I have an update to my earlier article titled, “The Odd Complaint About InMotion Hosting “.  I’ve been continuing to work for by power through the weekend, and we’ve been making a little bit of progress identifying the potential source of the problem that caused my servers crash throughout the week last week.  Identify the solution has enabled me to see that a good chunk of the issue is not directly related to InMotion Hosting.

The problem that I seem to be having, seems to stem from an incompatibility and the latest version of WordPress 2.3 .3 and some legacy plug-ins that I’ve been using that previously had no difficulties with.  The plug-ins work just fine with older versions of WordPress does seem to be slightly incompatible with the new versions of Word press and essentially are calling on database tables that are no longer in WordPress.  This triggered errors on the domains that were running them and those errors increase the RAM utilization on the servers that I was using.

A very helpful person that InMotion Hosting was able to identify this by looking at my error logs.  I could not look at the error logs myself because they have been the lead in for my views and so I was unable to get in and troubleshoot this problem myself.  I’ve no idea how they are logs were deleted but I have a feeling it happened when they did some work on my server and possibly during the reboot process or something.

But the good news is we were able to find some potential source of the problem and since then I have been busy getting updates to the plug-ins that needed them so that I won’t have this problem on my server.

The bad news is, I have no way to monitor brand utilization history through my account at InMotion.  I can go and I can take a glance at what the regular location is at any given point in time, but if granules nation is not out of control at that particular point in time (something not happening that would trigger an error at that specific moment) but I cannot see that there’s a problem it is to be fixed still.

In defense of InMotion, their service is not include the ability to monitor the RAM on their own servers.  They seem to recommend that I should go out and find software that will do this myself.  I would contend that if I find software like that still not the software that they use in so we are then going to be comparing apples to oranges in their own view will rule the day and possibly shut down the server when I exceed the limits that I’m allowed.  So I still have a small complaint with them in that they don’t provide an answer to this solution is specially as regularization is key to their virtual Private server solutions.  It seems to me that if you’re going to have a metric that you track and bill upon, then you should enable your customers to see what you’re tracking.  It’s somewhat a can to having a cell phone wireless plan without being able to view the minutes that you’ve used yourself on the phone or even on a bill!

So if anyone out there has run into this problem themselves and found some good tracking software to install at the server level (preferably something that’s free), please drop me a comment or an e-mail.  I’d be happy to reference you and provide a link to your own site if you can help me out with this.

In the meantime I have to get back to work now that the problem is solved and got a backlog of articles to write and a backlog of websites to create including one that I have no knowledge about all dealing with bodybuilding and some concept known as prohormones.  I’m not a bodybuilder and so I’m going to have to spend a lot of time doing some research on this one to figure out what this is all about. 

This week I have had a very strange experience with InMotion Hosting.  The strange experience with InMotion Hosting is that I have a complaint about their service.

I’ve been with them for several years and never had a complaint before (if you don’t count the time they turned off my hosting account without telling me when I had a memory hog wordpress plugin installed for a couple days).

This is a legitimate complaint.  Since last Friday my virtual server with Inmotion Hosting has been down, crashing or partially crashed about every other day.  From Friday until about Sunday, my email was not working.  I was taking the weekend off and only noticed that I was getting terribly much spam on my treo forwarded from one of my webmaster accounts.

When I checked in on things Sunday, I confirmed that the email server was definitely down and it was not a problem I could fix myself by restarting the email server and POP3 server.

Then a couple days later the email was down again and this time the database server which runs MySQL (and all of my blogs) was down plus, I could not access CPANEL on any of my accounts nor my server.

Today, one of my domains on the server (but not all) has the same problem.  No email, no database, no ftp, and no site up on the web.

The Complaint about InMotion Hosting

Here’s where I have a complaint.  I called to get the issue fixed.  Hold time this week has been in the 30 minute range, which is atypical as holdtime is normally in the 30 second range.  I waited to get someone for about 30 minutes.  When I finally got them, they could see that there was a problem, but they could not get tier 2 support to work on it.  That’s atypical as well. Normally Tier 1 can figure out a problem and if they do not have permission to do the fix, someone in tier 2 is ready and gets it done in minutes.

Today was different.  I was told that they were short staffed due to illness and my ticket would not be assigned for 30 minutes.  I could understand that as I get sick like anyone.

However 2 hours later my websites were still down and 3 hours later the whole thing went down including email and my primary domain.

When I called in at the 3 hour mark (when my site went nuclear), I was on hold for about 10 minutes again before I spoke with anyone.  By the time they got on the line, and researched my ticket, another 5 minutes, the site had come back up.

That was great, glad to have the site back up, but at this point I wanted some answers.  I had no information as to why my site had been down today or any other day and at this point my confidence in InMotion is severely shaken.  Things were looking ugly, (not IPower ugly) but too ugly to ignore.

So at this point, I’m now waiting for a written response from tier 2 as to what is causing the repeated down time on my server.  I need written because that is what the tier 1 rep recommended and apparently there were no Tier 2 reps handy to respond verbally and save everyone some time.

So now I sit back and wait and hope that my server stays up and wonder when I might respect a response as to what happened, and more importantly how the problem can be prevented in the future.  Its a weird thing having problems with InMotion.  I hope that this is isolated as I do not even want to think about having to make a move and find a hosting company that has been as good as Inmotion has been over the last few years.  Hopefully this is not the signal of a downturn.  I have looked on Orovo and several other areas for info on similar complaints, but come up short so far.

There are an endless number of sites, articles and reports about IPower’s short comings (many of which are located here.)  When you are a customer of IPower, they are essentially one of your partners in business.

This weekend I experienced a new problem with IPower.  One of my client websites has a blog component to the site, used for updating news releases.  The blog is powered by WordPress and I needed to upgrade WordPress and add some new functionality.

This is normally a very simple process and relatively quick.  You upload some files and possibly run the upgrade.php file in WordPress if the database needs an update too.

Well IPower runs MySQL (database program) on a separate server from the actual web server on their new systems.  For whatever reason, IPower apparently ran an upgrade on the MySQL server this weekend. 

They have previously indicated to some users that poorly performing MySQL performance was related to systems like Joomla and WordPress and not their own servers.  These systems are not perfect but 99 out of 100 other web hosts do not seem to have the slow loading page problem with MySQL powered systems that IPower has.

Maybe its possible the reason for this upgrade actually hinged on the need to solve the slow page loading problem for its customers or maybe not.  I suspect there’s more of an issue with the configuration as opposed to their actual physical server.

The Problem

Anyway, I uploaded the files (took 4 tries as something kept timing out.  Couldn’t tell if this was Dreamweaver or their ftp server connection.  I normally have no issue with Dreamweaver and couldn’t tell what was causing the problem.

When I got to the upgrade.php step, I hit the link to run the upgrade and there was a distinct lack of action.  In fact the process timed out.  I tried it again an hour later and an hour after that.  Timed out all three times.

Then the entire blog portion of the site stopped working and I started receiving error 500 notices and then Database Connection errors. 

My Client’s Site was Down!

I tried contacting support through chat and never got through after waiting for 50 minutes ( I was 8th in the que when it started).

I then logged into vdeck and created a support ticket, which is a new beta system that they have.

After more than 24 hours, I never received any updates or acknowledgement and definitely no action from IPower based on the ticket.

So I tried chat again.  This time I was 2nd in the que and got an actual person after about 20 minutes.  The person was nice, but obviously managing multiple chat sessions.  Responses during chat were extremely slow and it was obvious the chat representative was not paying attention to what I was saying let alone understanding my comments.

I did my best to keep my patience knowing that if I lost the person, I’d only have to get back in the que all over again some other day.

TIP – Once you have an IPower support person talking to you, do not let them go until the problem is actually fixed.  No Matter what!

Anyway to make a long story less long, my problems were apparently related to IPower’s upgrade of their MySQL server.  Initially as I was chatting IPower led me to believe that my problems (site down) could last for several days until the upgrade was done.   That seemed nuts, so I persisted with them and was ultimately able to get things resolved.

The following is a transcript of your chat session.

General Info

Chat start time

Mar 24, 2008 4:46:07 AM EST

Chat end time

Mar 24, 2008 5:35:38 AM EST

Duration (actual chatting time)

00:49:30

Operator

Ipower Chat Representative

Chat Transcript

info: Welcome to IPOWER! You are number 2 in the queue.
Please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you.
Please hold for the next available operator to respond.
info: We appreciate your patience. All operators are currently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and we’ll be with you as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you for waiting.
info: We appreciate your patience. All operators are currently assisting other customers. Please continue to hold and we’ll be with you as quickly as possible.
In the meantime, please be prepared to answer your Security Question when we begin chatting. To enhance our security protocols, we’ll need you to provide the answer to your Security Question at the beginning of our conversation. If you have not yet set your Security Question and Answer, please log into your account now to set it up. Thank you for waiting.
info: You are now chatting with ‘Ipower Chat Representative’
Ipower Chat Representative: Hi Me. I apologize for the wait time. My name is Hannah, how are you today?
Me: Good how about you?
Me: I have a ticket that has been open for over 24 hours relating to MySQL issues on Ipower servers, that is causing my site to crash regularly.
Me: So far no one has responded to the ticket at all Support Ticket #4809381
Me: domain is advancedenvironmentalmanagement.com (on an ipower hosting plan)
Ipower Chat Representative: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Me: no problem as long as we get it fixed
Ipower Chat Representative: To protect your account from unauthorized changes, can you please verify for me the answer to the Security Question:
Ipower Chat Representative: What is **** ***** **** ****?
Me: *********************************
Ipower Chat Representative: Thank you for the authentication.
Ipower Chat Representative: Can you please hold while I check this for you?
Me: sure (btw I can login to MySQL admin, but the service doesn’t run appropriately)
Ipower Chat Representative: Can you please hold while I check this for you?
Me: sure
Ipower Chat Representative: Thank you for holding.
Ipower Chat Representative: We are in the process of upgrading MySQL version, hence you may experience slowness. However, once the upgrade is completed you will not experience any issue.
Me: How many days is this going to take?
Ipower Chat Representative: The upgrade will be completed in few days.
Me: We aren’t talking slowness, we are talking failure
Me: How can you take websites offline for a few days?
Ipower Chat Representative: Me, we have not taken the Web site offline. However, you will only experience slowness.
Me: I’m telling you that the MySQL problems have taken my site offline.
Me: (for the last 24 hours)
Ipower Chat Representative: Me, you have told above that it is loading slow. However, if the Web site is not working, please let me know.
Me: No I stated that the MySQL issues were causing the site to crash regularly.
Ipower Chat Representative: Can you please provide me the URL of the page?
Me: I never mentioned anything about slowness.
Me: This is the directory that has the wordpress installation
Me: http://www.mysite.com/news/
Me: The problem is in the admin section of the site, it crashes due to the db after login
Me: and often comes up with a 500 error code for the publicly viewable portion as well or a screen that says there is a Database error
Ipower Chat Representative: Okay.
Ipower Chat Representative: Can you please provide me the admin username and password?
Me: username – ***************
Me: pword *****************
Ipower Chat Representative: Okay.
Ipower Chat Representative: Can you please hold while I check this for you?
Me: sure
Ipower Chat Representative: Thank you for holding.
Ipower Chat Representative: I was able to log into the admin page of the WordPress without any issue. I have not received any error.
Me: Did it say Upgrade ? and did you click it?
Me: that’s where it errors out
Me: and crashes
Me: I can’t proceed with any other work on the site until I get past the upgrade
Ipower Chat Representative: Can you please provide me the steps to replicate the issue?
Me: I just did
Me: alternatively go to http://www.mysite.com/news/wp-admin/upgrade.php
Me:
Ipower Chat Representative: I have accessed the above URl and I receive the following output ‘No Upgrade Required
Ipower Chat Representative: Your WordPress database is already up-to-date!’.
Me: I can get in now as well. It must have finally processed through or something.
Me: Thanks for the help.
Ipower Chat Representative: It’s my pleasure!
Ipower Chat Representative: I only have your first name. Can I have your complete name for our records?
Me: sure Me
Ipower Chat Representative: Thank you!
Ipower Chat Representative: Have you sent any e-mail to us regarding your issue? If so, please provide me the e-mail address through which you have sent the e-mail.
Me: no emails, I provided them through your support ticket process (number above)
Me: and entered at the start of the chat
Ipower Chat Representative: Okay.
Ipower Chat Representative: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Me: Nope that should do it. Thanks again
Ipower Chat Representative: Thank you for chatting with us. Please feel free to contact us at any time. We are available 24×7.
info: Chat session has been terminated by the site operator.

So my issue is now fixed.  My site is running.  The slow loading problem is now there, just like the representative promised (thanks for that).

There are times when I feel like my hosting experience with this business partner is more like the experience that a person receives when they go on a royal caribbean cruise ship and get sick from the service or the ships food or something.  You spend all that money and time and end up getting sick from it.

Google is looking for a slew of web surfers to help them improve their SERP (Search Engine Ranking Placement) for free.

They are testing a concept where users can remove items from search listings (presumably that are not relevant or desired as opposed to removing say a competitors listing from the listing).

The concept here is that they want to gain the intelligence of why people do or do not like a listing without any scientific backing from it.  This social media application on Google’s search engine listing could radically change the way search works as well as radically expose Google’s rankings to manipulation (hence the need for a long drawn out beta).

I don’t expect to many of us will be given the opportunity to see an Orovo review on this anytime soon, but eventually this might well be an alternative search option for users that want to use it.

So you thought worrying about service and support were important with your web hosting company, but have you been paying attention to how they’re powering up all those servers running all the electricity?

I have to admit that I haven’t been paying attention to my web host company when it comes to how Green they are either.  I couldn’t tell you if my web hosting company uses solar power coal powered nuclear power or Fred Flintstone foot power.

Affordable Internet Services Online, Inc. (AISO.net) uses solar panels to run its data center and office.  That may be a little extreme in a good way, but sometime in the future that could also be very very practical!

But it is true that Web hosting does utilize power, and in this day and age where electricity rates are linked to oil prices and oil prices are going way up while the volume of the dollar goes way down, it only makes sense that you might want to start looking at this situation if for no other reason to ensure that you’re getting the lowest rate possible.  If you’re hosting bill goes up because your web host has to pay too much for electricity, then that will hurt you in your pocketbook even if you don’t care about greenhouse gases.

So the next time you talk to your web host on the phone or maybe run into a rep at a trade show, throw them a curve ball and ask them if their power is supplied from a green or renewable source.  In the latter situation, you can further throw them for a loop and ask them if their trade show displays are made out of recycled or recyclable materials.

Got to keep them on their toes!

If you haven’t considered it or tried it yet, there is a great website that can help you build links up and pay you for your effort at the same time.

Its called Associated Content.  This is typically a site that pays people to write and create news and how to articles.

They do not encourage link building at all, however, if you have a good resource or supporting source, you can include a link or two with your articles.

Please understand, I am not indicating that you should use AC like a link farm, but it can help.  Plus, its also important to consider that they can provide you with a world wide audience on a large platform.  Its important to keep this in mind so that you don’t bring any unnecessary luggage to your writing or articles.

This week I was introduced to a great new way to make and receive payments online called MoneyBookers.  They have a low fee structure and generally work like PayPal.

PayPal is still my preference, but it is good to have backups to PayPal and Google Checkout.

MoneyBookers does have a simple escrow service as well which could be useful for selling domain names or websites.  It could also be useful for selling items outside of Ebay whether or not you are selling tangible products like Wiley X sunglasses or services or what have you.

One of the nasty truths about the internet hosting business is that if a customer receives bad service from a web host, they are often times unlikely to move their business away.  This is partly due to the fact that Web Hosts often times hold a domain or a website hostage through excuses and some of the same bad service that might lead a company to want to move in the first place.

In an article about IPower web hosting and their poor customer track record during accelerated growth, their Chief Executive helped to illustrate this point.

Gorny said customer loyalty remains strong.
“From a cancellation rate (perspective), we haven’t experienced any spikes,” he said.

Web host firm plagued by client criticism

For many website owners, the time and effort required to move a domain or website is almost always going to be twice as hard as getting a problem resolved or getting a problem resolved enough.

If you are faced with spending 10 hours on hold over a problem and 20 hours on hold to move along with the potential loss of your domain, you might be forced to opt for the status quo and stay put.  That unfortunately holds true wether you are running a website for Winter Park real estate on Go Daddy or a referee management site for the local junior sports league on IPower.

So just when I thought I was done dealing with IPower for the month, my client (and my wife) decides that she wants a different domain name after all.

So I go back into the system to pick up the new alternate domain name. 

Step 1 – “I LOG IN”

That’s and important step!

I make my selection for a domain name, its available, and the process dumps me on a section to fill out the same stupid account information.

HELLO, I’m Logged IN!

So I play along.  I enter the information, including my correct username and password and my phone number into the field that I know doesn’t work.

I submit it and get the following error.

HELLO, THAT’s MY USERNAME AND I AM LOGGED IN!

So really, what does it take for IPower to realize this process is broken.  This is nothing new,  I saw the same problem months ago, even mentioned it to their tech support.  Does no one pay attention there?

Seriously, I think there is something wrong with their login logout or session tracking process.  To overcome this problem, I had to log out and log back in, that kicked me into Vdeck 3.0 (which I dislike) and then I hop back out to the top level menus for IPower purchasing. 

This time around, I’m prompted twice to add the domain to an existing account and option that I did not get the last time I logged in and went through the process.  Then of course I got to experience the phone number issue all over again.  What a joy.

One other thing, I’m just registering single domains, but this would be a major major hassle if I were doing a batch of domains.  DO NOT put yourself through that misery with IPOWER. 

OK, this is a nit picky thing about IPower and in my defense for nit picking, I’ll say that I am getting this off my chest as some of the bigger problems with IPower are too severe and too big to cover in a blog.

Today, I was trying to simply register a couple domains.  I have an account already.  In fact they gave me several hundred accounts.

Well, when I ordered the first domain, it made me enter all of my account information all over again.  Including a phone number broken out with three text boxes, one for the area code then another for the next three digits and the last four digits.

But then the whole process errors out because apparently they can not read the input from their own form.

Here’s the down side of my last phone chat with them.  They never picked up after they transferred me to billing.  In fairness, I only waited about 10-20 minutes.

D P.: hello, how can i help you
Brett: Hi Dianna, I’d like to register a couple domains to add to my account, but your system is just about impossible for me today.
Brett: I have about 100 domains or more with Ipower and a few hosting plans
Brett: But these were mostly done before your conversion, and so I am spread all over the place (my customer rep hasn’t called me in over a year, so there’s no help there).
Brett: Today, I simply want to pick up a couple domains, but I’d like to bring them in under one of my many existing accounts.
D P.: are you having issues doing that?
Brett: PS I tried to register 2 domains, but when ever I had the second, the system deletes the first. I’m glad I’m not trying to place a large order today!
Brett: correction ‘when I ad the second,’
Brett: add
Brett: lol
D P.: sorry about the issue
D P.: i need to get you to online biling
D P.: online billing
D P.: they will have the tools to help you
D P.: plase hold as i transfer you
Brett: ok
info: Please wait while I transfer the chat to the best suited site operator.

Now that I am done dealing with IPower for the day, I can take off my disposable gloves and get back to work with actual people.