shtml and htaccess and new server

Hosting company does it again

[Atharva]

Hi,
i have a client website which has tons of pages with .shtml extention.
a year back i made shtml behave as php. So now in shtml files i write all possible php code.

This was achieved by using this config in .htacess file

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

#below is to make html behave as shtml
#AddHandler server-parsed .shtml
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .shtml
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .html

XBitHack On

Options -Indexes

Now few days back hosting company moved the code to new servers and all those pages in the directory with .shtml extention have stopped working. when i type that URL i just get a blank page.

So anyone has any idea what can be the issue. Any apache config issue that .htaccess cannot override?

Also is there any log file where i can see if apache is dumping any errors

Thanks

[jdMorgan]

You need a new/better host.

It sounds like they may have set restrictions such as "AllowOverride None" and restricted the Options that you are allowed to use in .htaccess. You will have to ask them for help.

Look at your Apache error log. Its name and location varies, so again, ask your host.

Jim

[Atharva]

Thanks jdMorgan.
I am still talking with webhost. Seems they seem to migrate to an old server which will take couple of days

I have 2 options now:
1. Rename all files to php. add 301 redirect from shtml to php. This will resolve my issue right away and site will be up. i fear due to URL change that client will lose top rankings in Google which brings in 80% traffic. many URLs (around 1000) are 3 to 4 yrs old.

2. wait for 2 to 4 days till issues settles down and shtml start behaving like php as it was for last few years. Meanwhile google might crawl and flag lot of pages as not found and will loose my SERP rankings.should i stop the bot till my site settles down ? But in long term my URLs will remain the same and i should keep those top positions.

Do let me know what you think.
Thanks

[Marcia]

That's absolutely ludicrous. I use by far the cheapest hosting you can imagine, WAY off-shore (servers here in the US though), and anything that comes up is resolved within the hour or a few hours at the most, depending on the time of day (or night across the world) and if they need Tier 3 support.

I think they don't know what they're doing and/or they're resellers themselves.

If I were you I'd have that site moved within the hour, no way would I change established URLs because of lame hosting support.

That's what I think.

[Atharva]

Marcia,
Wow thanks for that response. The hosting provider does respond in usually within 1 hr and operates 24x7 but in this case it kept telling me that it will be resolved in 1 hr for almost 12 hrs.

Then after 12 hrs they said servers are under attack by some hackers. hence they disabled SSH and many other options due to which my client is suffering now.

Marcia pls see my PM. Need hosting recommendation from you

Thanks.