System files error on Brimestone

[sackbut]

I'm totally hacked off waiting for this problem to be fixed. Seems to me like it's an evens bet that everything has gone for good. Being without EMail for 4 days is no joke. So, if we have to re-create everything, might as well do it with another provider.

I already moved EMail to another provider and will start moving web sites over the weekend. My customers, whose EMail and web sites are down, are not happy either. I shall not be renewing my contract in August.

So who didn't test their backup regime eh ?? Elementary mistake Number 1

[ajvb]

The offer of 3 months credit is generous in that Web Hosting UK are not obliged to offer compensation. However due to the amount of downtime, loss of sales, credibility etc it is far from generous.

It appears clear that the backup strategy has never been properly tested.

Although I am sure the engineers have worked extremely hard to resolve this problem my experience of Web Hosting UK has not inspired me with confidence for the future.

[cage5150]

Originally Posted by PhillipJones

so no real it is not that generous compensation

I only have a 5 page personal site with no database so I guess this is why we have different opinions. I really hope things turn out for you at the end of all this.

[ajvb]

I was "lucky" in the fact that I had recently moved one of my clients to Web Hosting UK so I had a fairly recent backup of the database. He has lost some data, orders but was prepared to live with that to get the site back.

I am going to investigate creating my own database backup routines so that I have my own copy of the data.

[cage5150]

I forgot to ask earlier, would I be right in presuming that once things are up and running it is just a matter of uploading my site whole site again? What about DNS settings etc...?

[ajvb]

I had to upload webpages, images etc to get the site back. Didn't have to do anything with DNS.

[optrex]

Originally Posted by PhillipJones

If you think about it the compensation is not that good at all i personal have lost irreplaceable information im going to have to spend hours repairing and reconstructing website database which will take hours of my time which is valuable in short supply.

Oh come on. Restore from your local backups....you do have those I presume? Only a fool would rebuild a business site from scratch. If its irreplaceable, then you have a local copy, right?

Originally Posted by PhillipJones

and this doesn't take into the account the hundreds of pound lost in sales and the money lost in sales from the e commerce websites i run from which are on this server. and the loss of the customers faith in our websites which have already placed orders and where waiting for them to be dispatched.

as you are running a business and this server is mission critical to that business, why dont you have a secondary server on standby in the US?

I say US because the hosting over there is cheap and although access is slower, due to the transatlantic link, as a standby for emergencies, £12 a month is nothing.

Mirror your site and switch the DNS over in times of prolonged outage, then switch back to the UK server when things are back up.

[cage5150]

Originally Posted by ajvb

I had to upload webpages, images etc to get the site back. Didn't have to do anything with DNS.

so can I FTP everything up now to the same IP and my site will work?

sorry i'm a noob to all of this!

[sackbut]

Originally Posted by optrex

Mirror your site and switch the DNS over in times of prolonged outage, then switch back to the UK server when things are back up.

Mirroring is not trivial when databases are involved. And you'll still lose at least 24 hours - maybe as much as 48 - for the DNS changes to propagate

Best to have a provider with a working backup regime !

[sackbut]

Originally Posted by cage5150

I forgot to ask earlier, would I be right in presuming that once things are up and running it is just a matter of uploading my site whole site again? What about DNS settings etc...?

Assuming that they have not changed the server address (which they have in the past without telling folks) it should all just work when you have put it all back. If your normal PLESK login works, then you should be fine

[PhillipJones]

I shouldn't need to have my own backups when the hosting company are meant to provide them and assured me there where. and i don't know of anyone who runs replicate servers with different hosting companies even. and as the previous person said i database replications are not an easy thing to maintain on shared hosting space because of the lack of direct access to the installation.

And in regards to keeping local backups i only keep backups of sites when i launch them i do not keep a full backup daily because it would take hours to move the 1.8gb off data i store on my hosting companies server over an ftp server. and it would even take over an hour to manually backup the myself databases daily because of the amount of them i have and the restrictive access i have to them and also I'm not expected to do this because this is what i paying the hosting company to do is look after my data and make sure it is save and secure.

currently I'm still unable to even restore the previous backups i have or even add my own tables manually because there is an error with the mysql installation.

[sackbut]

Originally Posted by ajvb

I had to upload webpages, images etc to get the site back. Didn't have to do anything with DNS.

So the machine is back is it ? How did you find out ? Have they given up trying to sync the raid array ? They won't restore over what you have just entered ? Are we to assume that "all" we have to do now is put it all back from our copies here back at base ?

15 sites and a whole bunch of EMail boxes. Aw - it sucks

[cage5150]

I can log into my control panel as usual but my site is missing (as expected), when I try to connect with my ftp program (Dreamweaver) it fails.

Maybe admin can shed some light now?

[James]

Originally Posted by cage5150

I can log into my control panel as usual but my site is missing (as expected), when I try to connect with my ftp program (Dreamweaver) it fails.

Maybe admin can shed some light now?

I'd request you to raise a ticket with our Windows Support Department, one of our Windows Admins will update you asap.

[sackbut]

Originally Posted by cage5150

I can log into my control panel as usual but my site is missing (as expected), when I try to connect with my ftp program (Dreamweaver) it fails.

They probably changed the IP address of the machine. They have done this in the past without telling me.

Does not look like we'll get any more info in the forum about this. We just have to assume there will be no restore. It's back to the metal.