unlimited type host say no downloads, no file sharing, no media, etc. They do that so they can charge you more and you cannot come close to using the unlimited resources.
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  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by ibycus View Post
    The problem is, I'm not really making any money off this site, its more of a 'for fun'/service to the community kind of thing. I don't think for the money it brings in (I accepted donations), I can justify a (much) more expensive solution.

    I think what I'll probably do, is shift the download over on to some other server (not paid for by me, like maybe download.com or something like that), and move to another provider.

    Like I told them, there were things I could do to cut the load if they'd told me they were getting ready to pull the plug, but I had 0 warning of this, which is the part that bugs me.
    I think that would be a very good idea. 4TB would be very hard for any host to do it in a shared environment.
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  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Zachary McClung View Post
    The other item is your allowing downloads. In most of these unlimited type host say no downloads, no file sharing, no media, etc. They do that so they can charge you more and you cannot come close to using the unlimited resources.
    I wonder... they certainly never quoted that to me when I was talking with them. Just told me I had to work out a way to 'throttle the site use'. I thought that was part of their job.

    The file in question though is a perfectly legitimate 4GB file of my own creation. (Its based on some government GIS data).

    I'm not totally sure I understand how a hosting provider can 'disallow downloads'. Wouldn't that mean you weren't allowed to have anything there in the first place? (even HTML is a download --- just a relatively small download).

  9. #9
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    I do not think there are many sites letting you host 4TB of bandwidth monthly for free (or real cheap) i guess you have finally hit the 'invisible' unlimited bandwidth usage limit

    It would have been more polite to inform a customer of what did happen and work with them to solve it, that would certainly be space for improvement.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    May 2007
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    271
    Quote Originally Posted by ibycus View Post
    I'm not totally sure I understand how a hosting provider can 'disallow downloads'. Wouldn't that mean you weren't allowed to have anything there in the first place? (even HTML is a download --- just a relatively small download).
    By downloads they mean larger files, ones which are not part of of the actual website (html,css,js,images.etc). Files like archives, separate media files.
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  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by UH-Bobby View Post
    I think that would be a very good idea. 4TB would be very hard for any host to do it in a shared environment.
    Yeah... Its not that they can't handle it that bothers me. Its the way in which they dealt with the problem. Bascially --- "We're going to piss this one customer off, because one customer doesn't mean anything to us, and we don't want his business anyways", rather than trying to work with me to continue a productive relationship.

    If they would have talked to me *before* pulling the plug, I would have been much more happy with them as a company.

    This isn't even the first time they've screwed me around either. I think they are hoping initially that I'd just decide that the site was too slow, and look at 'upgrading' it, rather than have them tell me where to shove it (in the last month, my total downloads dropped from a consistent 4TB/month down to 2TB...)

    They'd frequently take the site offline for 'maintenance', with no warning what so ever (I understand that computers can crash, but when ever I spoke to them they told me that 'an administrator has temporarily taken the server offline while they investigate an issue', not that the computer had gone down).

    Then there was the issue of them transfering me to a different server. With no warning what so ever, my domain suddenly stopped working for several days, as they didn't bother to warn me, so I could adjust the TTL on the DNS records. When they got it to the new server, they didn't set things up again properly, and I had to spend lots of time with them asking them to fix one thing, and then another. (and them insisting that I fax them my drivers license to re-enable something they had disabled in the first place!).

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by 040Hosting View Post
    I do not think there are many sites letting you host 4TB of bandwidth monthly for free (or real cheap) i guess you have finally hit the 'invisible' unlimited bandwidth usage limit

    It would have been more polite to inform a customer of what did happen and work with them to solve it, that would certainly be space for improvement.
    Honestly, if they had spoken to me, I would have been more than happy to try to work something else out. I had been noticing increased error rates on the downloads, and had already switched to getting most of my users to download using BitTorrent to try to take some of the load off the server (and so that they could have a working download when done).

    The next version of my maps I'd intended to not even provide a direct download URL, as it was causing me more trouble than it was worth to have people download via HTTP).

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by ibycus View Post
    Yeah... Its not that they can't handle it that bothers me. Its the way in which they dealt with the problem. Bascially --- "We're going to piss this one customer off, because one customer doesn't mean anything to us, and we don't want his business anyways", rather than trying to work with me to continue a productive relationship.

    If they would have talked to me *before* pulling the plug, I would have been much more happy with them as a company.

    This isn't even the first time they've screwed me around either. I think they are hoping initially that I'd just decide that the site was too slow, and look at 'upgrading' it, rather than have them tell me where to shove it (in the last month, my total downloads dropped from a consistent 4TB/month down to 2TB...)

    They'd frequently take the site offline for 'maintenance', with no warning what so ever (I understand that computers can crash, but when ever I spoke to them they told me that 'an administrator has temporarily taken the server offline while they investigate an issue', not that the computer had gone down).

    Then there was the issue of them transfering me to a different server. With no warning what so ever, my domain suddenly stopped working for several days, as they didn't bother to warn me, so I could adjust the TTL on the DNS records. When they got it to the new server, they didn't set things up again properly, and I had to spend lots of time with them asking them to fix one thing, and then another. (and them insisting that I fax them my drivers license to re-enable something they had disabled in the first place!).
    Oh I definitely agree with you, it would have definitely been better to notify you first before pulling the plug.

    In some circumstances, notification isn't possible before suspension, but it sounds like in this case, they could have easily let you know first.
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by ibycus View Post
    Honestly, if they had spoken to me, I would have been more than happy to try to work something else out. I had been noticing increased error rates on the downloads, and had already switched to getting most of my users to download using BitTorrent to try to take some of the load off the server (and so that they could have a working download when done).

    The next version of my maps I'd intended to not even provide a direct download URL, as it was causing me more trouble than it was worth to have people download via HTTP).
    When you are not providing the direct downloads anymore i would say you can go to any shared-hosting provider; unless you still would get a great amount of hits on a heavy scripted page, which obviously you can do something about as well.

    Wish you all the best in finding the right host for your site.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by UH-Bobby View Post

    In some circumstances, notification isn't possible before suspension, but it sounds like in this case, they could have easily let you know first.
    If it was just a suspension i can understand, in that case the mail and suspension would be a warning, but it seems the email is clearly booting them as customer, that is no suspension but termination.

  16. #16
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    You were using $200-$400+ per month worth of data transfer. It would have been nice to receive a warning of the suspension as a courtesy, but at the end of the day, you have been getting such a wonderful deal while the service lasted, that you're unlikely to meet someplace else.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zachary McClung View Post
    The other item is your allowing downloads. In most of these unlimited type host say no downloads, no file sharing, no media, etc. They do that so they can charge you more and you cannot come close to using the unlimited resources.
    More nonsense from the hosting gallery. The guy's site is probably typical of 0.01% of all shared hosting sites. You don't think he would have got the same treatment from a 5GB plan?

    I agree with the others that he has outgrown any shared hosting plan. To blame it on the word "unlimited" is ludicrous.
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  18. #18
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    The problem with shared hosting is generally there are no ways to sandbox each users account to limit the amount of resources you use (some hosts do this with major customizations but the vast majority do not). The host provider monitors the server and sees your account coming up in the top users/processes. They have no real way to throttle your CPU usage except to suspend your account.

    It's unfortunate but that's pretty much how it goes.

    If you were on a VPS that would be different since you have your own virtual system (you're in a big sandbox) and you can't use more than what the provider gives you CPU wise.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Ramprage View Post
    The problem with shared hosting is generally there are no ways to sandbox each users account to limit the amount of resources you use (some hosts do this with major customizations but the vast majority do not). The host provider monitors the server and sees your account coming up in the top users/processes. They have no real way to throttle your CPU usage except to suspend your account.

    It's unfortunate but that's pretty much how it goes.

    If you were on a VPS that would be different since you have your own virtual system (you're in a big sandbox) and you can't use more than what the provider gives you CPU wise.
    I would think (correct me if I'm wrong) one easy (less drastic) thing they could have done if immediate action was required would have been to simply disable access to the two offending files (rename them?), rather completely shut down the entire site, and send me an explanatory (appologetic) e-mail.

  20. #20
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    It might sound harsh but if you check their tos they have a full right to do this. So even though you might have a limited budget, I would suggest you take your back ups and just get a vps.
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  21. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by biggestbh View Post
    It might sound harsh but if you check their tos they have a full right to do this. So even though you might have a limited budget, I would suggest you take your back ups and just get a vps.
    Basically the TOS says according to them (I haven't re-read it in detail since signing, but I've been quoted a few sections by the 'abuse' department), that they can do what ever they want, when ever they want with no notification. If you don't like it, well sucks to be you, and you can cancel your account.

    It may be true, but its highly unprofessional. When a simple email asking me to please restrict my use would have done the job, and kept everyone happy....

    Its alwasy best to work with people, rather than heavy hand them.

  22. #22
    I would recommend a VPS as well, if you currently aren't enrolled in Google AdSense I would recommend it.

    If you have a lot of traffic, the revenue from AdSense alone will easily pay for any hosting expenses you incur on a monthly basis.

  23. #23
    this is what shared hosting is all about. Read the TOS, it is probably in there

  24. #24
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    The myth of unlimited hosting unmasked

    Quote Originally Posted by 040Hosting View Post
    I do not think there are many sites letting you host 4TB of bandwidth monthly for free (or real cheap) i guess you have finally hit the 'invisible' unlimited bandwidth usage limit
    If more customers knew how the resource usage will be monitored and that unlimited is just overselling a server, and assuming noone will ever be allowed to hit their invisible limits, then Hostmonster and these others would not have so much of the market share. We all know it is a myth, but people still sign up for it because it sounds like you don't even need to look at your stats.

    Overselling has been disussed to death on this forum, but here is the very reason it's a bad idea for the customer. The only difference is: your host doesn't want you to "throttle down", they want you off their server permanently. Oversellers prefer someone hosting a nice small fast HTML only page with no file downloads, media, etc etc, and offer they offer them unlimited (as if that kind of site could even get to use it?)

    Hostmonster could have been more professional I agree. Normally a warning email is sent first, and if it's ignored, they pull the plug on you, but not as a first contact--unless maybe you have been warned once long before and you are on their watch list (which I suspect becasue of this 4TB monthly.)

    If you are not making enough money off the site to justify a move to VPS, but you do have the traffic, may I suggest some relevant PPC traffic could make the site more self funding, and still have your donations link.

    my 2 cents worth...
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  25. #25
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    I'm amazed you got past 500gigs of transfer without getting suspended. That's some amazing value hosting there. I don't know their policy but not warning the customer before suspension is just pure arrogant. But oh well, at least they're down 4TB of transfer

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