Disappointing service again

[Cassie]

I decided (like quite a few of you) to give Web Hosting UK another chance.

Last time, I tried to transfer a domain name to them it took DAYS and tech sup didn't help at all - I got an apology (eventually - after asking for one).

So I thought this time I would just take out some basic hosting and see how they did. Again things have gone wrong. First they told me I would have 12-24 hours down time even though I was just changing name servers - down time was actually about 10 seconds. If I had known that I would have done it the day before rather than waiting till I had a whole day I could be chained to my computer.

Then, despite checking the Front Page ext were in place, the FP form didn't work. They fixed that but broke the FP navigation and haven't been able to fix it. They keep saying it is there and to clear my cache. craft-kits.co.uk - check it (11.26H 5th June 2007 ) It isn't there - cache cleared and on 2 other computers. I pointed them to where the old site was hosted (sub domain hosted on here) craftbits.co.uk/kits/index.html so that could see what it should look like - they said they couldn't see that page !!!

I am still within my 30 days so I am seriously thinking of testing their 30 day money back guarantee. But that doesn't pay for all the customers I might have lost in the last few days because they couldn't navigate my site.

Grouch over - just reviewed some of my other posts lately - must be hormones - most have been rants !!

[Pumazooma]

Are you sure you have the right version of the index page uploaded? The source code has no left menu in it, suggesting it's not there rather than it's not displaying properly.

[Cassie]

It worked FINE until Tech Sup FIXED the contact us page.

It probably won't have code as such because it is a Front Page Navigation panel - that is why I choose this place - it has FP EXTS. Not all cheap hosters do.

Have you checked the craftbits.co.uk/kits/index.html page to see what it is supposed to look like?

[Pumazooma]

Have you checked the craftbits.co.uk/kits/index.html page to see what it is supposed to look like?

Yes. That index page shows lots of menu code. That's not showing up in the source code of the 'right' page.

However, I'm not familiar with FP.

[Cassie]

I'll try re-loading !! But am really annoyed that I have to fix the problems that Tech Sup have created. And will the Contact Us form work again when I have re-loaded? Or will this whole problem start again.

If doing a re-load will fix the problem why didn't Tech Sup suggest that rather than keep saying there is nothing wrong.

I just received an email from they saying that "the craftbits.co.uk/kits/index.html is working fine so what is the problem". EXACTLY - the only reason I gave them that link was so they could see what it was supposed to look like - at least they now admit they can see it.

They obviously do not bother reading emails properly or grasping what the problem is - I am still waiting for an email from them to find out why craft-kits.co.uk isn't working right.

Hosting with these people might be cheap but it is such HARD WORK.

[kev woodman]

In all fairness they were right to advise a possible 12-24 hours for the nameserver change as well. Most of the time the change propagates much quicker than this but the guidelines do state up to 24 hours.

The navigation is definitely not there though. I don't have any experience with FP I'm afraid so I can't suggest anything more than Puma.

[jon123]

It can take upto 72 hours for changing nameservers so you can't blame tech for that, it is out of their control. Also As puma said, the left navigation code is missing from that page.

[Cassie]

Maybe not jon123 but I can blame them for breaking the site and not having the nous to suggest a re-load - which has fixed the problem (for now). I know absolutely nothing about how servers work etc - I am completely home taught and only want to keep my businesses running. I rely on 'experts' to fix the problems. I get a bit annoyed when they seem to deliberately only answer part of emails and then say I am seeing things "the site is fine" when it obviously wasn't.

This site is only one of my minor sites. My main site is hosted elsewhere and the hosting is due. As they are trying to charge me £350 for similar hosting for something that only costs £60 on here I obviously am looking at changing. But if they have problems getting a tiny site working what are they going to do with a site with thousands of pages? Also all my eggs will be in one basket then - what would you do?

[kev woodman]

This is not a criticism of Webhosting UK but I wouldn't put all my sites with one host anyway. No matter how good the host (with the possible exception of Rackspace whose prices are astronomically high) there is always a chance of failure and balancing your sites across multiple hosts is as sensible as having a proper back-up regime.

[jon123]

Good point and agree with support issues, they don't read the email correctly, and there is absolutely nothing worse than someone telling you something is working when clearly it is not.

As for eggs in one basket......It is a difficult one Cassie, I mean if your site is down how do you tell visitors to goto another url? if you can't then what is the point of having another url with another hosting company?

The way I get round it is that i have another very cheap hosting plan over in the US and i always make sure i have a copy of all email addresses (from forum, etc) on my hard drive. That way i can always get in touch with members. That said, i really don't have anough recurring members to warrant the other US hosting plan, i may get rid.

But i think it is a must to keep all contact details for your members onyour pc in the event that the worst happens.

[jon123]

This is not a criticism of Webhosting UK but I wouldn't put all my sites with one host anyway. No matter how good the host (with the possible exception of Rackspace whose prices are astronomically high) there is always a chance of failure and balancing your sites across multiple hosts is as sensible as having a proper back-up regime.

How do you inform people to swich to another url though Kev? or are you referring to just having seperate individual sites on different servers?

The other point is though, I think whoever you are with, there is a possibility of downtime. I was with pipex and I paid nearly £35 p/m for a reseller account which isn't cheap, they were nothing but trouble. I pay £2 per month for my US one and never had trouble with it. pay yer money take yer chance i guess.

[Cassie]

Presumably the 3 lots of hosting I would be buying on here for my 3 sites would be on different servers - so the only problem would be if the whole lot went down or if they went bust. Is that likely? How do I find out if they are hosted on different ones?

As the domain names will not be hosted here (too much hassle) I can always point the domain names elsewhere if I know it will be down for a while. I always keep very good backups !!

There are not really any members emails to keep a back up of as the forums are only very small parts of the sites. The main bit is making money by selling Knitting Yarns - or perhaps we should change to umbrellas !!

I'm calming down now Sorry - just get a bit frustrated when things don't work right

[jon123]

The only wat to find out if they are different servers is to ask support. If they are shared they may be on the same server. It would be worthwhile making sure they are on different servers though.

There is also a site that lets you view who is sharing the same ip....let me see if i can find it.

[Administrator]

Presumably the 3 lots of hosting I would be buying on here for my 3 sites would be on different servers - so the only problem would be if the whole lot went down or if they went bust. Is that likely? How do I find out if they are hosted on different ones?

As the domain names will not be hosted here (too much hassle) I can always point the domain names elsewhere if I know it will be down for a while. I always keep very good backups !!

There are not really any members emails to keep a back up of as the forums are only very small parts of the sites. The main bit is making money by selling Knitting Yarns - or perhaps we should change to umbrellas !!

I'm calming down now Sorry - just get a bit frustrated when things don't work right

If you signup for 3 plans at a time then those 3 will be setup on the server currently getting filled. We have separate servers in server groups for reseller hosting and shared hosting and currently each of this servers are filled within a months time so if you signup for 1 plan today and other in next month then both will be on separate server. you can also put a comment in message box and mention that you need need all your accounts to be setup on separate servers.

If you are concerned about our backup policy then for your information all our existing servers have 1 weekly backup in UK and 1 weekly backup on our backup servers in US.

We have kept our backup servers in different datacenters to ensure that we don't loose our customers or our business if something goes wrong with existing facility.


I can understand that sometimes our guys are not perfect in answering your questions related to incorrect functioning of code but for your information our guys are trained technical professionals who have expertise in server side issues and not with php or any other programming language. If you ask us why a navigation bar is not working then there wont be any sort of satisfactory reply from us as we don't know anything about designing or programming.

Ask us to make a shell script and that will be done in few minutes but making a contact us form is out of our scope and we wont succeed in doing so even if we are paid for that job.

[jon123]

Cassie,

To find out if your sites are all hosted on the same server put this ip 87.117.236.214 into the form on the link below
http://www.seologs.com/ip-domains.html