Apologies For the Downtime

[Brian]

We would like to apologize for the downtime that we have had today. I contacted our host at about 9AM (EST) this morning. I guess the guy that was supposed to be looking into it took a long brunch or something since nothing was done until 7 hours later after a few ignored replies and finally a new support ticket. I guess the important part is that we seem to be back up and running at full speed now though.

[bridges]

What a shame! You should change to a new host. My host has toll free phone support, you would have been down only ten mins. rather then all day. They fix the problem while you are on the phone with them.

[Brian]

I was looking around while the server was down and found a couple of other hosts that look tempting, but I still need to finish researching them some more. I'd like to wait a bit longer until I have more free time to move things, but if we have any other problems with our current host then vBa will be finding a new home immediately after.

[aacircle]

I recommend liquidweb! The best support ever and a pleasure to deal with.

[bridges]

Originally Posted by aacircle

I recommend liquidweb! The best support ever and a pleasure to deal with.

And this is who I was referring too.

[Brian]

Well, I should follow up and say that it looks like the downtime wasn't really my hosting providers fault. I spoke with the CTO and this is what he said about the problem.

"Unfortunately, a simple reboot turned into a kernel error and after some time investigating, it was found that hardware failure was the cause. First your server had a bad power supply which the data center replaced, and then it had a video problem with the motherboard (which was causing the kernel error). The data center then completed a full chassis swap."

So it sounds like the problem was in the process of being fixed, I just couldn't get a response from anybody to tell me that for quite a while. He also gave me a $50 credit to make up for the lack of a follow up from the techs, so I'm happy enough now. There's been very little downtime at all while we've been with them before today, so hopefully there won't be any need for a new host anytime soon.

[akulion]

hey if u find a good host that also offers VPS could u please post it up?

ive been looking around found 2 good ones, with pretty oki doki reviews over all
but still would like to look further

the ones im talkin about are
webintellects.com
and
webserve.ca
they seem to be oki doki

[bridges]

Originally Posted by akulion

hey if u find a good host that also offers VPS could u please post it up?

We already said it.

I'm on a vps with liquidweb. The service and support is top notch!

[ManagerJosh]

My recommendations are for the folks over at Steadfast Network . They have a huge lineup covering a wide variety of needs

www.steadfast.net

[Itworx4me]

Brian who are you hosted with??

[Brian]

http://servstra.com/ is the company we've been with for a little over 2 yeras now.

[Timewalk]

I hate to complain, but to be honest i find the server kind of slow.
It lags for me every few forums, and sometimes don/t respond for a minute or two. Could be Server issues because i have/nt been here in a while.
Kernel problems on reboot can happen to anyone, but 7 hours to fix it is a little steep..

I dont know if youre seriously looking for a new host, but here is a couple great ones i have found and used over the past many years..

The Planet/ServerMatrix - Great dedicated servers, slightly expensive, but you get what you pay for, great support.

http://www.theplanet.com/

ServInt - Great dedicated servers and Experts in VPS, great prices, support is slow at times but very good..

http://servint.net/

[Brian]

The server loads here have been pretty high since the problems yesterday, so that's most likely what's causing the slow page generation times. They seem to be dropping back down at the moment, so I'm not entirely sure what's going on. I'm going to try rebooting if I see them rise again and if that doesn't help then I'll put in another ticket with our host and see if they can tell what's going on. If these types of problems continue then I'll start my search for a new host again. Of course I'd rather not go through the hassle of moving everything though unless it's really necessary.

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Brian

The server loads here have been pretty high since the problems yesterday, so that's most likely what's causing the slow page generation times. They seem to be dropping back down at the moment, so I'm not entirely sure what's going on. I'm going to try rebooting if I see them rise again and if that doesn't help then I'll put in another ticket with our host and see if they can tell what's going on. If these types of problems continue then I'll start my search for a new host again. Of course I'd rather not go through the hassle of moving everything though unless it's really necessary.

It might also be a case of the various sites having enough traffic to cause an increase in RAM needs. Check to see how much swap is being used; I recently ended up having to get another 1GB of RAM in my server (also with Servstra... still not a bad monthly price though).

[Brian]

Here's what I'm getting from WHM:

Memory: 1534612k/1563836k available (1359k kernel code, 24612k reserved, 1004k data, 132k init, 646332k highmem)

And from the top command in telnet:

Mem:  1539112k av,  856832k used,  682280k free,       0k shrd,   25380k buff
                    663064k actv,   17888k in_d,  139476k in_c
Swap: 1052248k av,       0k used, 1052248k free                  598784k cached

Server status is also showing 15% memory usage. The stats look ok as far as I can tell, though I can't say that side of things is exactly one of my areas of expertise.

[bridges]

Originally Posted by Brian

http://servstra.com/ is the company we've been with for a little over 2 yeras now.

Technically your site is hosted with layered technologies.

[Brian]

For anyone that may be following this thread, I've just ordered a new server this morning. The problems here have continued and tech support with our host hasn't been overly impressive, so I've found us a new home that also includes an extra hard drive and some extra memory. It's also located in the same data center (Savvis) as our current server and I've always been happy with the network side of things, so that's another plus. It will probably take a couple of days before the new server is up and ready for the move, but we should be moving to it before the end of the week.

[KW802]

Originally Posted by Brian

For anyone that may be following this thread, I've just ordered a new server this morning. The problems here have continued and tech support with our host hasn't been overly impressive, so I've found us a new home that also includes an extra hard drive and some extra memory. It's also located in the same data center (Savvis) as our current server and I've always been happy with the network side of things, so that's another plus. It will probably take a couple of days before the new server is up and ready for the move, but we should be moving to it before the end of the week.

What kind of pricing? I'm still grand-fathered in with that cheap server price but I'm always on the lookout for better deals.

[Brian]

Sent you a PM.

[obmob]

WOW, i thought vBA was down forever! T.T

Check http://www.webhostingtalk.com/

there are some good reviews in there.