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Warning - Avoid Donhost
| Posted by nevsie, 09-29-2009, 09:36 AM |
| Ongoing troubles from Donhost have resulted in keeping me appalled by their service, and worse yet their customer services.
Having had trouble in the past i am for ever on an ongoing mission to move myself away from this company... however, i cannot move away quick enough.
My latest experience (ignoring the 3-6 day wait for a ticket response as to why their mail servers are down) has left me feeling so sick and angry it is un true.
I call their so called support asking for an explanation of why a website they have hosted for many years, and remained un touched is no longer working. They explained they can see the error and put me through to another department. In this department it was explained that the site had been deleted and their were no files present. - So thats why the site does not work.
On asking when and why the files were deleted i was told it was not their problem. Even though the site had remained untouched for an extended period and they only people who could have deleted the account were Donhost (or someone through a security hole). I was still told not their problem, i should raise a ticket and speak to support (apparently i was on the phone to support, but they didn't care).
On asking why they cannot resolve the issue and instigate the investigation i was told that is not their job - again support does not mean support with donhost it means fob off service.
I have now raised a ticket for explanation on the technical problem, and a ticket for customer services to explain the appalling service. I have also contacted the parent company for an explanation. I will update this post if and when i receive a response - don;t hold your breathe.
Once again - advice for others, donhost are crap, do not go there. Existing donhost customers, move away like i am (i wish i had time to move more accounts quicker).
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| Posted by mczy, 09-29-2009, 10:07 AM |
| Whats the problem exactly?
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| Posted by nevsie, 09-29-2009, 10:08 AM |
| you kow what - it is getting so bad it is not even funny now!!!
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| Posted by nevsie, 09-30-2009, 05:01 AM |
| the latest update.
They restate the facts that i supplied to them, yes the site has been with them for over a year, yes the site used to have files in it, yes there has been no FTP access recently, and yes the site has now gone and been deleted. So thanks that is exactly the problem donhost... Can you now explain what happened, what caused all my files to be deleted, was it a server error, backup error, hardware fault, did you delete all my files.
Basically they admit the files are no longer there and do not care or wish to resolve. I am waiting for 16 hours now without response.
My other ticket asking for customer services to explain the poor support i have received, and why i was hung up on when asking why Donhost deleted my a sites files remains ignored and un-answered.
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| Posted by Flumps, 09-30-2009, 05:25 AM |
| this is why you should have a backup perhaps? lesson learned for the future me thinks?
however yes the webhost should have a backup too.. however if they say in the TOS/AUP that there not responsible for your files/data then it is how they say it is...not their problem.
they proberly say it like that cause they dont want to fess up of being hacked or somthing even then most hackers aim to just deface not delete so I dout it was a hack.
proberly a backup gone wrong or somthing.
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| Posted by nevsie, 09-30-2009, 05:34 AM |
| Do not worry, it is pretty hard not to have a backup of a simple raw html site. I was able to re-upload the site and having it running again.
My main problem was with the fact that Donhost seemed not to care, seemed not willing to help, gave aweful support, and still on going will not investigate the problem that could happen on the next backup, or hack, or etc, etc, etc, whatever caused it.
Donhost also have backups - this was not even offered to me to help recover the site. Surely this would be a logical "support" thing to offer?
Perhaps i am living in a dream world here, but usually i expect a host to show some concern, worry and care if an entire accounts files has been deleted by what seems to be a hos based error or security problem!
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| Posted by under_gravity, 09-30-2009, 06:38 AM |
| Anyone with access to ftp/cp could have done this, or hacked your account. I don't think a host will deliberately go and delete customer files and cause themselves hassles & posts like these. (Hence, there argument that they can't do much in finding out who deleted what and when etc etc)If a host starts investigating every such complain about file being deleted (which majority of the time will be due to something customer did) then they will be out of business.
Although they should have just said that we can restore your backup for you.
Its an assumption on your part that the problem lies with the host. Most hosts are more secure then customer's pc's & system because thats there business.
Hopefully you get your files back. Good luck.
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| Posted by ZenMonk, 09-30-2009, 07:03 AM |
| Are you the only one that has lost data with donhost? Was this a server wide issue ? Perhaps they would get back to you once they make sure that necessary precautions are in place.
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| Posted by nevsie, 09-30-2009, 07:38 AM |
| in response to above...
i am the only one with ftp details. The ftp details are held by the host of course, but any details at my end are behind a firewall, and encrypted into my FTP software with one way encryption, so cannot be pulled back out - so in theory from my end - no one else could gain access to ftp.
The host has also stated that that there has not been ftp access to the site recently. This tells me it was not this method that caused the problem.
This therefore suggests that it was either control panel based - the host does not offer a file manager in the control panel - so it cannot be control based problem!
Site vunerabilities - well there is no content stored in databases, and no scripting on the site. Therefore, unless someone knows a way to XXS through raw HTML, i would suggest the site is pretty solid. No forms either if that helps. Files are html extension, so no other scripts can be executed even if injected.
It was also not just a file that could have been accidental deleted. it was every file and folder. Including some default folders added by the host.
Everything here, to me cries out that something happened on the server - whether they added a new raid disk and this mis-managed the sync. Whether a backup glitched and backed it up, but also removed it, whether something else or a breach happened at the host.
Eitherway, with all the logic, reasoning, and details from above am i feel i am right to think the host should have at least taken it slightly seriously.
From my investigations, no other sites of my own on this same server were effected. suggest not a disk or backup glitch.
I produce and design websites - i have 100's of sites managed via different hosts, none of these have been effected - suggests it is not local.
I have been with this host for 5 years 3 of which happish (as you can expect from any light shared environment). My point is more recently - i have got terrible support as demonstrated by this case. I have not received further reply yet to my tickets about this matter.
My point was to detail my troubles, and aid other people in making educated choices about who not to host with!!!
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| Posted by andrewklau, 09-30-2009, 08:20 AM |
| Always back up your files, I would hope that a representative from Donhost would come and spread some light.
Its unfortunate for your data loss. I guess there is no point complaining about it, move on and see what you can pick up. You learned lesson, sadly the hard way.
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| Posted by nevsie, 09-30-2009, 08:25 AM |
| Am i missing something here - or did you miss some of the above details? ;-)
I did have a backup of the site that was up to date and i restored from that.
I am not complaining (well maybe a little whinge / rant!) but warning others of the horrors of Donhost! I am already moving on - i have started moving on mid last year, but have many accounts to move, and can only do this when it suits my clients. Fortunately i think i am down to about 30 accounts left now, and so will be pushing them across at an increased rate.
my point is about the poor service and the lack or effort to investigate what caused the problem.
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| Posted by andrewklau, 09-30-2009, 08:37 AM |
| Sorry, I did notice that. I just wanted to further emphasize the point that people should be backing up their data.
You've made your point. Its unfortunate that these things happen I guess.
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| Posted by nevsie, 10-01-2009, 05:40 AM |
| in an update to this... 2-3 days later i started to receive ticket responses. Annoyingly asking me to repeat all the information i had previously stated had they read the ticket history!
They even blamed me for deleting the site as my FTP access was logged - they had not read the ticket where i stated a time and date where i would be re-uploading which related to this FTP log!!
Finally after asking if the site had any CMS type file managers installed (no basic HTML like is says in the ticket!!!) they seemed to begin to take it more seriously.
Today - day 3, i received a call about how they are still investigating the problem.
So... at long last it is being taken seriously, and they are actually doing something - much to my gratitude. Shame that i had to endure such bad service and delays along the way. What they are doing now, should have been done days ago, but they got there eventually!
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| Posted by db09, 10-02-2009, 11:07 AM |
| Wow that sounds pretty bad. Hopefully you are expediting the process of moving your other accounts to a new host. That sort of interaction/behavior on the part of a business is unacceptable.
Dave
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| Posted by nevsie, 10-02-2009, 11:09 AM |
| as quick as i can for sure... but moving over a number of clients sites as opposed to my own... means i have to work on their timelines...
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| Posted by db09, 10-02-2009, 11:12 AM |
| Stupid pesky clients.. always throwing a wrench in to the works.
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| Posted by Lapinski, 01-19-2011, 01:20 PM |
| I've had lots of downtime over the years. Every single night at around 1am (when their backup runs I believe) pages on my site would time out. This went on for months and they wouldn't acknowledge the problem. I also use my website as my point of sales in the shop, and one busy Saturday a few weeks ago my point of sales home screen timed out half way through the day, however, the customer side of the website was still running ok. It wasn't until the end of the day when I went to run the Cash Rec in Excel that queries the SQL server for all orders from that current day that I realised the cash rec was pulling through every record from the same day in 2010 to today. No wonder my admin site was timing out. So I ran a SQL function on their server that returned the current system time and low and behold the year part of the date on their server had been changed to the same day but in 2010. I rang support and told them the problem. The server time was not changed back to correct year until some 5 hours later! How quick and easy is it to change the time on a PC?
The final thing that has happened really is the absolute worst possible thing that could happen. Three nights ago something went wrong with my SQL database. I discovered that every single record in all my tables had been deleted. It was about 10pm when I first realised this. What I should have done is ring them straight away, but I thought I'd leave it until the morning and get them to restore the Data. After a couple of hours waiting support responded to my ticket and said that the back is a rolling backup that runs and overwrites the tape every night at 1am. This meant my data backup had been overwritten with an empty database at 1am. I asked them to restore from an earlier backup that they might have and they said they didn't. The only backup is the one that overwrites each night.
I've lost 5+ years of data. 6500 product records, 1000 customers personal information, 5500 records of orders. Plus all my strored procedures. With no stored procedures none of my website pages work. It will take me a week to rewrite them all, that will get my website back up, but it will not have any stock showing it so nobody will be able to buy anything. It will take me about a month to get all of the stock back on it. But I've lost details of every single customer including what they ordered and there is no way of retrieving them. The VAT return due in 2 weeks will be impossible.
Donhost are an absolute disgrace, they dont even care that this is happened. Ive not even had an apology. Do not ever consider using Donhost! I'm thinking about taking legal action over this.
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| Posted by Gotti, 02-16-2011, 05:22 PM |
| How did you handle the migration from DonHost? I have no idea how to move a client from DonHost account to a cPanel based one, short of doing it manually. Anyone have any ideas?
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