Hosting Hell

by Sapphire (August 29, 2005)

It’s been a rough month for hosts this August. And for those hosted by them.

Two of my most reliable hosts had significant downtime this month because of database connectivity issues, and I read about many others on the boards. The server would be up, but the databases weren’t. One host was particularly forthcoming about what they’re doing to fix it - the laundry list of people this guy was in touch with was astounding. Whatever the issue is - and I bet it’s one issue plaguing a lot of hosts - it took some investigating to figure it out. I’m not sure yet if this was a php or mysql issue or what.

I’ve just learned that another of my hosts has some sort of screwy MySql configuration, so that when you try to move your site to a new host, your database is corrupt and won’t work on their (more proper) configuration. Hmm. Mistake? Or way to hold your site hostage? I think it’s probably just a case of ineptitude, but the last time that happened to me, I wound up paying someone to fix the db for me. This time, being a little better informed than I was then, I’m going to let the host know they’d better fix it. It’s their mistake and their responsibility.

And one of my hosts has had amazing difficulty updating my stats on anything resembling a 24-hour basis. They’re back to normal now, but I got a couple of differing explanations about it. One was that they were trying a new script or something that compiled the logs automatically or something. The explanation they ended with was that if the server load was over a certain threshold, stats updates were one of the things that didn’t get done, in order to prevent overload. That seems to be corrected, as I’ve now had two updates in two days.

All in all, just a weird month for hosting. I had virtually no hosting issues in June or July, then suddenly, whammo. Maybe it’s just the heat?

Posted in Hosting
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