Server Announcements

[Matt R.]

Hello All,

There seems to be some confusion on server maintenance announcements and we're considering if we can make these clearer or easier to find.

Servers will go down and maintenance will occur; these are two given facts. We endeavour to make downtime happen as little as possible but it will happen, and we want you to know that if there is an issue, we are working on it. By far and away, the most common issue is a server being overloaded by 1 or 2 users and this crashes the server. When this happens, we post that the server is being rebooted in the appropriate forum, and if you have the server name specified in your helpdesk profile you will see this post syndicated into the news area.

If you have suggestions on how you'd like to see these announcements made, if you think they could be easier to find or if you'd like them made in a seperate way, please post your ideas below. We're very interested to hear them.

We have a full time development team now so we can create pretty much anything that is feasible... give me your ideas and I'll create a specification.

[mpyusko]

The other night I was having difficulty connecting to my website. My first inclination was I was temporarily blocked, which is common when I make updates. So I ssh'd into another one of my machines that uses a different IP and it couldn't connect either.

I ssh'd into Shared 7 and it still couldn't fine the server. So I went to the support forum to find out what was happening, but that was not accessible either. When I went to open a ticket, the support site was down too. So now what am I supposed to do? I e-mailed technical support directly, and 3 hours later, they referred me to a forum post that I hadn't seen. It wasn't until the network downtime was resolved that I was actually able to read the post.

The sales site was up the entire time. The contacts page had a bad phone number on it..... it kept saying it didn't exist.

I guess my suggestion is:

If you are going to reboot a server, fine reboot it and post it in the status forum. If you are going to take down a major section of the network and the support and status sites are part of it, then PLEASE email us so we know. Some of us don't live on the status forums. You could also post it under the tech support contacts on the main site. I believe even cPanel has a messaging system.

Edit: I just tried calling the phone number on the Conatct Us page Toll Free: 1.800.252.1887 (United States Only) and it still says it it a bad number.

Afeter searching for 36 minutes the other night on Google, I found this number in their cached pages from the old site design...888-942-2899. It says it is a voicmail based system and to "leave a message and we'll call you back" kind of thing.

WTF????

[Saf M]

1.800.252.1887 is basically a new number with another service but it should not be a bad number. What error were you getting exactly? Were you able to connect?

888-942-2899 is another number, active but old and not really in use any more. I have asked jef to post here since he handles the phone support department.

[Jef S.]

1.800.252.1887 is the new number. When did you call? I know there was some downtime on Saturday night, but a reboot cleared that up after a quick fsck.

[mpyusko]

1.800.252.1887 is the new number. When did you call? I know there was some downtime on Saturday night, but a reboot cleared that up after a quick fsck.

Edit: I just tried calling the phone number on the Conatct Us page Toll Free: 1.800.252.1887 (United States Only) and it still says it it a bad number.

So @ 9:37am today!

[mpyusko]

1.800.252.1887 is the new number. When did you call? I know there was some downtime on Saturday night, but a reboot cleared that up after a quick fsck.

1-800-252-1887

"We're sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service at this time, or cannot be reached from your calling area. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and dial again. Thank you. NYCRDD"

I just had to dial it 6 times to get it verbatim. I'm in Rochester NY, dialing using my Verizon cell phone in Area code 585. Please tell me what I am doing wrong.

[mpyusko]

1.800.252.1887 is the new number. When did you call? I know there was some downtime on Saturday night, but a reboot cleared that up after a quick fsck.

Was it down at possibly 2:01am EST sunday morning?

[Jef S.]

I have no idea why you're having these problems, as we've received a number of calls from people in NY/NJ calling for the old company that had our number.

Was it down at possibly 2:01am EST sunday morning?

Somewhere thereabouts, actually. I think I requested the reboot when I noticed it ~0245

[PsyCHZZZ]

If you have suggestions on how you'd like to see these announcements made, if you think they could be easier to find or if you'd like them made in a seperate way, please post your ideas below. We're very interested to hear them.

We have a full time development team now so we can create pretty much anything that is feasible... give me your ideas and I'll create a specification.

Hi Matt, I actually posted a suggestion in the Suggestion forums about having instant notifications instead of the current daily or weekly e-mail notifications for the server announcements.

Link : http://www.whbstatus.com/showthread.php?t=1938

Cheers~

[Jef S.]

I've been recommending using the RSS feeds on this site. If you use firefox or IE7, you have RSS support. Just go to the forum for your server, and click the RSS icon to enable the feed.

[PsyCHZZZ]

Hi Jeff... about the RSS feeds - I can only get the main board feeds but not the one specific to my particular server.

For example - I'm currently on Panda so the RSS feed should be this link:
http://www.whbstatus.com/external.ph...S2&forumids=14

But it just returns an empty page. Same goes if I were to subscribe to any other individual forum.

Is anyone else getting this same problem or is it just me? I'm currently using Firefox 2.0.0.12 on a Mac.

[Tony]

I get a blank page there too.

But at least you see an RSS icon. I swear I don't. Whereabouts is it?

Edit: Okay, I found it. Not on the page, but up in the location bar, of all the odd places. After much poking around I think I've added a live bookmark. So is this going to email me when something is posted? Or flash some lights and call my cellphone or something?

[PsyCHZZZ]

So is this going to email me when something is posted? Or flash some lights and call my cellphone or something?

LOL ... Nah, the RSS feeds will just be a shortcut to access the latest news/updates from a specific site. I don't think your cellphone will ring

What I do for all my other RSS feeds is that I add it to my Google Reader. Then with that I automatically get updated with the latest post from the RSS whenever I visit my iGoogle page which is like very frequent. (yeah, I depend a lot on Google's services).

But in this case, I get zilch since it's showing a blank page.

[mpyusko]

I have no idea why you're having these problems, as we've received a number of calls from people in NY/NJ calling for the old company that had our number.



Somewhere thereabouts, actually. I think I requested the reboot when I noticed it ~0245

Then that would explain why.