New hosting for .com

[COBOLdinosaur]

I have had it with the crap from the host.  The site has been down more than it is up for the last week.  Most of the time I can't even access the CP, and they act like there is nothing wrong, and to top it off the logs and stats are all screwed up.  I can't even be sure the backups are okay.  

I am looking at new hosting arrangements right now and I will just eat the current hosting that is paid until September.  I expect to make a descision by Monday.  The front runner right now is lunarpages.

Any comments, advice or recommendations will be appreciated.

Cd&

[nicholassolutions]

I recommend the host that .net is using. I have been using them  for a while for my other site, and they are by far the best host I have ever worked with. It would also make moving development projects from .net over to .com much easier. I'll PM you with some more info.

[Huntress]

No notif for this one either Matt.  Grrrrrrr!

[COBOLdinosaur]

Matt,

I have Bluhost shortlisted as well, but then it would put bothsites back on the same IP.  A lot of the review list Ihave looked at rate Bluehost and Lunarpages in the top-5 along with Powweb and Ipower.  There is also a Canadian host Canax the guarantees 100% uptime instead of 99% and in writing in their TOS include a refund of 5% of hosting fees for every 30 minutes of downtime a month; but they are 3 times as much money, and charge extra for a lot of stuff; and don't handle their own domain registrations.

[COBOLdinosaur]

They finally (after a week of crap) have posted this in the support area:

We have received a number of reports from customers that were unable to access their websites or e-mail accounts on our servers. Unfortunately, the problem is due to issues that are outside of our network and control. The source of the problem appears to be due to connectivity issues within the networks of the following Internet service providers:

Verizon
Sympatico
Optimal Online
Road Runner

However, the issue may affect other ISPs as well. The problem has been reported to the data center that we use and they are taking measures to resolve it with the ISPs whose networks are affected by the problem. If you are experiencing such a problem, we strongly encourage you to contact your ISP as soon as possible and report the issue. Since you will not be the only one with this problem, hopefully they take the necessary measures to resolve the issue quickly. Alternatively, if possible, we would also recommend you to try another local ISP that does not have any connectivity problems.

Hmmm....  Does that explain why I can connect to evrything not on their servers even when I go through those ISPs?  Does it explain why there are connection problems when I use other ISPs.  Does it explain why the fastest and most reliable access is through unsecured open proxies?

Why did it take a week to come up with this? Perhaps because ERT is not the only site that has threatened to move off of their servers?  Does it explain why my Javascript console fills up with errors when I use FF to access the CP and why IE hangs and has to be restarted in their file manager editor?  

Same kind of crap I been hearing from these guys all along.  Now as to the real possible cause.  When I check through Netcraft is shows a change in OS and server version on May 9th; the day all the problems started, and They did not inform the site operators of the change, they just did it on the fly and screwed it up.

Lying (*&(^%     [-(

[nicholassolutions]

Matt,

I have Bluhost shortlisted as well, but then it would put bothsites back on the same IP.  A lot of the review list Ihave looked at rate Bluehost and Lunarpages in the top-5 along with Powweb and Ipower.  There is also a Canadian host Canax the guarantees 100% uptime instead of 99% and in writing in their TOS include a refund of 5% of hosting fees for every 30 minutes of downtime a month; but they are 3 times as much money, and charge extra for a lot of stuff; and don't handle their own domain registrations.

Sorry I never sent the PM...I was beat after my trip I'll really send it in a minute. About the sites being one the same IP: no, they wouldn't be, since my .net has a dedicated IP (and I'd recommend .com do the same...either way they'd be different)...they would obviously both be in BH's net range though...

[VGR]

fearing an attack against the whole range ? ;-)

[COBOLdinosaur]

fearing an attack against the whole range ? ;-)

No.  Just a little SEO.  If they are on the same class C IP range the Google will treat them as a single site when it looks at the links and they will only be treated as internal links. On different class C IP they get treated as external links and add to the PR of both sites.

[rdivilbiss]

The current host's posting is full of BS.

[COBOLdinosaur]

The current host's posting is full of BS.

Of course it is BS.  How would connectivity problems result in six days worth of screwed up logs and no stats?  Is it a coincidence that Net craft shows them with an operating system change May 9th, the same day the servers went in the tank.  These are the same idiots who screwed up the PHP configuration back in December and told me it was our code that was causing slow response time, and it took a week of arguing to get them to change the configuration so it worked.

It was a mistake going twith these morons; but it would be an even bigger mistake to ride it out becaue I still have 4 months worth of hosting paid for. I'll eat the loss, time to move on and I'll pull the trigger on Monday after I win the poker tournament I'm in this weekend.
[/quote]

[nicholassolutions]

I'll pull the trigger on Monday after I win the poker tournament I'm in this weekend.

 :D  =D>

[Esopo]

I know someone who runs a huge site on LunarPages. By huge I mean an online game with hundreds of players beating the crap out of the web application at the same time.

He did have some problems with them at the begining, his code was a bit buggy with memory management and LunarPages pulled the plug on his site without a warning.

Eventually he tried a different host and then went back to LunarPages (after fixing the buggy code). He's been happy since.

Moral of the story: LunarPages has a good host, but the SOBs will knock you off the air without a warning if they feel your site is taking up too many resources.

I generally can't recommend any hosting company. I'm using the services of 4 companies right now, and although they all run well (generally) they have all given me crap at some point. NetBulge was recently down for two days because they had an internal problem charging my credit card and they decided to let me know after they had pulled the plug.

[COBOLdinosaur]

Moral of the story: LunarPages has a good host, but the SOBs will knock you off the air without a warning if they feel your site is taking up too many resources.

Probably true.  It is also one of the few negatives Ihave heard about Bluhost.  If you use too much CPU they will suspend the site.

Also true of a lot of host who offer a lot of bandwidth.  They are way overselling and the result is that the shared CPUs become a critical resource.

I don't know any host or, for that matter, any site that does not have technical problems.  I have seen Yahoo pages screwed up, I have seen Alexa page the would not render, and I have seen MSDN down of several hours.  They all hvae their wn data center with total control, so it is not just hosted site that run into issues.  

You don't really know how good any host is until things go wrong.  As far as your firend's buggie code.  I would have pulled the plug on them too if it was interferring with other sites on the server. However they should have let him know there was a problem and given him a chance to correct it.

In one way that is actually a positive for Lunarpages.  IT they are paying attention, and not letting sites run bad code that hogs resources, that is good for everyone else who is sharing the server.

[Esopo]

I would have pulled the plug on them too if it was interferring with other sites on the server.

My beef with them is that the site had been running for about 6 months before the sudden disconection. If they had been paying attention they would have noticed earlier. Then, they could have giving him a notice.

[COBOLdinosaur]

http://www.lunarforums.com/

I agree.  I have asked Lunarpages about reports that they do that, and the response is that they have changed their policy.  What they do no is move the pages with problems to another server where the problem can be solved and then the pages can be put back on to the production servers.  If teh whole site is a problem then they disable it and work with the owner to optimize the pages.  They also have the oprion of dedicated servers, but they admit that is an expensive option that some sites cannot afford.

I don't think what they do is ideal, but low cost hosting has to make a profit with volume and if a site requires too much resource, then the owner of the site has look at higher priced options.