| Posted by karlcore, 03-14-2005, 04:50 PM | | This is part rant and part call for help.
I've been designing sites for about 8 years now and I have had more hosts than I can even remember. They've all sucked. They've all had the biggest morons running their support departments. They've all had the worst attitudes doing customer service. I've been with CIHost, Apollohosting, Page Zone, Webreseller.net, the list goes on and they all suck. Webreseller.net is STILL trying to charge me for an account I closed at the beginning of this year.
After lurking on this board, I decided to try Hostgator. From the beginning there were little problems, nothing big. Then there were a handful of downtime issues. Again, not a big deal and whenever I contacted support, they jumped right on it.
Well, this weekend and today, my sites have been down more than they've been up. I've contacted support several times and they're "working on it".
I finally called and got ahold of a guy who said he was the owner (forgot the name) and he again said they were working on it. I asked to be moved to another box. He said "we'll have fixed the problem by the time we'd get you moved". ********. This is already after asking to be moved once already, 4 hours earlier.
Here's a clue to you guys who own hosting companies that post on this board:
1) Drop the attitude with your customers. This industry is way too competitive for you to act indignant when a customer, who's on a server that is apparently unstable, calls up to ask WTF is wrong.
2) "We're working on it" is not an acceptable answer. Neither is "we'll get it fixed right away". Try being honest for once. I'd rather hear "we have a major cluster**** on our hands and you're gonna be down for 24 hours" than some ******** answer like "we're working on it". Even better, give us some details as to what the problem is.
ARE THERE ANY HOSTS OUT THERE WHO DON'T SUCK?
Seriously, I'm not looking at hosting Ebay, here. I have a few personal sites and 2-3 friends. Here's what I need:
PHP 4.2.3+
MySQL 4+
7500 - 10,000 mb disk space
7 gigs transfer
WHM/ CPanel
private nameserver
ImageMagick
This isn't brain surgery here. I don't need anything special. Oh wait, yeah I do. I need to be on a stable machine and be able to talk to someone who sounds like they give a crap about my business when I call.
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| Posted by JonaY, 03-14-2005, 05:18 PM | | What is your budget for this?
I don't quite understand how / why you need more disk space than bandwidth.......?
I host with SolidHost who have been very reliable, I've had hardly an downtime and any I have had has been minor and well explained but they don't offer phone support so they might not be for you.
I think you might have been a little unfair to your previous webhost considering you are a shared hosting account. I know you want them to care about your buisness but they have all the rest of the customers on the box to think about as well and whilst they are plicating you on the phone they arn't fixing the problem! Bottom line is really if you want really good support / customer service you have to pay a premium for it.
Cheers
Jona
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| Posted by Bofu2U, 03-14-2005, 05:22 PM | | If your looking for that much space, have you at least looked into VPS's yet? (ServInt is $50 for 10 GB space, 200 GB transfer .. sounds like it just barely fits your quota for space) ?
Yeah, I also am wondering about that 7 GB transfer.. was that a typo for 70?
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| Posted by PierreB, 03-14-2005, 05:23 PM | | If you need that much space for 2-3 web site, may I know what you plan on hosting on the space?
thanks.
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-14-2005, 05:31 PM | | Nah, I have 12 websites in all. My personal sites and sites for 2-3 friends.
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| Posted by PierreB, 03-14-2005, 05:32 PM | | That still doesn't explain the space requirement. How about you elaborate on the topic. That would help us all.
Last edited by PierreB; 03-14-2005 at 05:36 PM.
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-14-2005, 05:35 PM | | Yes. Thanks for catching that. I meant 70
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| Posted by Bofu2U, 03-14-2005, 05:36 PM | | No problem So you are looking for 10 GB space and 70 GB transfer.. and only a reseller or ...?
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| Posted by PierreB, 03-14-2005, 05:38 PM | | Oh, doing the match that be 625+ for each 12 web site. so yes, that reasonable.
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-14-2005, 05:38 PM | | Edited - I just took a look and I'm only using about 3gigs of space right now. I can foresee, however, using 2x that much pretty easily with some of the stuff I'm working on for my band.
Last edited by karlcore; 03-14-2005 at 05:44 PM.
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| Posted by a.harris, 03-14-2005, 05:43 PM | | I'd like to second SolidHost. Very reliable and excellent team to back it up.
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| Posted by cartika-andrew, 03-14-2005, 05:48 PM | | Hi Karlcore,
The resources you are looking for are on the higher end of a reseller account. I think its all dependant on budget. Asking for that amount of resources as well as a stable, redundant environment, with solid reliable support isnt cheap. If you have budgeted anything less then $70US - I think you are increasing your chances of growing your list of hosting horror stories.
If you have the capability of running basic server admin tasks - a VPS may be your best bet. You could probably find what you are looking for with a lower budget - however, if you want to stick to a fully managed reseller environment, you will probably need a higher budget to ensure reliability...
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| Posted by BrentOfHG, 03-14-2005, 06:50 PM | | What I told you was the truth. DNS changes take a while to prorogate to a new servers ip. We suspended the reseller we believe to be causing the problems with his search scripts, and haven't had any issues since. This was done shortly after getting off the phone with you. Obviously we get just upset as you do when a server of ours has downtime. The difference is we'll most likely have the person we suspended / causing the problems posting here any minute to bash us. You solve a problem you still get yelled at. =)
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-14-2005, 07:16 PM | | The 'truth' you told me was that the server was having problems. You say now (and in an email at 5:19) that someone had a search script run amok. But yesterday the explanation was some sort of SMTP attack. Which was it? (or was it both).
Regardless of what it was, I didn't appreciate the indignant attitude I got when I called support. When a company offers '99.9% uptime guarantee, 24/7 support', don't expect that you can get an attitude with your customers when they call on the phone to complain that you're not living up to your claims.
Believe me when I say that I wouldn't be posting here if, when I called, I got something that resembled friendly, courteous service, instead of an attitude that made me feel like I was bothering you.
A lot of people who post here will probably reply with "Well, what do you expect with a shared reseller?" Simple. I expect to have my provider live up to the things which they claim and to be courteous when I call with a problem. I don't think that's too much to ask.
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-14-2005, 07:19 PM | | By the way, it is now exactly 60 minutes after I was told "I am almost positive the problem has been solved." and my sites are down again.
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| Posted by BrentOfHG, 03-14-2005, 09:27 PM | | Request a refund and you'll be given it. When we say we are working on a problem we are. When you want to know what the problem is we cannot tell you unless we know.
We believe we finally cracked it....
Mar 14 16:35:32 acura pure-ftpd: (rae@24.36.233.130) [NOTICE] Deleted /public_html/cgi-bin/room28/messages/35
Mar 14 16:35:32 acura pure-ftpd: (rae@24.36.233.130) [NOTICE] Deleted /public_html/cgi-bin/room28/messages/36
Mar 14 16:35:32 acura pure-ftpd: (rae@24.36.233.130) [NOTICE] Deleted /public_html/cgi-bin/room28/messages/37
Mar 14 16:35:32 acura pure-ftpd: (rae@24.36.233.130) [NOTICE] Deleted /public_html/cgi-bin/room28/messages/38
Mar 14 16:35:32 acura pure-ftpd: (rae@24.36.233.130) [NOTICE] Deleted /public_html/cgi-bin/room28/messages/39
Mar 14 16:35:32 acura pure-ftpd: (rae@24.36.233.130) [NOTICE] Deleted /public_html/cgi-bin/room28/messages/40
Mar 14 16:35:32 acura pure-ftpd: (rae@24.36.233.130) [NOTICE] Deleted /public_html/cgi-bin/room28/messages/41
Mar 14 16:35:32 acura pure-ftpd: (rae@24.36.233.130) [NOTICE] Deleted /public_html/cgi-bin/room28/messages/42
Mar 14 16:35:32 acura pure-ftpd: (rae@24.36.233.130) [NOTICE] Deleted /public_html/cgi-bin/room28/messages/43
16k of the above...
We contacted the reseller and it turned out his computer was hacked most likely from when his girlfriend was playing on it a few days ago. We came to this conclusion because of the IP being his and him not accessing the computer all day. It's not easy to track something that crashes the server instantly. This is the first time we have ever seen FTP cause this kind of problem which made it that much more difficult to find.
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| Posted by deadserious, 03-14-2005, 11:19 PM | | Yes Webreseller --- Robert Greenwalt is the absolute most unethical, deceitful, fraudelent, dishonest, thieving, immoral, pathetic and on and on company I and many many more have ever dealt with. I doubt anything short of having Webreseller shut completely down and Robert put in prison right where I think he truely belongs will stop them from continuing to do what they are doing to you and I and have been doing to many, many more for years and years.
Good luck finding a host that will offer and deliver what you're looking for, I'm sure there is one out there just for you.
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-14-2005, 11:23 PM | | Very weird. The first time I looked at your message, it looked like you quoted me as saying those things.
But yes, I wouldn't even advise my worst enemy to go to Webreseller.net.
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| Posted by deadserious, 03-14-2005, 11:49 PM | | LOL, yea the message did appear that way at first, but I noticed and edited it right away. And yea if anyone is thinking about using Webreseller for anything or plans on cancelling with them or needs to request a refund or anything to do with money; You can count on learning what a truely unethical, immoral, and deceptive company Webreseller and Robert Greenwalt really is for yourself. But hopefully you'll take all the other warnings seriously before going through the trouble of learning for yourself.
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-15-2005, 07:26 AM | | The funniest thing about Robert Greenwalt was the fact that he was so polite everytime I talked to him on the phone EXCEPT when I called to complain about them still charging me. Then he became the worst ******* in the world. We almost got into a screaming argument.
At one time, I cut & paste all of my support tickets into a Word file that I was going to use for a post here on WHT about how bad WebReseller.net sucked. I think sites like this one are great and I wish I had done more research before going to WebReseller.net. Then again, the research I did to find Hostgator doesn't seem to have benefitted me much, either.
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-15-2005, 07:32 AM | | I don't want a refund. I want my sites to work. It is now 6:30 am and that box is still unstable.
Your answer to my request to be moved was that DNS propagation would take too long. Well, we're now pushing 18 hours from the time I first asked to be moved. Care to wager on whether the box will TRULY be fixed 6 hours from now?
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-15-2005, 03:01 PM | | Just to update all who've followed this thread.
Brent has moved me to a new server. I believe in giving people a fair chance, and so I am gonna stick around with HostGator for a while and I hope everything works out.
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| Posted by Bofu2U, 03-15-2005, 03:30 PM | | Glad to hear it's working out
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| Posted by SydneyJen, 03-15-2005, 05:23 PM | | BGFweb.com is the best for reseller accounts!
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| Posted by BrentOfHG, 03-15-2005, 07:27 PM | | I have been sitting here in the entire day waiting for the problem to run again and sure enough ...
| localhost | | Query | 8 | Opening table
s | SELECT * FROM dogpages WHERE allow=1 ORDER BY state LIMIT 0, 8 |
The second this ran load jumped from .4 to 80+ continuing to rise. This was the only mysql process running and after killing it the server stabilized instantly. Turns out the owner of the site is karlcore.
This is probably why all the hosts you have been with suck considering it is one of your users who is causing the problems.
Karl I need to speak with you about the site please call me.
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-15-2005, 08:59 PM | | Anyone wanna tell me how the code on this page can bring a server to its knees? I'm not being a smart ***, I'd love to know.
We're talking about printing 8 results out of a table with 17 or so records in it.
Attached Files
available.txt
(3.9 KB, 60 views)
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| Posted by Bofu2U, 03-15-2005, 09:01 PM | | It may not be the script itself, how is the database and table designed?
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-15-2005, 09:06 PM | | The database in question has one table in it with about 16 fields, all of which are VARCHAR except for the primary key and one field that is MEDIUMTEXT
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| Posted by BaselineAce, 03-15-2005, 09:48 PM | | SolidHost doesn't suck.
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| Posted by Bofu2U, 03-15-2005, 09:51 PM | | I don't see how calling those fields could be a problem.. unless their is a lot of information in each, but since you said varchar it couldn't be too much. I.. really don't know :/
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-15-2005, 10:18 PM | | allow - INT (only 1 character)
dogname - VARCHAR
state - VARCHAR
sex - VARCHAR
age - VARCHAR
shots - VARCHAR
altered - VARCHAR
good_with_kids - VARCHAR
contact_person - VARCHAR
contact_phone - VARCHAR
contact_email - VARCHAR
description - MEDIUMTEXT (which usually ends up being less than 1000 characters)
picfile - VARCHAR
rec_id - INT (3 characters)
AFAIK, There's no possible way for this to overload a server
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| Posted by BrentOfHG, 03-15-2005, 10:34 PM | | With Karls help were able to determine he was not the problem. We investigated it further and are now POSITIVE who the problem.was.
revitalizerecords.co.uk
If two people visited this url before it was suspended the server load would spike to 20+ We tested this a few times to make sure. If 4 people visited this within a short period of time the server would crash INSTANTLY. (found out the hard way in our testing)
Server load would go into the 100's completely forking. It's an index.php that has a few includes and calls some affiliate script that looks to be forking. 4 visits = server down instantly
Karl's query executes within 1/100th of a second his mysql was the only thing to show up in watch when it went down the last time. (bad timing) and it hanging around from the server crashing made it look that much more guilty. I apologize for the incorrect conclusion, thank you for helping us get it sorted.
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| Posted by Bofu2U, 03-15-2005, 10:37 PM | | Winner! I'm glad it was resolved.
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| Posted by karlcore, 03-15-2005, 10:49 PM | | Cool! Now turn my frickin sites back on! ROFL
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| Posted by subodhm, 03-16-2005, 04:22 AM | | looks like a question of shooting first then asking questions
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| Posted by catfished, 03-16-2005, 01:31 PM | | I really hate to sound like I'm bashing a host but I have read about Host Gator doing this sort of thing several times in the past. Maybe they should try to not jump the gun so often. I realize that their main concern is to keep their servers up for their clients and prevent an individual site from taking a server down but maybe they could do a bit more research before accusing someone as the culprit.
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| Posted by Shaw Networks, 03-16-2005, 08:36 PM | | Of course there are hosts out there that don't suck, it takes just a bit of prior research and maybe spending an extra buck or two.
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