Support was Brilliant BEWARE- its now absolutely terrible

[dennismc]

I have been with this company for a couple of years, they used to be brilliant.

HOWEVER

I have had a support ticket with them since Monday morning, its now Thursday afternoon, after many people have tried to sort out my problems with my VPS, its still not working properly, and I have asked the same questions repeatedly, but they chose to never answer those questions or deal with the problem. There is no continuity; you have to deal with someone different every time you respond to a support ticket.

They said there was an attack on my VPS so they changed the FTP port number, now I am constantly alerted that the FTP is down, I have asked them to change the port that is being monitored time and time again, but they just chose to ignore me!

Last night they said there was an attack on the port used for SQL, so they blocked the attackers IP address, I have seen this morning that there has been another IP trying to attack.

Also every time someone does something to my VPS I get an e-mail saying its all ok now, when I find it is not all ok I respond to the ticket, been waiting 5 hours for a reply to my last response!

I was given a phone number of a senior person, he was quite helpful and promised it would be sorted out, but as you can see it isn’t. I have tried ringing that number today, no answer, I rang the normal helpline and they said they would leave a message for the guy to ring me, nothing, I just requested a call back at 1:30pm, got an e-mail saying I would get a response within 2 hours, this is a joke, they haven’t responded to my ticket for 5 hours so why would I believe anything is going to happen now.

OK guys, if any of you have recommendation for a decent hosting company that provides real support like these guy used to do, please post here…

[dennismc]

Now its over 6 hours without a response...

[sysadmin]

Originally Posted by dennismc

I have been with this company for a couple of years, they used to be brilliant.

HOWEVER

I have had a support ticket with them since Monday morning, its now Thursday afternoon, after many people have tried to sort out my problems with my VPS, its still not working properly, and I have asked the same questions repeatedly, but they chose to never answer those questions or deal with the problem. There is no continuity; you have to deal with someone different every time you respond to a support ticket.

They said there was an attack on my VPS so they changed the FTP port number, now I am constantly alerted that the FTP is down, I have asked them to change the port that is being monitored time and time again, but they just chose to ignore me!

Last night they said there was an attack on the port used for SQL, so they blocked the attackers IP address, I have seen this morning that there has been another IP trying to attack.

Also every time someone does something to my VPS I get an e-mail saying its all ok now, when I find it is not all ok I respond to the ticket, been waiting 5 hours for a reply to my last response!

I was given a phone number of a senior person, he was quite helpful and promised it would be sorted out, but as you can see it isn’t. I have tried ringing that number today, no answer, I rang the normal helpline and they said they would leave a message for the guy to ring me, nothing, I just requested a call back at 1:30pm, got an e-mail saying I would get a response within 2 hours, this is a joke, they haven’t responded to my ticket for 5 hours so why would I believe anything is going to happen now.

OK guys, if any of you have recommendation for a decent hosting company that provides real support like these guy used to do, please post here…

Originally Posted by dennismc

Now its over 6 hours without a response...

Hi Dennis,

I've updated your ticket with an explanation on the slowness of your VPS & the SA attack.

I've copied the reply below for your convenience just in case you didnt receive it:

"I've disabled remote SQL connections to the server & have disabled the IDrive backup as well. Remote SQL connections when enabled were responsible for the SA attacks & IDrive was responsible for the sluggishness of the server. Your site as well as the VPS works fine."

Let me know if you have any more questions..

[dennismc]

Hello Jack,

Sorry Jack the problems remain!!!

I have been running iDrive since I had the server with you, I DO NOT want it disabled!!!

I do not believe it is the problem as it has worked fine since I have been hosting with you, PLEASE RE-ENABLE IT NOW !!

Horde webmail? You have not responded regarding that, this is the type of service I am talking about; you never give a full response. It’s still taking 35 seconds to logon to Horde webmail, and 45 seconds to delete a single e-mail.

What about the alerts
IP: NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN
21::Offline

You have chosen to ignore this part of the support ticket again.

Again, you have only half done the job, and the issues ARE NOT FIXED, how long can you guys go on without sorting out the real problems and reading the support tickets properly???

[sysadmin]

Originally Posted by dennismc

Hello Jack,

Sorry Jack the problems remain!!!

I have been running iDrive since I had the server with you, I DO NOT want it disabled!!!

I do not believe it is the problem as it has worked fine since I have been hosting with you, PLEASE RE-ENABLE IT NOW !!

Horde webmail? You have not responded regarding that, this is the type of service I am talking about; you never give a full response. It’s still taking 35 seconds to logon to Horde webmail, and 45 seconds to delete a single e-mail.

What about the alerts
IP: NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN
21::Offline

You have chosen to ignore this part of the support ticket again.

Again, you have only half done the job, and the issues ARE NOT FIXED, how long can you guys go on without sorting out the real problems and reading the support tickets properly???

Hi Dennis,

I've re-enabled the IDrive backup software. You won't receive those FTP alerts anymore as we've added the non-default port in the monitoring server. Regarding the VPS performance & the horde being slow, someone else will reply as I could only find out IDrive responsible for the Disk IO. If you want to run such resource intensive applications & want the server to behave properly as well, then a dedicated server would be a good option. A VPS isnt suitable to handle approx 50 sites + SQL server + IDrive + Plesk control panel + Mail server, etc...

[dennismc]

What absolute nonsense, I have been running all these sites on this VPS since I have been hosting with you, I have also been running iDrive since I started hosting with you (if you provided daily backups I would not need to do this)

Also you say “A VPS isn’t suitable to handle approx 50 sites + SQL server + IDrive + Plesk control panel + Mail server, etc...”

You sold me this service you have also sold me a Plesk control panel to handle 100 domains, why did you do that if the server can’t cope with 50 ???

The overriding thing here is IT HAS BEEN RUNNING FINE FOR MONTHS AND MONTHS WITH ALL THOSE SITES AND iDRIVE, sorry for shouting but you do not seem to be hearing me.

I asked all those questions before I signed up with you.

So it looks to me like although my VPS has been running fine for months, it started having problems on Monday, because you cannot fix it you are telling me its not up to the job.

In fact I have just been to your online chat and had a nice chat with Matt, it makes interesting reading as he said I can run all those things you have just said I can’t.

Here is a transcript of the chat,

Chat start time Jun 17, 2010 10:40:33 AM EST
Chat end time Jun 17, 2010 10:52:24 AM EST
Duration (actual chatting time) 00:11:51
Operator Matt

info: Please wait for a site operator to respond.
info: You are now chatting with 'Matt'
Matt: Hello and Welcome to Live Chat Support.
Matt: How may I assist you today ?
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to dmcder@gmail.com at the end of your chat.
Dennis: Hi, I am interested in a VPS
Matt: Great
Matt: Please let me know your questions
Dennis: I have 48 sites would a Windows VPS handle that many?
Matt: Yes
Dennis: Great
Dennis: And I can have Plesk on it as well?
Matt: Only the thing you need to take care of is the resources allocated to VPS
Dennis: Can you explain?
Matt: The usage shall not exceed the allocated resources
Matt: like if you have 15 GB space, it shall not exceed
Dennis: OK, most of the sites are just standard HTML with not many hits per day
Matt: Ok, not a problem then
Dennis: Oh ok no, that would be plenty
Dennis: Some site have Access database back ends, do you support that?
Matt: Yes
Dennis: Great
Dennis: And Plesk?
Matt: It is optional
Matt: You can consider Plesk with Unlimited Domains license
Dennis: Unlimited? How many can I have then?
Matt: You can host Unlimited domains then
Dennis: Great, it sounds good
Dennis: Do you also support POP3 SMTP and Webmail?
Matt: Yes
Dennis: What about backups?
Matt: We keep backups on regular basis for internal use
Dennis: Can you define regular?
Matt: Daily data backup and weekly database backup
Dennis: Whan you say Database, do you mean SQL server?
Matt: Yes
Dennis: So the access database files would get backed up daily? Just like any other file?
Matt: Access and SQL both will be backed up weekly
Dennis: OH, that could be a problem as the databases are changing every day, could I install iDrive on the VPS to do daily backups early each morning?
Matt: You can
Matt: You can install any applications
Dennis: OK, so to summarise I could have 48 sites, Plesk for unlimited domains, POP3, SMTP, Webmail and install iDrive, can I also use SQL server?
Matt: Right
Matt: You will get MSSQL 2005 Express Edition for fre
Matt: free*
Dennis: OK Matt you have been very helpful.
Matt:
Matt: When do you plan to signup please?
Dennis: I will get back to you
info: Your chat transcript will be sent to dmcder@gmail.com at the end of your chat.
Matt: Sure
Matt: Have a good time ahead
Matt: Bye
Matt: As a part of our constant endeavor to provide you with quality service, we would appreciate a feed back. Kindly fill in the Exit Survey form after you end this chat session. You may also include your email address to get the chat transcript.
Dennis: Thanks bye

So now it seems you are lying to your potential customers, I wish you would stop this and fix my VPS

Dennis

[Sebastian]

Hello Dennis,

I have just checked your VM I/O Read/write from our Virtuozzo management and it is really high, this is the reason you are facing slowness. Normally we suspend VMs or set I/O limits if any VM exceeds it. In your case the usage is very high from last few days but still we have not taken any action. You can also check the usage yourself from the task manager, I can give you the screenshot here :

So now it seems you are lying to your potential customers, I wish you would stop this and fix my VPS

Whatever we are seeing in your VM, we are telling you the same. We never lie to our customers, no matters what package he / she has.

If you are looking for backup package then we can provide you backup account, you can configure backup as per your requirement from plesk control panel.

If you will use same resources for next 24 hours then we will set I/O limit to your VM.

[dennismc]

"Whatever we are seeing in your VM, we are telling you the same. We never lie to our customers, no matters what package he / she has."

I was taking about the different answers from the support team and the sales team, not about what you see in the task manager.

I agree there seems to be high I/O I will try and deal with it.

If you are looking for backup package then we can provide you backup account, you can configure backup as per your requirement from plesk control panel.

What is the cost of a backup account?

If you will use same resources for next 24 hours then we will set I/O limit to your VM.

OK, can you tell me the best place to monitor the resources?

Dennis

[dennismc]

Hello again,

So where do we go from here?

1) I have removed iDrive

2) Is there a way I can set up an alert for I/O usage?

2) Am am interested in the backup solution you mentioned, where can I find details?

3) The Horde webmail is still as slow as I have reported before in the support ticket, how can this be resolved?

Dennis

[James]

Hi Dennis,

I have answered all your questions below:

1) can you tell me the best place to monitor the resources?
:- You can monitor the resources from the Task Manager.

2) Is there a way I can set up an alert for I/O usage?
:- Yes you can setup but as this is a virtual environment there are some limitations to it so we won't recommend you to setup alert for the I/O usage.

3) Am am interested in the backup solution you mentioned, where can I find details?
:- You can check the offsite backup plans at Backup Service | Offsite Data Backup Solutions | Web Hosting UK | Dedicated Server | VPS Hosting

4) The Horde webmail is still as slow as I have reported before in the support ticket, how can this be resolved?
:- One of our Windows Admin is working on the Horde Webmail issue, he will update you in the support ticket.

[MrTWS]

Hi Dennis

I think generally WHUK do provide a great level of support, and sometimes yes things can and do go wrong. Compared to some other hosting companies, you do have the added luxury of 24/7 online support via chat, so my suggestion would be to use that more often rather than support tickets (which I do agree seem to disappear into nowhere).

I have at times had issues (but to be fair who does not with any other host) but the support team on chat have always been helpful, even if it has (depending on what is wrong) taken an hour out of my day.

If you have any need for some more help though, please feel free to PM me and I will be happy to assist where I can too

[dennismc]

James, in your response above on 17/07/2010 you said

“4) The Horde webmail is still as slow as I have reported before in the support ticket, how can this be resolved?
:- One of our Windows Admin is working on the Horde Webmail issue, he will update you in the support ticket.”

No one has responded it is now 30/06/2010

I am still having problems; I have completely un-installed iDrive which your technical support were adamant was causing the problems. So that was obviously not the cause, I think it’s the normal thing to blame the customer.

I have raised another support ticket last night and your support person Scott. M. just offered to move my hosting onto Hyper V and closed the ticket!, the last time you moved my VPS you made mistakes and it took weeks to get all my sites working properly again.

I had an e-mail from Gabriel S. on 17/06/2010 saying “Currently you have a hyperv vps with us.” And then trying to sell me Cloud services, I do NOT have Hyper V hosting with you, it seems like you are just trying to make me change my hosting.

I do not think moving the VPS is getting to the real problem, remember I have been very happy with the service for about 18 months, but these last few weeks it has been terrible. What has gone wrong?

If I were to change VPS I would look for another hosting company so I had time to migrate my sites and not have the same situation as last time.

As a company, are you saying you cannot or will not investigate these problems properly and can only offer a move of my VPS.

Dennis