It’s probably best if my Web hosting company doesn’t contact me for a testimonial quote right now; all of the 18 Web sites I host (for myself and paid clients) have seen increasingly frequent outages the last 1.5 months, culminating in today’s largely all-day failure.
The Underground’s up for now, but my other sites aren’t (including Singlebarbed & FlyFishChick).
Even worse, the company suggested the backups used to restore my sites were taken at 8 am Thursday morning.
Yet right now, it appears everything posted after February 5 (5+ days ago) is lost (my posts and your comments).
And yes, this is my pissed off look.
One paying client – fed up with the recent site and email outages – has already notified me they’re pulling their site and going elsewhere. I don’t blame them.
I’m researching other hosts, but dreading the sheer number of hours it will take to transfer 18 sites to a new host – and the additional cost.
In any case, sorry for the lost comments from the Undergrounders.
I’ll keep you updated.
Serenity now, Serenity now…
UPDATE: I’m looking at new Web hosts now (thanks for the suggestions), and leaning towards LiquidWeb (Hostgator gets good reviews).
I also restored some of the lost posts (but none of the lost comments) by retrieving them from my RSS Reader. Sorry, best I can do.
At some point in the coming days I’ll probably freeze the Underground to ease the migration. You’ll be warned.
I’ll take the “glass is half full” approach and claim it’s a vacation …
KBarton10(Quote)
Dang it, the last five days were your best writing too. I’d like to hear from the official spokesperson on this debacle, but I bet he’s doing something too importatnt right now to be bothered with me.
Don(Quote)
I gotta admitt, it’s much worse than the paperboy throwing the news in the snow or on the roof. NOBODY likes it when ones income or loved-one is messed with.
JJP(Quote)
HOOOCHIE MOMMMMMMA! ! !
Well, I don’t think I commented much in the last 5 days, and even if I had, you wouldn’t have lost much.
My original worry was that Singlebarbed sent you some mystery package filled with one of his special dubbing brews, it caused a rash, and you took down his site! well, better luck next time Singlebarbed.
Guys Flies and Pies(Quote)
Blame it on global warming-it gets blamed for everything else.
Harry(Quote)
This leads me to reconsider my practice of using your comment board to store my best ideas. Back to napkins.
Dave
Davem(Quote)
I can tell you a few hosts not to use if you like – maybe we should all get together and lease a virtual private server !
Alistair(Quote)
I already use a VPS. We need a dedicated server…
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Look at this hosting company, I have been with them for 9 years.
http://www.icdsoft.com/
Roger W(Quote)
I don’t envy you that hellish task Tom, and migrations never go as smoothly as planned (well, rarely anyway). I left my old hosting company not so long back as they were a royal pain in the @ss and suffered similar problems (although not as nightmarish) as the ones you’ve mentioned. Balls to them and their hosting; it just ain’t cricket. Hopefully you’ll fins another host which’ll be more reliable (I rate 1and1).
Good luck with everything!
G
Gareth (FFISW)(Quote)
Thanks for working so hard on this Tom! Grateful.
And will take this as opportunity to write less about the fish I’m not catching and how bummed I am about it.
Fly Fish Chick(Quote)
Really feel for you there Tom. Glad the Underground is back up. Didn’t know you and the Chick were in cahoots..when I saw her blog down, I thought there might be some kind of fly fishing virus about. ….phew.
Hosting can be a pain in the %^*& IMO. We’ve been using the Planet since launch and I can’t anything negative abou them really. Been great on support and I find their interface dead easy to use. Not the cheapest in the world but you pay for what you get with hosting.
best of luck with your migration
ed
Ed(Quote)
UPDATE: I’m looking at new Web hosts now (thanks for the suggestions), and leaning towards LiquidWeb (Hostgator gets good reviews).
I also restored some of the lost posts (but none of the lost comments) by the simple expedient of retrieving them from my RSS Reader. Sorry, best I can do.
At some point in the coming week I’ll probably transfer the Underground to a new host, and will warn you when that happens.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Yikes! I’ve had good success with PowWeb (so far). I’ve also heard good things about Hostgator. Good luck!
Ken Sperry(Quote)
Glad to see it wasn’t permanent…I thought you just might have said” ..to hell with it!”… and taken up golf…
Brett from Utah(Quote)
For my old band’s website I used iPowerweb for 7 years with only one outage for maybe 24hrs. That outage was the result of a weak password that succumb to a brute force attack from a Russian gambling site. ( I kid you not!) I canceled this year because the band broke up. My anniversary/renewal date was already past but they gave me a full refund with only one phone call! I was very impressed, even though, strictly speaking, they had every right to the money.
I need to buy a domain and web space pretty soon. I think I’m outgrowing my free wordpress account.
3than(Quote)
Major headache Tom,…sorry. Hostmonster has been 100% so far for us.
Boyd of monstersoffishing.com(Quote)
New account at a new (much faster, and yes, much more expensive) Web host is in the works.
At some point over the next week, the Underground will be migrated, and with any luck, nobody will notice – except getting your daily dose of Undergoodness will happen more quickly than before.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Tom, check out http://www.bluehost.com. They are the BEST! I host 15 sites with them and I have never been more satisfied with a host. Also, you can host as many domains as you like under your main domain at no extra cost. So, for 6.95 a month you can charge your clients whatever and it won’t cost you a dime. And the tech help folks are in Utah and they actually know what they are talking about! Imagine that? They are a huge company yet I have never experienced ANY downtime with them. Good luck, I know how frustrating your dilemma can be.
Alastair Ingram(Quote)
Get hostgator hosting free for one month with the coupon
the coupon is CACTUS [hostgator.com]
Steve(Quote)
Hook everything up to that new snow blower, then all will be well… couldn’t resist. I am a loyal reader who will remain loyal even if you and yours go back to using stamps.
Turnip Truck Driver(Quote)