Fasthosts update: still above water

still down!

Hmm, they say all servers are up, but in reality: no.

I can't even ping our dedicated box.

I do sympathise with the poor gits in the datacentre trying desperately to fix a mess, but the status feed telling me all the servers are up when they aren't is a bit much.

There's a hundred people awaiting access to their email on this machine and I now have to tell them that Fasthosts is either lying to its customers or... well, I dunno really. Makes it my problem now: 'Yes sir, I know the status feed says it's up, but it quite plainly isn't. Yes, we are working to fix the problem. I'll phone their helpline to be fobbed off *again* shall I'.

That's a lie

"Every aspect of Fasthosts' services remain fully operational"

I know I wasn't the only dedicated server customer who only got service back at about 5am this morning. That's a 22 hour outage...

I wouldn't have minded so much as I have backup plans but there was no communication from fasthosts on this issue. Not even an answer to my support request to say it's all back up.

Will certainly be going elsewhere now :(

Floods of Sunshine

I really enjoyed the floods yesterday, here in Glasgow we had beautiful sunshine all day. In fact over the last few weeks it's been generally dry and sunny with just the ocasional day with a few spots of rain. :D

Bullcrap

My dedicated server has been down for two days, despite fasthosts claiming that the service has returned.

So whatever fasthosts have put in that press release, let me assure you that its not true.

Terrible customer service

I host my company website through Fasthosts and have had no web-presence or e-mail for over 24 hours. We are not a technical company and are now getting calls from clients worried that we have financial trouble as we have vanished from the web. I can sympathise with the conditions in Gloucester but the fact that there is NO information NO telephone support NONE of my e-mails have been answered an yet they post an message on their phone saying there are NO PROBLEMS! Bad customer service is one thing..............lying to your customers is quite another. In the meanwhile has anyone any ideas what I can do!!!

The truth somewhat muddier than the flood waters?

I don't believe a word of it. Fasthosts are superb, and I mean genuinely excellent, at putting up all manner of smoke and mirrors in order to avoid explaining in clear language what is going on. I've never known a hosting outfit like it - the only time they bother talking to you is when they try and hit you up for more cash, otherwise they seem to intentionally make life difficult for practically anyone seeking a straight answer.

When they disappeared off the 'net last week, I posted a reasonable request on their forums for some sort of believable explanation - my request was of course ignored and the post deleted.

Anyone seeking decent hosting should grab a couple of those $100 laptops Negroponte is chucking around and jury rig them together with sticky back plastic. Its guaranteed more resilient, cheaper and feature packed!

What a load of ...

We have 2 servers with fasthosts and I have to say that I am generally very pleased...

One server came back at about 9:30 yesterday - an outage of a few hours only (logs show it get power about 8:30 but was still inaccessible until 9:30).

The other server came back this morning - an outage of about 24 hours sure, but have you people seen the news? Have you seen where fasthosts are based compared to the river? Logs showed that it got power about lunchtime yesterday, but again was inaccessible until this morning.

It did prompt me to check which services were auto-started and correct minor things.

Also, I emailed support for a minor issue with our ukreg account and they responded WITHIN 5 MINUTES! I guess it helps to be polite to them.

For those saying 'it must be down, I can't ping it' remember that firewalls can block pings - I recommend logging into your KVM console and checking that networking is up and that sort of thing.

Now, I'm off to make redundancy plans, but our servers are definately staying with fasthosts at the moment.

Appalling customer relationship

We used to use Fasthosts for some high street brand websites we do. We had a couple of problems with them and they were completely unhelpful.

Luckily now we only have 2 small sites with them (although one is pivotal to our operations!) and those have been for days. One has just come back on line a few minutes ago, but has obviously suffered a power outage at some point. The other remains down. I'm so glad we moved the important client sites to the albeit much more expensive Rackspace.

They are telling complete -lies-. Let's not beat around the bush. Yes it must be hard bla bla bla but what kind of idiot says that everything is fine when they KNOW there are many people out there who can prove the contrary?

There is a culture problem. In every dealing we've had with them regarding server problems, they have been utterly unhelpful. The modus operandi seems to be:

1. Don't admit to any problems

2. Don't give any idea of time to return service

3. Don't contact the customer to tell them when service is restored.

Shameful.

Sympathies to Andrew

If you can't access your site to take a copy of it and you have no offline copy within your company somewhere you're not going to be able to get your site back to visible again without Fasthosts making it so :o(

If you have a copy of your site you can get another account elsewhere opened, upload your site data to it and change your domain name data to point to the new web server which will see you going again in around 24 hours when the domain data propagates across the net.

Sounds like you definitely need to come to a decision about hosting sooner rather than later though, based on your post!

Sympathy yes, understanding no.

Whilst I sympathise with the vast majority of people trying to run businesses or get to work in these horrendous conditions I would suggest that a if you want to host other's business services it's probably best not to do it on a flood plain; or on the side of a volcano.

I would also suggest that like all services you get what you pay for; if you want resilience, fail over servers and other replicated DR facilities, they come at a price and its a shade more expensive than a couple of $100 dollar laptops.

Its a fair cop!

Yes indeed, my idea to jury rig together the $100 "One Child One Laptop" has been exposed as nothing but a sham (on par with Fasthost's customer support it has to be said).

However, all things being equal and given how much Fasthosts charge for a standard reseller account - £50+ per month, not including extras like, er, everything you can think of - you'd expect a bit more than the Portcullis Of Silence that comes crashing down every time something goes awry...

Especially when a veritcable Metric Tonne of other outfits offer ten times the service and indeed services that Fasthosts do for much less cash - and unless they've relocated, they're not busy getting drenched of lava'd up either.

Cheap servers. Cheap customer service

I have one dedicated server with Fasthosts, it went down for about an hour yesterday morning, but asides from that it's been online. E mails aren't getting sent though & they really really need to pay more attention to their customers. I went with them purely for budget reasons & the old adage of you get what you pay for rings true again. I'd recommend uksolutions, but unfortunately they dont lease servers :(

Down for third day - I am losing online trade !

"Every aspect of Fasthosts' services remain fully operational" This is most certainly a lie.

I gained service yesterday for a short time after aan outage of more than 24 hours, but it was off longer than on and today - the third day its been off all day.

Can't get through to accounts on phone, can't get through to support on phone and nobody is responding to support emails.

Now I know why their server was cheaper than anyone elses!

I am now planning our next host company.

So who offers a similar hosting deal that works (and they don't lie)...?

The heading says it really. Want a dedicated server at a simlar price and spec - any outfits anyone can recommend - please?

Thanks....

Who offers similar deals

I currently use serverpronto.com

They're based in the US but they have servers starting at $29 USD/mo for a 2.4ghz Semperon, 256 meg ram, 40 gig disk, 200GB bandwidth and rising from there

Who offers similar deals

I use Cyberquest/UK1. They are a small family run business. They have their own datacentre in Preston and offer machines, or will take care of your own, virual hosting, etc. etc. etc, all the standard stuff. You can always get them on the phone, they are friendly and helpful. Their own website(s) look poo but I think that it's more to do with them concentrating on what they do best - which isn't web design, it's hosting internet services. Been with them 5+ years and never a problem servers and server software is updated frequently.

Preston does have a river but I've never heard of it blowing it's banks - it was straightend in the late 1800's I believe. And ... No volcanoes!

Cyberquest

I dont think these guys have thier own datacentre.

‘DataCentre’: Tour/info conspicuous by its absence.

Tracert and latency seems more like a broadband connection.

212.121.34.55 | manap.net | 6 |Manchester Exchange Point Premium Lan

194.117.136.217 | - | 15 |INTERNET

194.117.136.210 | - | 15 |INTERNET

194.117.136.213 | - | 15 |INTERNET

194.117.136.21 | wit-brad-pos.telewest.net | 46 |INTERNET

62.30.247.41 | pc-62-30-247-41-do.blueyonder.co.uk | 15 |Cable Internet Ltd

62.30.192.35 | - | Cable Internet Ltd

194.117.159.9 | usr488-wol.cableinet.co.uk | Cable Internet Ltd

194.29.221.10 | www.cyberquest.co.uk | 47 |Unit 4 The Astley Centre

IP:

route: 194.29.216.0/21

descr: Telewest Broadband

descr: UK Broadband ISP

Location to river...

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=syszcggs3wth&style=o&lvl=1&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=7691310&sp=Point.t5h04kgkmrk2_Heronsford%2C%20South%20Ayrshire%2C%20Scotland%2C%20United%20Kingdom___~Point.sjrjb6h2jwy2_CT5%204JG%20(postcode)%2C%20United%20Kingdom___~Point.qh758c7y9xfq_CVG%20%5BCincinnati%20-%20Northern%20Kentucky%20International%20Airport%5D%20(airport)%2C%20United%20States___~Point.sjrjb6h2jwy2_CT5%204JG%20(postcode)%2C%20United%20Kingdom___~Point.sqcjmbgxt4ct_NN3%206LG%20(postcode)%2C%20United%20Kingdom___~Point.sqcjmbgxt4ct_NN3%206LG%20(postcode)%2C%20United%20Kingdom___~Point.sq33m7gxdf4m_Middle%20St%2C%20Nether%20Heyford%2C%20Northampton%20NN7%203%2C%20United%20Kingdom___~Point.sq78dwgxw89q_Graspin%20Lane%2C%20Weston%20Favell%2C%20Northampton%20NN3%203%2C%20United%20Kingdom___~Point.spt2w3gtc872_Powick%2C%20Worcestershire%2C%20England%2C%20United%20Kingdom___~Point.sqdyf9gyg2pg_NN10%209PA%20(postcode)%2C%20United%20Kingdom___&encType=1

Scary.