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How to tell if my hosting company is fubar?

My sites are down, *their* sites are down.

         

Hawkgirl

3:31 am on Apr 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



What's the best way for me to start tracking down whether my current hosting company has gone down the tubes?

One of my sites has been down for 3 weeks and their "support" hadn't taken care of things by today.

My heaviest-used site has been going up and down for a few weeks (very spotty) and now it's been down all day.

Now my hosting company's two sites are down - I'm getting the "Cannot find server" message when I try to get to their sites.

How do I start tracking down the problem?

john316

3:55 am on Apr 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>3 weeks

Time to get outa Dodge. A new host would be in order (the sooner the better).

mivox

4:44 am on Apr 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



3 weeks? Yipe... I'd have been gone after one. :o

carfac

5:47 am on Apr 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I hope you have good local copies!

I agree- get a new host started ASAP! And check thenm out first... don't just grab the first good thing you find. I am very happy with a small ISP with a good Internet connection... they are local, and that makes things easy. I am a fairly big fish in their little pond, and I get all kinds of nice little extras... so don't ignore the small local guys!

Good luck!

keeper

5:48 am on Apr 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



3 weeks does sound like a massive amount of time to be offline!

I had a similar problem (although not as bad...), I scoured the Service Level Agreement, which promised a certain amount of uptime. After that, compensation was in order.

The only problem was, trying to prove what uptime my site was receiving. Getting a 3rd party measure of downtime. (sorry I just don't trust their uptime reports)

Hawkgirl

10:58 am on Apr 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Hey! No one is answering my question!

Of course it's time for a new hosting company. That's not even an issue.

I just want to know how I can find out if my current company is jacked. :)

netguy

1:29 pm on Apr 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Hawkgirl... I'm not sure why you want to know whether they are 'down the tubes' since clearly they are not able to meet your needs as a hosting company, but....

First, (hopefully) you have the domain registered in your name... if its with the hosting company, you can often plan on another week unwinding the ownership issues (directly with the registrar).

As far as finding out if they went 'poof'... get the whois information for additional phone numbers at:
[networksolutions.com...]

Then check out Switchboard for any more tel numbers:
[switchboard.com...]

Don't bother with getting email addresses, since they probably wouldn't answer them, even if their servers were working.

There probably won't be any public filings or announcements if they failed. I have gone through 3 failed hosting companies over the past 8 years, and generally they just pack up and move out. (Now I own my own servers).

Good Luck!

Steve

PS: See what the messages say on the numbers you get (probably a recording), then try adding a number or 2 up and a number or 2 down on the telephone number - hopefully you can grab an phone extension that you can talk to somebody directly.

Hawkgirl

2:15 pm on Apr 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Hey, thanks for the help, netguy! Why do I want to know if they're going down the tubes? I'm just curious, that's all. I've been with them for years and haven't had a spot of trouble until the last few weeks. So I'm curious.

I think I got my hosting-company-karma kicked into gear by posting last night. I got an email from them saying that the server I was on had been hacked and they're working on it. Plus their own site is back up, too.

Already swapped hosting companies, too ... so even though they're getting their act together, they won't have me as a customer anymore.

I'm bummed, because I like to be a loyal customer until such time as it is proven to me that being a loyal customer isn't worth it. I'll hang around for one or two problems ... but now it's getting to be more problems than I'm willing to sit through.

leoo24

4:18 pm on Apr 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



out of curiosity could you pm me the name of the hosting company :)