PHP Joomla Hosting FAQ

[indaloman]

Hi Again, a few more php joomla hosting questions:

1/ What versions of PHP 5 do you use? as I stated in my last post, I run Joomla 1.0.15. based web sites, my current host uses PHP 4.4.4, I would like to use PHP 5, the Joomla web site states "Do not use PHP 5.0.4. as there are known bugs that will interfere with the installation of Joomla 1.5" however, they do recommend using PHP 5.
I intend updating my existing sites to Joomla 1.5 in the near future.


2/ My Joomla 1.0.15 web sites are at present using PHP 4.4.4. Would migrating them to your server running PHP 5 be a problem?

[Administrator]

We have PHP 5.2.5 on our servers being filled right now. You should not face any problem with PHP 5.2.5 as we have many customers using Joomla and other similar CMSs which are available within Fantastico in their cPanel control panel.

[Dan]

Originally Posted by indaloman

Hi Again, a few more questions:
2/ My Joomla 1.0.15 web sites are at present using PHP 4.4.4. Would migrating them to your server running PHP 5 be a problem?

Unless you are planning on upgrading, if they don't support PHP5 then a problem could occur.

Originally Posted by Administrator

We have PHP 5.2.5 on our servers being filled right now. You should not face any problem with PHP 5.2.5 as we have many customers using Joomla and other similar CMSs which are available within Fantastico in their cPanel control panel.

Depends if the code they use is abnormal from PHP5.

[indaloman]

Originally Posted by Dan

Unless you are planning on upgrading, if they don't support PHP5 then a problem could occur.


Depends if the code they use is abnormal from PHP5.

Thanks for reply
On the Joomla web hosting site they say Joomla 1.0.15 will work with PHP 4.2.X and above, Joomla 1.5 needs PHP 4.3.10 or above, but preferably PHP 5.X series. It seems any PHP 5.X series as long as it is not 5.0.4.
A normal LAMP installation with all the required components such as XML, Zlib, Curl, GD etc seems to be the requirements for both versions. As the Administrator said in the post above many users are successfully using Joomla on these servers, so I think I will be signing up for a VPS to test.

[Dan]

If you have anymore questions, do feel free to contact the pre-sales team directly 24 hours a day 7 days a week from the main website under "Live Support"

[indaloman]

After reading all the blurb and asking a few questions on the forum (fast replies) I decided to get a VPS account to test for myself, so at about 6.35pm today I signed up and paid with a verified PayPal account.

At 6.52pm I received a reply from vps@webhosting.uk.com confirming my order and stating: “*** This is not your account information email. You will receive your account information including username, password, and IP address within 30 minutes of the receipt of this email if you are paying by credit card. If you are paying by check or money order, please see below for further instructions. *** “

2 Minutes later at 6.54pm I received an email from billing@webhosting.uk.com stating: Your invoice xxxxx has been processed by Webhosting.uk.com. Status: Approved
Having heard nothing more for several hours I submitted a ticket at about 9.35pm asking where my account details were.

9.42pm received reply to ticket: “Thank you for submitting ticket to WebHosting UK Sales department. An engineer will be assigned to this ticket and you can expect a reply within 1 - 2 hours. Your request is important to us and will be handled in the order it was received. If at any time you would like Priority based response you can contact us any time at the below mentioned contact methods :”

A few minutes later I received a phone call from Web Hosting UK and was told it was to confirm my order, my account would be set up and I would receive an email with account details in the next 1-2 hours.

10.23pm I received another email this time from Harry Smith (sales & marketing) stating: “Once we complete with your signup verification we proceed for your VPS setup and you will get a Welcome email with all login details within next 3-4 hours”

11.00pm received fifth email: “Thank you for submitting ticket to WebHosting UK Sales department. An engineer will be assigned to this ticket and you can expect a reply within 1 - 2 hours. Your request is important to us and will be handled in the order it was received. If at any time you would like Priority based response you can contact us any time at the below mentioned contact methods :”

I opened this account to test the quality of service and administration of this hosting service, so far I have not received my account information, and I have received a lot of contradictory emails and phone calls, doesn’t give you much faith does it!

Can's see me staying here long

[Administrator]

We had to schedule a meeting of our VPS Team for some important discussion. Livechats and tickets were answered by members of Dedicated Server department, but new VPS setup work got delayed due to this meeting.

Meeting continued for some extra time, but we are done with it now and VPS Team members are clearing all orders which came after 8PM.

[indaloman]

Originally Posted by Administrator

We had to schedule a meeting of our VPS Team for some important discussion. Livechats and tickets were answered by members of Dedicated Server department, but new VPS setup work got delayed due to this meeting.

Meeting continued for some extra time, but we are done with it now and VPS Team members are clearing all orders which came after 8PM.

Sorry, but that still does not make any sense, at 6.52pm I received email telling me I would receive my account information within 30 minutes, that would be by 7.22pm at the latest, that’s 38 minutes before 8.00pm, this was from vps@webhosting.uk.com. It’s now 12.36am and still no information. I am now of to bed after a totally wasted evening waiting for Web Hosting UK

[Dan]

Originally Posted by indaloman

Sorry, but that still does not make any sense, at 6.52pm I received email telling me I would receive my account information within 30 minutes, that would be by 7.22pm at the latest, that’s 38 minutes before 8.00pm, this was from vps@webhosting.uk.com. It’s now 12.36am and still no information. I am now of to bed after a totally wasted evening waiting for Web Hosting UK

That is an automatic email scheduled by the billing system

[indaloman]

Originally Posted by Dan

That is an automatic email scheduled by the billing system

Read my earlier post again Dan, it did not come from Billing, it came from VPS team!
So you think it’s acceptable for customers to receive information telling them that their account information will arrive within 30 minutes and then take 6.5 hours. Where ever that information came from within the company it was wrong, I scheduled my evening around that information, I was going to upload my sites and change nameservers so that I could get everything sorted today. The actual information came through at 1.56am too late to do anything.
There has been no apology for the delay, just a load of excuses. I cannot trust this company to host my sites if even before I start I just get excuses. I have also found that the Date of Incorporation of this company is: 14/01/2008. Not very mature I think you will agree.
I have asked for a full refund, I have not used the information received for the account and I have no intention of doing so. Better to find out the level of service now than after moving all my accounts here.

[Dan]

Hello,

Just to point a fact out, that i am not an employee of Webhosting UK and what i said in that post was content based on my previous customer experiences here.

Apologies regarding this, but as stated the Administrator has only posted once explaining the situation with you persuing the thread where he did not have a chance to say sorry. The company has been running since 2001, date of incorporation does not reflect anything on the company whatsoever apart from a date where a legal set of documents are signed.

[Dan]

Also for a full refund, email VPS@Webhosting.UK.com from your registered billing address requesting cancellation and refund

[v.jenner]

Hello Indaloman,

Sometimes these things happen, but I have to say that I am with Webhosting UK next month for a year (I have a VPS) and the service I have received sofar is second to none. Any ticket I open, either for software installation or other things is always indeed resolved within 2 hrs of me opening a ticket. I have been with many hosts, nothing but bad experiences and it will be hard to find a reliable host. Even the likes of 123 reg and fasthost get it wrong sometimes when it comes to customer service.

But why do you want to leave your old host?

[indaloman]

Originally Posted by v.jenner

Hello Indaloman,

Sometimes these things happen, but I have to say that I am with Webhosting UK next month for a year (I have a VPS) and the service I have received sofar is second to none. Any ticket I open, either for software installation or other things is always indeed resolved within 2 hrs of me opening a ticket. I have been with many hosts, nothing but bad experiences and it will be hard to find a reliable host. Even the likes of 123 reg and fasthost get it wrong sometimes when it comes to customer service.

But why do you want to leave your old host?

MySQL server is to slow, they use a dedicated MySQL server and it has got slower every month, I think it is over subscribed. Thats why I was interested in a VPS account here. But I now have no confidence in this company.

[indaloman]

I have already requested a refund as stated in my previous post. Billing has been back to me asking me to reconsider, but hosting is far too important to take risks with companies that have already proven that they have problems with communications.
An apology would have gone a long way to rectify this, but all I got was excuses. Billing was the first apology I got for the delay and that was only after I requested a refund.

I have now found another web hosting company offering basically the same VPS hosting packages so I am signing up with them.

Just waiting for refund, hope it’s faster than signing up.