Host Gator

[janeth]

The Good Old Days

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if all I had to do was pay my hosting bill. I understand it’s only a dream. But what would it be like to have an honest host; one I could expect to keep my site online and I didn’t have to contact week after week, day after day.

But my host is very different.

When I first went with Host Gator I set up a shared hosting account and moved one of my sites over to them. The site worked well but my emails were always locking up. After a couple calls I found out on their shared hosting accounts they only let you send out a certain number of emails per an hour. Yes, they should have let me know before I paid them money or moved my site over to them but this is where we were at.

Red flags should have been going offer in my head telling me that someone that hides this type of information from their clients is not who I should be dealing with. But somehow I managed to ignore all the signs.

My only options were to upgrade to a dedicated server or go looking for another host. I decided on the dedicated server.

A year, many phone calls and tickets as well as a couple thousand dollars later I am sitting with no sites online. It is actually a pretty funny story if it was not for the fact that I am losing money every second my sites are down.

But since there is nothing else to do, no emails, no websites and no new or old clients why not tell a story.

After I had decided to go with a dedicated server it seemed at least once a day I was having someone contact me because they were unable to see my site. Host Gator asked me to have the potential client, friend, family member or current client do a trace route.

Ya, Right.

As if it is not hard enough to run a business I am now going to spend my day trying to talk potential clients into doing trace routes. I did get a couple done and Host Gator let me know that it was not their problem. But seeing as my site was the only one no one could see, it made me wonder. I started hosting sites for clients and the complaints got bigger and bigger. We reached the bowling point when we worked on a site for 3 months, when the client got to the meeting where he was going to unveil the site there was no site online.

Here is where I learned that if you make a Host Gator phone technician feel that he is being abused in any way shape or form they will hang up on you. After several phone calls Gregg got through to Vincent who worked with us for several hours and moved the site over to another server for the meeting. He also agreed to set us up another dedicated server and move everything over to that server.

We ended up making about 5 calls to host gator and submitting a ticket or two before ironing out a couple problems with the server. Once it was all online and working we got to redesign about 10 very complicated sites due to the php being upgraded on the new server.

But it looked to be all smooth selling from here. Less than 24 hours later the sites were down. We found out that if you use the chat and call at the same time they will cut you off chat without even giving you a chance to say bye. And no matter how upset you are never express it to your phone technician. They are looking for a reason to hang up on you.

Anyway about 10 calls later we found out that there was a fire at one of their data centers. I can understand not having control of a fire but when you have a client that is upset do you really think hanging up on them is the best solution?

I never wanted to or had any desire to go into the hosting business but Host Gator forced me in that direction. I’d just like to find a better solution to what has turned into a nightmare.

[janeth]

I've been talking with Brent, the owner of host gator and he seems like a pretty nice guy.

Here is the problem and what is going on. Yo can bet we are putting in a back up plan now so we do not get hit with something like this in the future.

Originally Posted by hostgator

There was an electrical fire located in the DC's electrical room. The DC is evacuated and unfortunately at this time we have no ETA.

Currently only a small amount of our backup servers and a few new dedicated servers are affected by this issue.


We apologize for this inconvenience and we will be updating this very shortly.

Vincent M
Hostgator LLC
Level II Linux Administrator

*update from brent*
Hostgator has 186 dedicated customers affected by this outage out of the total 9,000 servers offline. The datacenter believes sometime tomorrow morning / afternoon they will be able to get the second floor of h1 online. Luckily for us 90% of our affected customers are currently located on the second floor. So assuming their plan works most of you will be back online early tomorrow.

We are the datacenters largest customer and with that power I was able to pull a few strings........

The twenty or so customers that are on the first floor will be amongst the first boxes relocated upstairs. I wish I had a list of who is downstairs, but unfortunately I don't at this time.

I'd recommend whoever is affected by this outage to get some sleep because from everything I've been told it sounds like there's a .000001 chance you'll be up before daylight. I hate to say this but please don't call or put tickets in about this. The hostgator staff has been instructed to check this thread for all updates so if you do call they'll simply read whats here. (I'm updating the forum before staff)

Once everyone is back online we'll be issuing 100% credits for the month to those who are affected. While this is out of our control we are still going to stand fully behind our guarantee.

[AVC]

Janeth, Host Gator is a customer of ThePlanet.com who actually is the data center owner, who in turn is owned by a giant real estate holding company that owns many data centers.

[incrediblehelp]

I have been using Host Gator for years and have been VERY happy with them.

H1 Data Center Outage

Lucky for me my websites are still up.

[janeth]

Mine are back up now and Host Gator went beyond what was asked for to help me out.

However, I will be setting up a backup plan to keep this from happening again.

[DanLew]

I have a dedicated server with hostgator, and think they are pretty good with service if not the best, although I was shocked when their accounts department, kept on sending me emails saying the account wasnt paid when it clearly was and they apologised and than sent email again, and I said hey one of you guys just apologised and you said I need to pay now again, when I have said and shown you the paid receipt again, and again they apologised again, for messing, up. I think their account department is screwed.

[janeth]

They got mine fixed and it has been great ever since. Plus gave me two months free hosting.

I can't ask for more than that.

[rondo]

That's good to hear!


Andrew

[businesscredit]

I always made a back-up of my files. I've been hosted at Host Gator and I never experienced any kind of problems.

[MuNKyonline]

I went with hostgator after being with 1&1 and for a while they were ok. But then i found out about restrictions with things like the htaccess. Emails weren't always getting delivered. Started to think - 'you get what you pay for'.

So now i've moved to mediatemple - i'm sharing a dedicated virtual server with webnauts and a gridserver for my customers. The dv is a plesk server with almost no limitations as to what we can put on there. The gridserver is perfect for multiple email accounts and customer websites. You get loads of hosting space too. Their support is like no other - always willing to go the extra mile. I would highly recommend them!

[nadalinv]

Interesting. I have been with Host Gator for a little while now and have had a very good experience, especially with support issues.

[anarchy]

Host Gator are oversellers, soon as your start using any CPU they suspende your account for no reason, there downtime is getting worse and I really do wonder how competent they are when it comes to uptime, their customer service people either have no idea what they’re doing, definately not a place to look for real reliable hosting.

[tuksdrr]

I've been with HG for a few months now. No real issues but I'll certainly keep the above in mind!

[janeth]

We've not had one bit of problem with them since the above. I'd recommend them to anyone.

[Laurentvw]

I've been with Host Gator for a while and I do not recommend it. I had a Drupal installation going, and apparently it took too much CPU usage so they suspended my account pretty quickly.
I then moved to mediatemple.

Just my 2 cents.

[nacworld]

I m using Hostgator and its professional, no problem and my mails works faster than my other shared hosting providers.. Thinking to move my all shared hostings to Hostgator...