Am I The Only Unhappy Customer

[deandre]

MY SITE WAS HOSTED ON SERVER 58. OVER THE HOLIDAYS I LOST EVERYTHING. MY DATABASE MY TEMPLATE MY CUSTOMERS. WHILE I KNOW MISTAKES HAPPEN. THIS WAS VERY SURPRISING. I WAS RECOMMENDED TO THIS HOSTING COMPANY BECAUSE OF WHAT IT HAS TO OFFER. THE CUSTOMER SERVICE HAS BEEN GREAT IN MOST CASES. BUT TO OFFER 2 FREE MONTHS TO COMPENSATE FOR MY INCONVIENCE IS DISAPPOINTING. IM JUST AMAZED THAT IM THE ONLY PERSON TO ENCOUNTER THIS PROBLEM.

[Viper007Bond]

No need to type in all caps. Was it a free account or paid account?

[deandre]

SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS. BUT IF IT WERE FREE I WOULDNT BE COMPLAINING.

[johca]

I visited your site and this is what was found...
This website is temporarily down for maintenance. Please contact support
Have you contacted support?

Nothing is 100% perfect and this does seem reasonable
BUT TO OFFER 2 FREE MONTHS TO COMPENSATE FOR MY INCONVIENCE IS DISAPPOINTING. unless there is something else to this situation that is not being told. Hopefully you had a backup copy of everything.

[y6y6y6]

Hostrocket has had some huge problems lately with backups. You aren't the only person who's unhappy. Others lost their sites as well.

I think the lesson from the last two weeks is that you should never trust HR's backups. I'm a very happy customer, but I certainly make sure I do my own backups.

And that isn't the way it should be. But for the price it's something I can live with.

[uhsites]

Tell me about it.... 5 of the sites I manage were completely lost because they were on host58.
Luckily it was no big deal because I've got the sites stored on my computer.

But I do have a forum and if everything from there was lost I would freak out....

[deandre]

Thanks for the reply. Im in the process of doing the site over. I guess 2 free months is resonable, Its been such an inconvience. But overall Im pleased with what the service has to offer and the response to my emails were quick. I just never experienced it before, and I do have a backup just not as recent as I liked, so Im totally responsible for that. Its just been very frustrating considering my loss

[Rich2]

How can two months free hosting be acceptable when you lost your entire site including your customer database?

Two months hosting is useless for me as I have been a member for only two months and they have lost my entire site already - everything.

I didn't have back ups made because I trusted hostrocket to do that for me! Was that the wisest decision? Perhaps not but we should be able to trust that they wouldn't be so stupid as to back up the servers on the same system!!

Then I get a cavelier apology that means nothing and when I attempt to cancel my account they say they will still keep 50% of my unused months payments.

I am absolutely disgusted and will taking my business elsewhere.

Considering it took me a year to build my site apparently that business won't happening anytime soon.

[Winston]

Not to go against the fact that they lost everything, but was this a shared server, perhaps a giga-sale plan?? If you are running a business, wouldn't a higher more dedicated plan be better? I know they offer daily backups, but then they also offer remote backups for $5.00 a month (which may have solved that problem of losing everything)

It is always important to back up your files on your own, just in case. You can never have enough backup, as a crash could happen anywhere, on any provider!

[deandre]

Hey Rich I feel your pain man. I put a lot of work into my site and the database as well. And I, like you put to much trust in HR and thought that Id hit the lotto before Id lose everything. But theres nothing I can do now except accept the 2 free months and be more wise in the future.

[UNHAPPY@HR]

What the hell is wrong with the people in this forum? Are you all working for HR? Because no matter what someone says, if it's negative towards HR, you automatically assume it's the users fault. Get real. This person lost customers!!! Hell, my crap won't even get started, (check my thread) But it's really annoying to see all these people chugging HR's big one. Damn, are you all robots?

I should have come to these forums before I got involved with HR. This company is looking crappier every minute

[Viper007Bond]

No, I just don't listen to flamers.

[Vladdrac]

lol@viper.......I guess the lesson of the day is to not trust anyone when It comes to a backup. Trust is absolutely irrelevant. It is just too easy to backup your files on your own computer. It just makes good sense, and is good practice

[y6y6y6]

UNHAPPY@HR - Sorry you had a bad experience, but there's no need to take it out on the rest of us. Just because we're happy with the service doesn't mean we work for Hostrocket.

Over the years I've had a few bad expereinces with HR. But before I came here I was using several other hosting providers, and I also had bad experiences with them. It turns out this is just the way web hosting works. It's quite bit more complicated than buying a candy bar or flipping on the TV. And on balance I'd say Hostrocket is the best host I've come across in terms of service and value.

As far as pricing, it's all right there. Buyer beware is the rule in this world. And if you'd bothered to look you would have seem the setup cost. It's hardly hidden.

So...... You're unhappy. We're happy. Such is life.

[UNHAPPY@HR]

hardly hidden setup cost? It's HIGHLY MISLEADING is the deal. It's in a list of OPTIONS!! and not even on the top. So maybe they didn't hide it, but they definitely know what they are doing by sticking it in the options area. Scam type of stuff there.

[kaykills]

I as well lost everything on my site..... (most I had backed up). No real explaination of what happened. 2 months...... companies offer 6 free months when yo sign up with them..... The only thing to really do is find another hosting company and direct ALL of you business with them........ that is what I am doing and I suggest you do the same. Accidents happen but when I don't even receive a phone call to let me know what happened, i get a little ticked.

Cheers
Michael

[rguill]

Anyone can lose data, not just Hostrocket. At least HR makes it simple to perform daily downloads for backup purposes.

[Meatspray]

I'm on 58, disk crashed lost my site and db. didn't notice for about a week, i wasn't contacted.

I tried to log back in to find out that ssh had been turned off.
Submitted TT.

Was told it was fixed. Still couldn't log in.
Submitted TT.

Was able to log in to SSH, recreated my db and files.
got a 404 accessing the index.
Submitted TT.

Was able to once again access my site downtime about 3 weeks.
server's gone down twice since.

Tonight my site is again 404. I can ssh in, see my files. uploaded test.html. 404 still.

This is completely ridiculous for a hosting provider. I have a site set to go live in a few days and now i have to worry about someone messing up the apache conf?

I'd rate my experiece with hr as a 1/10 and am currently shopping for a replacement.

[SimRacer]

No, you're not the only unhappy customer either. I have (soon to be had) 2 accountdomains with them and their customer service sucks. The 800 number is a genuine sham (you get an outgoing message, then it simply hangs up on you), and without your credit card number to get you help (here's a clue HR, card numbers have begun to change amost yearly for security reasons, WHO knows what my card number was 2 years ago) you're stuck up the creek without a paddle.

The only thing I have had success with in regards to their customer service has been for them to straighten something out with their billing so they could collect money. And that was a mistake. Now they have one of my updated card numbers, and without MY old card number, I don't think they'll even let me cancel.

I've discovered HR is cheap for a reason, you get what you pay for.

Thankfully, one of my cards has changed again and your bills will bounce, I am contacting the other so they can refuse payment as well.

I've found a local company that answers the phone when you call them, so good riddence to HR.

[Brendan]

Our phone support hours are 8am to 12am EST monday through friday - if you call during those hours, you should get someone with no problem. If you are having a problem outside of those hours there are tech's manning our ticket system 24/7.

-Brendan

[stev5k]

I decided that when my HR hosting plan expires I would let the plan expire and go somewhere else.

I just notified HR to deactivate my account when it expired. To me that meant when the plan expired. Evidently they didn't get it. They deactivated my account immediately. This is a week before the term was up. This means email, the site, the crons, subdomains and whatnot.

A lesson to everyone if...er, when you decide to move on, be certain that you have everything in place first. Now I am going to have to wait a day or 2.

When I started using HR, it was a good hosting and lots of nice support but they have been surpassed by other host plans.

I'm a bit dismayed that they only have the thumbs up icon.

[uhsites]

Who are you moving on to?

[KLH]

HostRocket has always said that before you submit a TT that deals with anything about your account (moving to a different server, having stuff added to your account, deleting your account on a certain day) to go ahead and make sure you have a backup, because sometimes there are glitches, and human errors in the processes.

[BounCe911]

I honestly have to say "I am unhappy as well"
I have stayed in the shadows silently until now.... I have been with HR for years and have refered many many clients to HR as well. My job consists of being on the web 14hrs at a time, developing, designing and configuring sites / servers for clients.
I dont use these forums as some, because honestly I have far better thngs to do than hang out for a mere post count.

I do believe HR is a great webhost when they arent plagued by lag, slow page loads, slow ftp service and downtime. I have yet to configure one client's site that has not had one problem on thier server.

Yesterday I spent the day configuring my own project site. I was doing fine until I got a 404 error. I called HR support and they told me all was fine on thier side. They told me to do a tracer route, which I did. It showed 30 hops and it timed out at 18.
I happily submitted a TT with a screenshot of the tracer report.

I double checked and said maybe its just me...
I tried the other systems in my studio and the same problem arose. I got up walked across the street to an associates business who ran broadband under a different ISP, and yet the same issue. I am in florida, I contacted my associate in ny to check on his end, and he too could not view the site.

All of my client's sites on HR showed up perfectly but mine alas was dead in the water.

The last thing anyone wants is downtime, lag and / or 404 errors when they are trying to conduct business on the web and / or promote thier services.

I for one can agree on this. Such problems like this make the owners of such site look halfass and it effects business.
I would like to stick with HR for many more years, but I cant afford to do so with such errors. My site visitors, customers, and clients are my first priority. When something affects them it affects me. Furthermore HR has some of the friendliest tech people out there and I commend them. Atleast the ones that have been there for awhile are.

I love HR but just cant stand those tedious minor problems...
Mind you my site has just return and is now viewable.
But too bad I lost X amount of hours while it was down. This ofcourse screws my deadline & release date.