Forum Moderators: phranque
Yesterday, they imposed a mandatory password change on all of their customers, and announced that we will now be required to periodically change our passwords (Control Panel and ftp only - not mysql).
Then, a few hours later the boss starts complaining about broken links, as if I had broken them! Nope, wasn't me.. looking at the folders on our server I found many of them had been touched, changing the date and time to early this morning. Worse, every html document was now a zero byte file. The links weren't broken, they were just displaying empty documents. (I bet they got bit by the same permission problem they created back in June)
Of course, technical support was less then helpful. They were busy getting an earful from angry customers being forced to changed passwords with a system that didn't accept changed passwords. A true cluster-<fill in the blank>.
This is a fairly good web host in many other respects. But they seem to have migrated all of the former tech support people into the programming dept. What else can explain all the technical problems? I don't mind problems so much IF there is some level of support, but support is their worst feature.
Before you suggest moving please consider: I have several thousand documents and scripts across multiple subdomains; A couple of large databases with many tables. Moving is not a task to be taken lightly.
How much would you be willing to endure?
Moving is not a task to be taken lightly.
Is losing customers, potentially showing SE spiders empty pages and losing your rankings, and putting up with higher-ups chewing you out for things that aren't your fault to be taken lightly?
I'd definitely move. If it were me I would begin migrating sites to a new host or hosts (better) one at a time. This way you won't have to do it all at once, and you can determine how good the new host is before you potentially get yourself into the mess you're leaving behind.
While I only use one web host, I live about 7 miles from the facility that houses the servers. That's incentive enough for them to keep me happy, otherwise I might show up and start yelling at them.
Another benefit of moving is that it forces you to examine code you'd long forgotten. Usually you'll find a problem in need of fixing when you move from one server to the other, and you'll end up with more versatile code should you be forced to move again. (For example, if you wrote a PHP script for a server with happyquotes off, but the new server has them on, you can change a few things to make it work on both)
start yelling at them.It was suggested to me this morning that perhaps I should not yell and cuss at them so much. Ya, right! It really make no difference (with these tech support folks) anyway. As it turned out I ended up going thru the billing dept to get my html documents restored.
Good point about forcing me to review my code. Truth is, I am planning a security review and code audit, which should resolve all those little happyquote-like issues. (Ya, I'm growing up too.)
Never, ever rely on your web host to have backups for you. I know a few stories of people getting stung by doing this.
Personally, I'm willing to put up with occasional issues with a host if their service is good otherwise. You've apparently been with this host awhile; if they've been good up to now, I would consider waiting it out a bit to see what happens.
I did (do) have backups. In fact I was restoring them when the host popped in and finished the job for me. The biggest problem with my backups is that I may have several versions of a single document and I know that in some cases the latest revision may not be the one I want to use. So it was a matter of reviewing each document before uploading it.
waiting it out a bit to see what happens.
