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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    12,207

    Thumbs up StarGate has hopes, after improving service [edited]

    Yeah I know, I was rooting for Stargate when they were banned and all but now I am pretty much fed up with their lack of professional attitude.

    Long story short, Stargate uses their own internal WHOIS database that is not shared among other Registrars but only once a week (maybe!) the database is updated. From my experience it's sporadic and closer to 2 weeks.

    Unfortunately, as you know I sell quite a large number of domains that need to have their information updated. The new owners wait patiently, checking their new domains from traditional WHOIS tools, like WWW.UWHOIS.COM and the unix shell command, only to see my own contact information as much as 10 days later!

    THIS IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS WAY STARGATE!
    Your reasoning is that you consume bandwidth by uploading your data nightly. Then do it every 48 hours, 72 hours or 96 hours. Once a week (on paper, more like 10 days+ in reality) is TOO F***ING LONG!

    I am sick and tired of being embarrassed towards my clients for all this. I brought you guys business, recommended your services to dozens of people and you guys don't give a flipping dime about the inconvenience you are causing. I have spoken numerous times with Jim Eiden and the techs about that, and it's only after I personally call and complain - having to jump through 4-5 voice mails in the process - that you say "ok we will upload it tonight".
    When is it nowadays? You mentioned once a week. I have been told it's every Wednesday, or every Friday. Well it's been more than a full week for the last batch of domains!

    I don't expect a solution anymore and this is meant to vent off my frustration and to warn others that are in the same line of business against using your services. I can no longer recommend Stargate for domain registrations, until you decide to behave like a Registrar instead of a garage business. GET SOME BANDWIDTH and upload the databases every 48 hours and faithfully so!
    Last edited by Acroplex; 11-07-2002 at 01:06 AM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2001
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    278
    It seems StarGate just giving up to enlarge their client base, they just too tired to compete with GoDaady and Enom, they don't want to invest more to improve their service, you are right and I don't think they can give this as a "Good Reason" for saving costs, saving cost in this way can only let them be an even small business.
    Hozting.com - Professional Hosting since 2000

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2002
    Location
    Arabia
    Posts
    678
    I really hate to say this - but SG was one of the greats but now going downhill fast.

  4. #4
    If you look at their position in the SOTD report, they are not doing well with regards to market share either.

    Should be picked up by Verisign soon I would guess.

    -t
    myOstrich Internet - OpenSRS Domain Names & Digital Certificates
    http://www.myostrich.net

  5. #5
    Timechange:

    I apologize for the inconvenience.

    You have been misinformed. The reason for the delay has been to reduce the abuse and scripting to our port 43 whois - not bandwidth. We have an OC-48 that can broken down into multiple DS3's, so bandwidth is certainly not the issue. Nor was it designed as a cost savings measure.

    Our web based whois is updated real-time.

    We have a planned upgrade to the port 43 update process that is being implemented this week. This upgrade will get our whois back into a 24 hour update schedule.

    Also, Jim is no longer with Stargate and has not been for many months.

    Hey, Microsoft started as a "garage business", can't be all that bad.


    TheWitt: Being positioned inside the top 20 registrars in market share for Q3, and inceasing in position from Q2, in the SOTD report seems pretty good to me.

    Tom

  6. #6
    TheWitt: Being positioned inside the top 20 registrars in market share for Q3, and inceasing in position from Q2, in the SOTD report seems pretty good to me.
    Bringing in enough new registrations to replace those who are not renewing.
    This is a siginifiacnt reversal from previous months.
    Its probably due tot he price increase but the WHOIS is laughable.
    Other registrars manage to make the changes in almost real time.
    The stargate whois is very very slow or times out a lot of the time.

    We used to use them and finally stopped at the end of February.
    The main problems were SQL server errors on completion of registrations.
    Sometimes they had gone through sometime sthey hadn't.
    This was a regular occurrence.

    Recently we have had 20+ domains expire after one year when we had selected 2 year registration.
    The jury is still ou ton whether we paid for 2 years or 1 year.
    Its my fault for not double checking the expiry dates manually, but we really should not have to do that if the system worked correctly.
    We have also had problems renewing domains with sporadic error messages "unable to renew" being generated.

    Stargate has great potential:
    The system is easier to use than Enom.
    The prices are good.
    Transfers are straightforward.

    But when things go wrong it is extremely stressful.

    We deal with a whole range of registrars but mainly use OpenSRS and I am happy to pay the extra to be able to sleep at night.

    Gordon
    Formerly: Managing Director, Hostroute.com Ltd & Marketing Director, Ultraspeed UK Ltd
    View my Professional Profile: www.gordonhudson.com

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    12,207
    Hi Tom,

    My mistake, I believe I've spoken with you on several occassions; Jim Eiden handled my bulk account issues several months ago.

    The response to my ticket mentioned bandwidth. The tech/sysadmin I spoke to on the phone once (Boris?) quoted the same. At any rate, whatever causes this significant delay is really causing problems. For example, I have a domain transfer managed by Escrow.com - guess who's WHOIS they are using to confirm I moved the domain to the new owner: definitely not your web-based one.

    To top it off, today you announced $7.95 pricing across the board - a smart move from the $13.95 hike of a year ago. But that leaves me with a bulk account at $8 /domain which I won't be using anymore. Plus the email, signed by Tim Folliard, is from noreply@stargateinc.com with no other contact info. I replied to regardless and of course it came back notifying me that it's an unattended mailbox.

    Don't get me wrong, there are several things that are wonderful with Stargate's interface, but I would like to see a significant improvement in the WHOIS issue.

    Also, since we are addressing all issues here, I would like to let you know that you currently allow "username/password1" and "username/password2" to be two separate entities. This is not good at all. The code should check for existance of username before creating a new one, and only doing so after the passwords match. I ended up scratching my head when I transferred a domain to the correct username but with the wrong password (it created a new account with the same username and the new password and placed the domain under that account).

    Thanks,
    Theo


    Originally posted by Stargate.com
    Timechange:

    I apologize for the inconvenience.

    You have been misinformed. The reason for the delay has been to reduce the abuse and scripting to our port 43 whois - not bandwidth. We have an OC-48 that can broken down into multiple DS3's, so bandwidth is certainly not the issue. Nor was it designed as a cost savings measure.

    Our web based whois is updated real-time.

    We have a planned upgrade to the port 43 update process that is being implemented this week. This upgrade will get our whois back into a 24 hour update schedule.

    Also, Jim is no longer with Stargate and has not been for many months.

    Hey, Microsoft started as a "garage business", can't be all that bad.


    TheWitt: Being positioned inside the top 20 registrars in market share for Q3, and inceasing in position from Q2, in the SOTD report seems pretty good to me.

    Tom

  8. #8
    Theo,

    Youv'e been a customer for quite some time. Just contact our sales dept. for a better rate.

    Tom

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    12,207
    thanks Tom.

    PS Any estimate on the WHOIS issue? It's eating me up alive

  10. #10
    I was told the whois issue was resolved today. I know an update took place yesterday and today.

    Updates should now take place once per day.

    Tom

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    12,207
    GREAT! I'll be a happy camper then! Thanks a lot

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Aug 2001
    Location
    St. Louis, MO
    Posts
    467

    SOTD ...

    In case people are wondering, as I was, the SOTD report is the State of the Domain report.

    You can find more info here:

    State of the Domain

    A great read!

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Mar 2002
    Location
    Orlando, FL
    Posts
    12,207
    Great news, seems that Stargate not only redesigned their web pages but also they upload the WHOIS database every 48 hours, if not 24!

    That's really great and I reinstate my long-standing appreciation of Stargate.com as a reliable Registrar

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