THE ALL NEW PUB UPGRADE THREAD!!!!

[Marley's Ghost (Imbiber of Spirits)]

The "Other Place" doesn't seem to have these problems .... but then they don't have as much traffic as us. Who do they use?

I dunno... they moved it a few years back didn't they...?

I'll run a tracert and see where they are.... 

If by "the other place" you're referring to GOM, the I'd have to say that, IMO, they see more traffic are usually speedy quick like . . .

[GROWLER]

Well I've been on here for most of the day today, generally ranting, soz, and must say it's been generally running pretty damned ok tbqh.

Is it fixed now d'ya think?

[apc2010]

Better now but not fixed ................lets hope it will be fixed quicker than BM last project...............

[Darwins Selection]

Slower than a slug on a high-salt diet today.

[Barman]

Update... 

I've been going round the same loop every day with the support team...

It is clear that they are almost solely tasked with closing tickets so they generally come out with the same old B/S - there is no problem, it is our fault, we need to upgrade to a dedicated server, etc.

Each time I contact them I tell them that I wish to make a formal complaint and ask who I should address it to...

Today I got this: -

 

Hello,

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Due to the nature of our shared hosting system, there will be occasional brief periods where MySQL/PHP sensitive websites are experience stalling and slowness – in most circumstances this is caused by other users on the pool monopolizing resources and causing particular applications which are sensitive to MySQL load (applications like phpNuke, phpBB, Joomla) to experience slowdowns and timeouts. In such cases, we have automated monitoring and a team in Network Operations that detect and correct these issues as they arise. If your website having slowness more frequently, please report it.

To make a formal complaint against our support staff, please send the complaint to the email address gary@ipage.com

If you have any further questions, please update the Support Console.

Thanks!

Jaelyn Jenkins
Technical Specialist

I figured 'gary' was a joke... a dead-end e-mail address or the guy that swept the floors...

Nonetheless I sent him this: -

Hi Gary,

I am forced to make a formal complaint against iPage and request that it be registered in your quality management system and that I be updated with the progress.

I moved my web site to iPage back in April and was very pleased with the service, support and performance of your company.

We run a small 'virtual pub' with a limited number of users so we have very little performance or bandwidth requirements.

Way back in August we started to get some issues with the site becoming unreliable.

By September the site was not working reliably at all - it was either not available or was too slow to use.

Your support people have been very responsive but have totally failed to resolve the issues we are experiencing.

If you look at support tickets 10104715 & 10194002 you will see how frustrating it has been. Each time I get the same stock answers - firstly that nothing is wrong, next that it is a problem with my ISP and lastly that I have to upgrade to VPS.

This is not acceptable.

On the suggestion of one of your techs i monitored the site with Pingdom. The results clearly show that the issue is with your SQL server. You can see the latest results here. It is clearly not acceptable in 2012 to have to wait 12 seconds for a page to load.

If you read through the support tickets you will understand that I am completely fed up with this - I have wasted hours of my time creating and updating support tickets.

All I ask is that iPage do what they promised when I signed up - I want a fast website host which means either moving us to another SQL server or removing whoever it is that monopolises the server we are on for most of the day.

Thanks in advance for your prompt reply and speedy resolution of this unfortunate issue.

Best regards,

Barman

I was fairly sure it would bounce back or would disappear forever into the vast space of teh Inetrwebs...

However, I've had a reply!

Barman,

While I never like to get an email like this from a customer, I want to thank you for taking the time to make me aware of the issues that you've been facing with our hosting service.

I am going to ask one of my top techs to investigate this for me this morning, and we'll be back in touch with a course of action later today.

Sincerely,


Gary R. Engel
Sr. Vice President, Customer Support
iPage
781-852-3200 ext 3302

 

[Darwins Selection]

Progress! 

Well done

[Barman]

Progress! 

Well done

It could still be the floor sweeper.... 

[apc2010]

Progress! 

Well done

It could still be the floor sweeper.... 

But we have his e-mail ........

[Barman]

Progress! 

Well done

It could still be the floor sweeper.... 

But we have his e-mail ........

 

[Barman]

Well, we had a reply - not from Gary though... 

Greetings,

Judging by the information provided in your previous tickets, it is hard to pinpoint what the problem was at the time of your pingdom reports.

I have looked into passed open issues with the MySQL server you are using and have found no reported downtime/performance issues.

One thing to know is that your account has a MySQL query limit of 75,000 queries an hour per database user. Once this is reached your database user will no longer be able to authenticate for an hour, and your application will get a database connection error.

Pingdom cannot recognize this, and considers it downtime/latency.

Hosting a forum with a decent amount of traffic on our shared hosting platform requires the application to be configured to generate minimal server load.

The easiest way to do this is to implement a caching system so when each page is accessed MySQL queries aren't made.

At this time it seems that your site is responding in a reasonable amount of time.

I've completed over 6,000 traceroutes to the server with an average latency of 80ms.

I have your site in pingdom and average response time for the passed 3 hours is 1,551 ms, checking every minute.

Due to the nature of shared hosting, our server performance may slow down during peak traffic hours.

If you need more dedicated resources, we would recommend getting a VPS server.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
If you have any further issues, please reply to this message and we will be happy to assist you.

Mathew L.
Technical specialist

It is basically the same old response, albeit hand written and not copy and pasted...

1) It is your fault - you are using too much data (we're not).
2) There is nothing wrong with the site (there obviously is).
3) You need to upgrade to a much more expensive service (no we fucking don't, not with you anyway).

So I replied thusly (and copied Gary): -

Hi,

Thanks for your prompt reply...

I must say, I am disappointed that your reply is pretty much what I have experienced from the support team over the past few months.

Firstly an accusation that we are exceeding your limits.
Then a suggestion that there is something wrong.
And finally a suggestion that we need to upgrade to VPS.

Please, please read the following very carefully as I have made these points time and time again but have been ignored.

I really don't think we are exceeding 75,000 queries per hour. Yesterday for instance our forum had a total of 122 posts - this is partly due to the poor performance we are experiencing...

Are you sure you are checking the correct site...?

The base site - http://www.virtual-pub.com/ - always loads perfectly. We never have a problem gaining access to that site which holds a simple HTML front page.

The problem we have is gaining access to the forum which is ghosted by your SQL server - http://www.virtual-pub.com/SMF/index.php

Right now that site is completely unusable - it has taken me ten minutes and multiple attempts to try to make a post there.

Pingdom shows the same thing for this site every day.

As I live on a time-zone that is two hours ahead of most of my users I can assure you that I am the only person on the board and the first person to post in at least five hours.

So, I think we should be able to agree that if one person cannot post on the board (it has just taken 25 seconds to load the 'home page') and Pingdom agrees that it is taking more than 20 seconds then there MUST be a problem with your server which is not related to our usage of the site?

UPDATE: Since starting to write this message to you, all I have been able to get for the past ten minutes is this. I can access all the other sites that I use on a regular basis with no problems.

I'm sure you can appreciate that if the site is completely unusable there really is no point paying you for the privilege and we will reluctantly be forced to move our business elsewhere.

Please have another look at the statistics and perhaps get one of your guys to actually try using the site at 06:00 GMT to see what the problems are really like (just taken 42 seconds to load the home page).

A site with ten users and less than 200 posts per day does not need a VPS server.

Thanks in advance for your prompt reply.

Barman

I don't see this going anywhere - do we have any option but to move the site now...?

[Baldy]

Possibly give them a chance to check it out. I bet some numpty was just looking at  http://www.virtual-pub.com/  and not http://www.virtual-pub.com/SMF/index.php.

I has been the wersest this morning I have ever known.

[Barman]

Possibly give them a chance to check it out. I bet some numpty was just looking at  http://www.virtual-pub.com/  and not http://www.virtual-pub.com/SMF/index.php.

I has been the wersest this morning I have ever known.

Agreed... I'll be sending them a couple of pictures of the response charts later with some choice words... 

[Baldy]

Watch that bunch of tossers at ipage.

I had hosting with them a couple of years ago. When the next years' payment came up they do not warn you that it is running out and just apply for your munny. Not only had the price gone up by 60%  , they tried to take it off my internet card. The whole point of the P card is that you put just enough into the account to cover the purchase you have bought online and other munny in your accounts cannot be touched. The fecking bank charged me 20 euros for a returned transaction.  I got in touch with ipage and was told that it was only an introductory offer and their normal charge was a lot fecking higher. They would not give me a discount on renewing with them and kept on trying to access my internet card for the wonga, even after I told them to stuff it. The bank only charged me the once, although ipage tried 4 fecking times (twice after I had cancelled the hosting!).

I never owed them munny as the wankers shut the site down on the last day of the years hosting, if they kept it open for a few weeks then I accept that some payment would be needed to cover that period......but no the fuckers just closed it dead on the 365th day without warning.

[Darwins Selection]

It is slower than a Savile apology today. 

These 75,000 queries, could they be spy-bot thingies or Amazon advert targeting rather than 'real' users?

It seems such a huge number for such a select band of VP'ers, I would suspect non-human activity. (Nick excluded)

[Snoopy]

Yes it is going slower the longer I am on it today.
I know it's a pain in the arse to change hosts and a lot of work for you but I can't see an alternative.
If, as their names and Vice Pres etc suggests, they are hosting this on a USA based server then it stands to reason that their peak usage times are going to be some 8 hours different from ours. Therein may lay the problem.