Vidahost 'world-class disappointment'?

[MG72]

Honestly... how can Vidahost protect against you installing a WordPress plugin or theme that is insecure, and grants a hacker access to your cPanel and Addon domains?

Perhaps they could have explained this better but I suspect they are inundated with service issues like this as it happens so much.

Sadly, WordPress is not secure if you do not keep it up to date, and a lot of the themes and plugins open up an even larger can of worms.

Hosting companies get a bad rep but mostly do a good job. Vidahost and the other Paragon brands provide a solid service for what you pay them. They, like us, aren't providing a Webmaster service to maintain your code and security.

Matt

Perhaps you have done a few hours on the Vidahost Customer Services Team Matt? You seem to share the same inability to read what I have said.

Just to help you along a bit:

I have NOT ever asked Vidahost to clean up the websites. I have simply asked them two very simple questions regarding the 'service' they provide to me.

1 - Can they guarantee that if I pay to clean up the sites, that this issue is not something down to the hosting package they provide. Is that unreasonable? Well Vidahost ignored it three times with plenty of 'probably' and 'it would normally be'. I am not adverse to spending the money, I just want some kind of assurance that I am not spending it when there is a problem with the hosting and it could simply all happen again. Would you spend good money on 'ifs' and 'buts'?

2 - Could they suggest any different hosting package that may provide better protection against this? - which they completely ignored.

So do you think I am asking too much to expect a straight answer to those questions? Is it too much for a customer to ask a question regarding the service they have charged me for? Are these questions not directly related to the service I am paying them for?

Customer service is simple, read the tickets you are sent, and answer the questions you are asked. This simple task seems beyond Vidahost, and I am getting the impression that many in the industry may suffer from the same affliction.

 

[Jolt.co.uk]

Perhaps you have done a few hours on the Vidahost Customer Services Team Matt? You seem to share the same inability to read what I have said.

Just to help you along a bit:

I have NOT ever asked Vidahost to clean up the websites. I have simply asked them two very simple questions regarding the 'service' they provide to me.

1 - Can they guarantee that if I pay to clean up the sites, that this issue is not something down to the hosting package they provide. Is that unreasonable? Well Vidahost ignored it three times with plenty of 'probably' and 'it would normally be'. I am not adverse to spending the money, I just want some kind of assurance that I am not spending it when there is a problem with the hosting and it could simply all happen again. Would you spend good money on 'ifs' and 'buts'?

2 - Could they suggest any different hosting package that may provide better protection against this? - which they completely ignored.

So do you think I am asking too much to expect a straight answer to those questions? Is it too much for a customer to ask a question regarding the service they have charged me for? Are these questions not directly related to the service I am paying them for?

Customer service is simple, read the tickets you are sent, and answer the questions you are asked. This simple task seems beyond Vidahost, and I am getting the impression that many in the industry may suffer from the same affliction.

In my post (which you quoted me on), I said they could have answered the questions a little better. You seem to have that inability to read what I put, not me. I also offered why they may have replied sub-optimally.

I'd also suggest you take a step back and consider why everyone replying on here maintains a similar stance. This isn't some Vidahost old boys club; I'm a competitor. I'm responding solely to try and help you - help you set realistic expectations.

 

[MG72]

If you have a hosting account that has multiple wordpress installations / addon domains that feed off the main hosting account domain then they would be vulnerable, which is just common sense.

Perhaps of course it may be to yourself, but I am not sure it would be that obvious to all who buy a hosting package to hosting 15 domains. If I had know this I may have bought multiple smaller packages. I do not recall any disclaimers on Vidahosts websites, or any other host to be fair, saying that your security could be compromised is you have only one cPanel over all the websites. A lesson learned now.

I've used shared hosting for years, because its cheap. I've been hacked in the past. One was due to not keeping wordpress up to date. One was because i seem to have uploaded a dodgy file via ftp and some dodgy code was being injected into the header.php.

After me removing the code multiple times it seemed to go away, so luckily i didn't have to pay anyone. But as mentioned, it is possible to restore your site, via your hosts backups or your own, to a time when you were not infected which should get rid of it.

If a host has a problem with the server they generally hold their hands up and email you about it.

It is understandable you would seek them to give you some direction as to where the issue emanates from, i agree.You seem to be asking for a great deal more though.

I think you were most probably asking for things that exceed buying a hosting account and sticking a website on it. They are not your very own technical IT team for £3.59 a month.

As I mentioned to Webhost Matt, all I asked was if they could guarantee that the issue was not from the hosting package, and if they could suggest a more secure option (which it would now appear that I need to find something that provides a single cPanel for each website).

I cannot see how asking two direct questions about the services they provide is asking too much at all. I have not asked on either occasion that my Vidahost sites have been hacked, for them to clean up the websites.

 

[Faevilangel]

No one can guarantee their servers are 100% secure as there will always be vulnerabilities in software.

If you want 100% secure then you woikd need a dedicated server with decent firewalls

If you want cpanel for each site then you need a reseller account.

 

[MG72]

In my post (which you quoted me on), I said they could have answered the questions a little better. You seem to have that inability to read what I put, not me. I also offered why they may have replied sub-optimally.

I'd also suggest you take a step back and consider why everyone replying on here maintains a similar stance. This isn't some Vidahost old boys club; I'm a competitor. I'm responding solely to try and help you - help you set realistic expectations.

Matt, the reason why I pulled you up on not reading what I said said is clear

Honestly... how can Vidahost protect against you installing a WordPress plugin or theme that is insecure, and grants a hacker access to your cPanel and Addon domains?

I have never said anything like that at all. How many Wordpress installs are there in the world, multi millions, billions? Of course I am aware that they can be hacked, but I always try to follow the guideline of strong passwords etc. As I have said repeatedly, perhaps I have been unlucky but it is not unreasonable to ask the service provider that I have the hosting with to tell me that they know it is not down to their service.

Perhaps they could have explained this better but I suspect they are inundated with service issues like this as it happens so much.

If it is such a common problem then surely good customer service is to have some clear guidance? It would suggest to me that they may have seen another 'hacked' ticket query and just assumed I was asking them to clean up my mess, or blaming them. I was not.

Matt, I could easily spend thousands on getting the sites cleaned and then it all happen again if the hack had come through the hosting. All I am asking is for an assurance that it is not. The answers I got were that it probably was the code, because it normally is. That says to me that a) they do not know for sure and b) that they have not (or perhaps cannot) checked. Would you spend money and put your websites back in the hands of a company who supply that level of confidence?

I also asked if they could provide a solution to provide a more secure hosting environment ,perhaps a chance for them to move away from their 'sub optimal' answers. However this was ignored (but it seems that a hosting package with separate cPanels for each website would help).

Matt I appreciate that you work in the same industry, and the company I run also work in a niche (albeit highly regulated environment). If we had dealt with questions about our service in the same way Vidahost dealt with mine we would be answering to our regulators without doubt.

I refuse to accept that answering two very simple questions regarding the service they provide was in any way 'asking to much'. As for answering them better, one was completely ignored so plenty of scope for improvement there, and the other 'sub-optimally' as you say, or 'dodged' depending on your viewpoint.

And with regards to the 'everyone maintaining a similar stance', the thread was started by someone who had a poor experience with Vidahost, and more have also added their voice. The very nature of customer dissatisfaction is that those who are dissatisfied are normally in the minority. If you want to improve your service then you should ignore all your satisfied customers and just look at those who are not. If you take notice then you have a chance to improve.

 

[MG72]

No one can guarantee their servers are 100% secure as there will always be vulnerabilities in software.

If you want 100% secure then you woikd need a dedicated server with decent firewalls

If you want cpanel for each site then you need a reseller account.

Thank you very much, and if I had got that simple, clear answer from Vidahost then I would have been a happy bunny.

 

[MG72]

Double post sorry

 

[adam_smith]

Hi. I'm Adam from Vidahost. Seb alerted me to this thread after we received a Google Alert (very useful tool ).

I just wanted to clear a few things up.

1) We go to great lengths to protect customers from each other, more than most other shared hosting providers I have experience of. It's almost impossible to affect another customer's website, even on our most basic shared hosting. We run completely custom hardened kernels and various user space scripts to manage security, as well as regular auditing. As well as our customer support staff, we have an entire department dedicated to systems monitoring, updates, performance and security. We check and (in some cases) automatically fix any insecure file permissions you may have set however, without severely limiting functionality, it is very difficult to a protect a customer's own site from its own vulnerable code.

2) cPanel is the most widely used hosting control panel but there are limitations. If you host multiple sites on a single cPanel hosting package (reseller excepted), they and their PHP code (as well as any FTP accounts you have set up) run under the same system user. Therefore if one site has a vulnerability, it is possible for it to affect other sites.

3) We have a solution to this. By default all new hosting packages go onto our Cloud platform. This doesn't use cPanel and, for no extra cost, each site gets its own isolated environment. Therefore if one site is vulnerable, your other sites will be unaffected, unless of course they all have the same vulnerability. We have an automated tool to move sites to this system; if you'd like to do this please raise a support ticket. This is free of charge.

4) If you are running an open source CMS, security is paramount. The core Wordpress code is very good but 3rd party plugins/themes are often not. If you don't keep on top of updates you are likely to have problems. Bespoke/hand coded sites are less likely to be exploited as the attackers look for common script/file names.

5) Our first line support are not outsourced but they are quite junior, the majority of our incoming support relates to email setups, software installation, etc which they handle extremely well. However if you have a more technical issue you can always ask that your call or ticket is escalated and this will be done immediately.

As always, many thanks to all the Vidahost advocates who have posted in this thread. Myself, Seb, Dom and Darren are available if anyone wants to contact us directly, just call the number on our website and ask to be transferred .

 

[MG72]

5) Our first line support are not outsourced but they are quite junior, the majority of our incoming support relates to email setups, software installation, etc which they handle extremely well. However if you have a more technical issue you can always ask that your call or ticket is escalated and this will be done immediately.

Hi Adam,

Thank you for the very detailed reply, and this is an example of what I would have liked to have seen when I first contacted Vidahost over this issue. A couple of points I would make;

1) Both times I have been hacked on my Vidahost sites I have informed you of this, not the other way around. I have got hosted sites elsewhere and have always received notifications over any issues from the hosting company. Whilst this may be 'above and beyond' what I should expect, I just want to make the point that it happened in neither case with my Vidahost hacks. I only make this point in reference to your point that you constantly monitor and pick these sorts of issues up, it did not happen in this case.

2) My concern has been with the way that my tickets have been handled, ie your 'customer service'. Your point above clearly states that the people who attend to these are junior, or in other words inexperienced. You also say that your customers can ask to be referred for more technical help.

I would simply ask how would your customer know the level of expertise of a particular member of your Customer Services Team? The very nature of any ticket is that the customer does not know the answer to the query they are making, but they expect to be directed to someone who would. In this case I received no answers to the very direct questions I was asking. In the end, after 3 or 4 attempts I did ask that I was passed to someone who could answer the question.

I would simply ask do you really think it is up to the customer with the query to ascertain whether your Customer Service Team member is capable of answering the question posed, or for your employee to recognise the level of their own knowledge and refer it to someone who does? It would appear that the ethos of your company is currently that onus is on the customer. I think even your strongest advocates on here will struggle to agree with your apparent stance on that.

I know that no company likes public criticism, however I would also point out that it would appear that you may not monitor your own ticketing system as closely as you do public internet forums. If you had then perhaps I would not have felt the need to air my views in such a manner.

I do thank you for taking the time to give the full answer you have provided, although I will not be staying with Vidahost I do hope that some of my criticism can be used to improve your current service.

 

[adam_smith]

Thanks for your reply, MG72.

If we become aware of malware on a customer's site we normally send an email however this is a human driven process and somewhat imperfect. We're working on an automated scan which will automatically contact you. In some cases we might even be able to automatically clean up the malware which, as far as I know, no other hosting provider can currently do. Of course, if you keep your site up to date and don't use insecure plugins/themes, this won't happen in the first place and none of this will be necessary but, as I said previously, without limiting functionality, we can't protect you from your own website code.

I do empathise with your customer service point, however it's not possible to have sysadmins and developers handling first line support when we're charging as little as £29/year for a hosting package. We do provide a managed dedicated hosting service where you get exact that, but it's an order of magnitude more expensive.

We handle thousands of support enquiries per day (ticket, phone and live chat) and almost all of them are basic "how do I" type questions which our first line support handle very well. They are trained to escalate where a ticket is beyond their expertise and this normally happens. However humans are by their nature fallible and sometimes, if you don't feel you're satisfied with the answer provided, you can ask to be escalated.

Once again I'm sorry you were dissatisfied with our support. Over the past 10 years we've grown from a bedroom business to a multi million pound company, serving over 75,000 customers, almost entirely through recommendation and word of mouth. We are customer focussed and, where possible, will always do what we can to assist the customer. If we didn't do that in this instance, I can only apologise. I understand you've already decided to leave Vidahost but if you want me to review your support tickets and see if I can help, just reply to this thread with one of your ticket IDs.

 

[MG72]

Thanks for your reply, MG72.

I do empathise with your customer service point, however it's not possible to have sysadmins and developers handling first line support when we're charging as little as £29/year for a hosting package. We do provide a managed dedicated hosting service where you get exact that, but it's an order of magnitude more expensive.

We handle thousands of support enquiries per day (ticket, phone and live chat) and almost all of them are basic "how do I" type questions which our first line support handle very well. They are trained to escalate where a ticket is beyond their expertise and this normally happens. However humans are by their nature fallible and sometimes, if you don't feel you're satisfied with the answer provided, you can ask to be escalated.

Once again I'm sorry you were dissatisfied with our support. Over the past 10 years we've grown from a bedroom business to a multi million pound company, serving over 75,000 customers, almost entirely through recommendation and word of mouth. We are customer focussed and, where possible, will always do what we can to assist the customer. If we didn't do that in this instance, I can only apologise. I understand you've already decided to leave Vidahost but if you want me to review your support tickets and see if I can help, just reply to this thread with one of your ticket IDs.

Adam, I too run a multi million pound business, and we have developed that in less than four years, we have more customers than you, and we make less per customer than you do. As we work in a regulated industry we are required by law to have people answering queries only when they are qualified to do so. If we give advise that is incorrect then we could face fines of tens of thousands of pounds. Perhaps as we have to do it I expect it with other businesses too, is this expecting too much?

The difference here is that the advisor you employ provided three 'fob off' replies without answering some very specific questions. It is your decision to employ these people as service advisors, not mine. If they do not know then common sense is to refer it to someone who does? Is this encouraged?

I do find it odd that you throw in the price of your service, as over a period of time I have spent much more than £29 with you. Whatever the price is it too much to expect that the Customer Service advisors you employ are not 'junior' enough to know the limits of their own knowledge?Adam, I got the distinct impression that I was being fobbed off, and I can assure you that if your staff are trained to refer then I must have got the cleaner or something.

After a number of attempts to get a straight answer, and at my insistence finally being referred to Darren Lingham (who I now understand is a director of your company) he still managed to ignore the the simple request of providing me with a hosting solution that could offer more protection. How high do I have to go?

Adam, I am sure that you have thousands of satisfied customers, but if the way I was treated is repeated it will cost you far more to get customers to replace the ones you lose. Maybe this is a one off, but your previous post does suggest that the onus is on the customer to decide how technical their query may be (although you now you say they are trained to escalate, either way that did not happen here).

I am not going to lose any sleep over leaving Vidahost, and you are not going to cry over seeing the back of a disgruntled customer I am sure. I have certainly learned some lessons, I can only hope for the continued growth of your company that you do too.

Thank you, and the other posters here who have given some clear and constructive advise on what we need.

 

[MG72]

I am not sure if the reference to my tickets was to cast any doubt over the legitimacy of my concerns or not (sorry if I do you a disservice with that comment but one of your company certainly seemed to cast doubt over how genuine the complaints are on this thread), as if I would have wished you to review then I would have asked Darren Lingham to do so through your ticket system.

However just for your own peace of mind the ticket reference is # VIB-147-58968. You will see that I have been with Vidahost since 2011 (perhaps when you were still in a bedroom). I am not particularly bothered about you looking into this as I have other facilities in place now, mostly due to the advise given in this thread. However I do hope it may help you address any short comings in your Customer Services team that you feel may need looking at.

 

[adam_smith]

I've looked at that ticket and I agree that the replies, whilst completely accurate, weren't up to our usual standard; they were quite terse and some of the points in your messages were missed. I will speak to the individual concerned next time he's on shift.

However our staff member did point out quite accurately in the very first reply that this was not due to any vulnerability in our systems and would be due to a vulnerability in your code. He then further elaborated on possible causes and recommended a 3rd party service that could help you with the problem.

Obviously I am personally upset about losing you as a customer, we hate to lose customers for any reason other than their website having run its natural course. If there's anything I can do to help, please reply to VIB-147-58968 which I have now taken and will deal with personally. I can advise you on securing your sites and may even be able to do it for you, within reason.

 

[MG72]

I've looked at that ticket and I agree that the replies, whilst completely accurate, weren't up to our usual standard; they were quite terse and some of the points in your messages were missed. I will speak to the individual concerned next time he's on shift.

However our staff member did point out quite accurately in the very first reply that this was not due to any vulnerability in our systems and would be due to a vulnerability in your code. He then further elaborated on possible causes and recommended a 3rd party service that could help you with the problem.

Obviously I am personally upset about losing you as a customer, we hate to lose customers for any reason other than their website having run its natural course. If there's anything I can do to help, please reply to VIB-147-58968 which I have now taken and will deal with personally. I can advise you on securing your sites and may even be able to do it for you, within reason.

Thank you for your reply Adam, and for the gesture therein.

We may disagree on the term 'some points were missed' however, I think your advisor, and the gentleman he referred it two repeated failed to answer direct questions.

I would also agree that your advisor did saythat it would be down to the code and not the hosting, qualified this by saying "Hacks can be very hard to trace and 99.9% of all of them is due to site code" and that this statement was made "from experience on CMS sites which have these security issues which are well none (known?) when you research it get hacked".

This just says to me that a) he did not know for sure and b) he was not going to, or perhaps be unable to check. If he had given the answer you gave, ie it is probably the code but there are ways to make the hosting more secure, you may want to consider our ABC hosting solution because......., then that would have confirmed what I needed to know.

Faced with spending a few thousand pounds on cleaning out the websites I am sure that you understand that the assurances no better than 'it normally is' etc does not really instil me with confidence. As you have said, and many others on here, perhaps a shared hosting account is not perhaps the safest environment going forward. As I am sure you accept this advise was not forthcoming, despite it being requested.

All that said I do appreciate the time you have taken to to answer my queries, and in a clearer manner than was provided through my tickets to you. I also am glad to see that you accept that, in this case, my queries may have not dealt with in the manner they perhaps should have been.

In the light of this I will consider my options over the next couple of days. I would also say that if we decide to give Vidahost a chance to look at this further, and this is done to a manner I am happy with that I will be sure I will be back on hear to update anyone who is interested.

Thanks again Adam

 

[adam_smith]

Just to clarify one more point, there is no hosting option that will protect a site from its own vulnerable code without limiting functionality but, as I said before, our Cloud hosting does segregate your sites (in the same way all our hosting types segregate customers) which will stop one vulnerable site being able to affect your other sites.

I hope you do get in touch, I'll be very happy to help you with your sites .

Also your points regarding support will be raised with our support team leaders in the next meeting.

 

[MG72]

Just to clarify one more point, there is no hosting option that will protect a site from its own vulnerable code without limiting functionality but, as I said before, our Cloud hosting does segregate your sites (in the same way all our hosting types segregate customers) which will stop one vulnerable site being able to affect your other sites.

I hope you do get in touch, I'll be very happy to help you with your sites .

Also your points regarding support will be raised with our support team leaders in the next meeting.

Thanks Adam, yes I do understand now that no hosting can prevent a hacker, but the idea that one piece of vulnerable code on one website can allow a hacker to run through all the same sites on the same cPanel clearly makes shared hosting less secure compared to your cloud option. All I am after is to try to prevent this from happening again, as much as possible at least.

Thanks for your advice, as I said I will look at all our options in the next couple of days and hopefully be in touch.

 

[MASSEY]

Thanks Adam, yes I do understand now that no hosting can prevent a hacker, but the idea that one piece of vulnerable code on one website can allow a hacker to run through all the same sites on the same cPanel clearly makes shared hosting less secure compared to your cloud option. All I am after is to try to prevent this from happening again, as much as possible at least.

Thanks for your advice, as I said I will look at all our options in the next couple of days and hopefully be in touch.

I don't think it makes shared hosting more dangerous per se, as pointed out though, it makes your addon domains or subdomains susceptible.

 

[spiritusuk]

Hi Adam,

1) Both times I have been hacked on my Vidahost sites I have informed you of this, not the other way around. I have got hosted sites elsewhere and have always received notifications over any issues from the hosting company. Whilst this may be 'above and beyond' what I should expect, I just want to make the point that it happened in neither case with my Vidahost hacks. I only make this point in reference to your point that you constantly monitor and pick these sorts of issues up, it did not happen in this case.

2) My concern has been with the way that my tickets have been handled, ie your 'customer service'. Your point above clearly states that the people who attend to these are junior, or in other words inexperienced. You also say that your customers can ask to be referred for more technical help.

I would simply ask how would your customer know the level of expertise of a particular member of your Customer Services Team? The very nature of any ticket is that the customer does not know the answer to the query they are making, but they expect to be directed to someone who would. In this case I received no answers to the very direct questions I was asking. In the end, after 3 or 4 attempts I did ask that I was passed to someone who could answer the question.

I would simply ask do you really think it is up to the customer with the query to ascertain whether your Customer Service Team member is capable of answering the question posed, or for your employee to recognise the level of their own knowledge and refer it to someone who does? It would appear that the ethos of your company is currently that onus is on the customer. I think even your strongest advocates on here will struggle to agree with your apparent stance on that.

I know that no company likes public criticism, however I would also point out that it would appear that you may not monitor your own ticketing system as closely as you do public internet forums. If you had then perhaps I would not have felt the need to air my views in such a manner.

I do thank you for taking the time to give the full answer you have provided, although I will not be staying with Vidahost I do hope that some of my criticism can be used to improve your current service.

MG72 seems to have had a very similar experience to my own regarding poor customer service at Vidahost.

I appreciate the difficulties in managing a team of customer service agents but being given an insight into how some of your customers feel they have been treated is no bad thing.

When Vidahost were smaller I had no issues with the support I received. I even offered to write a testimonial for them as I was so happy with the service.

Hopefully, this thread can help to tighten things up (customer service wise) and I hope Vidahost can once again deliver the kind of service that I used to rave about a few years ago.

I find it disappointing that when genuine concerns are raised by Vidahost clients then they are attacked by other members on this board as being whingers and complainers and in the end is rather counter-productive as by extending this discussion only serves to highlight this post in the SERPS.

 

[NewGardenStyle]

Vidahost servers have been down all morning, including their own website. It's the first time I've had an issue with them in the 4 months I have been a customer. Is server outage a regular problem with vidahost? I think I might have to change my host...

 

[ecoleman]

Don't think this is your host. My sites on TSOHost have been down as well and so has TSO Host themselves, although they have rerouted most of the traffic and most sites are now back up and running.

I'm also having issues logging into Comm100

Apparently it is an ISP issue.

 

[JPMiddleton]

Hi The GeekistLink

I didn't waste anymore time on it. I still had my domains with my current host so I left my sites there.

Regards

No, our site was down also but back up now. You're not going to find a host who can provide 100% uptime, it's impossible to the best of my limited knowledge. A quick look at their twitter feed suggests they were working pretty proactively to deal with it. This certainly wouldn't make me look elsewhere, no host is perfect.

 

[NewGardenStyle]

OK thanks, I'll wait and see what their explanation is before making any conclusions. They have a lot disgruntled customers venting on Twitter, perhaps unfairly if that is indeed the case.

 

[Optegris]

No, our site was down also but back up now. You're not going to find a host who can provide 100% uptime, it's impossible to the best of my limited knowledge. A quick look at their twitter feed suggests they were working pretty proactively to deal with it. This certainly wouldn't make me look elsewhere, no host is perfect.

From a technical perspective this is not impossible however if you're paying £2.99 per month for hosting then you wouldn't normally expect it

 

[JPMiddleton]

From a technical perspective this is not impossible however if you're paying £2.99 per month for hosting then you wouldn't normally expect it

Am I to assume you think that's what we spend on hosting? If so, don't jump to conclusions please. We have a VDS.

 

[Optegris]

Read my post again, I didn't assume anything of the sort, I was merely picking that price from their site as an example.

 

[Faevilangel]

OK thanks, I'll wait and see what their explanation is before making any conclusions. They have a lot disgruntled customers venting on Twitter, perhaps unfairly if that is indeed the case.

The servers weren't down, it was an ISP / DNS issue which basically made accessing the servers difficult for some people on some providers.

If something goes wrong people will vent before checking the circumstances, I couldn't access any of my websites but they aren't critical to my business (most of my work is word of mouth) so didn't bother me too much.

BT had a similar issue a few weeks ago where anyone on BT couldn't access a lot of website, it affected millions of people (fun)

Vidahost have a status page at http://status.vidahost.com so you can see if they are aware of any issues on their servers.

 

[ecoleman]

That's rather uncanny

http://status.vidahost.com
http://status.tsohost.com

Are they related in anyway?

 

[ecoleman]

Anyway, this is the RFO we got from TSO




I've left out the into bits, but below explains what the problem was.


For those who are interested, the technical explanation…


The global routing table is a ‘map’ of each possible destination on the internet. Every large network operator (such as ourselves, or the ISP you use to connect to the internet) holds a copy of this, or multiple copies in our case. This is what enables every computer on the internet to reach every other computer.

Over the past two decades the routing table has been increasing in size, due to new ipv4 addresses being used and existing ipv4 address ranges being split (meaning that 2 consecutive ranges might have different paths). Today it hit 512,000 routes. This is a magic number as it’s an inbuilt limit in many common routers and switches.

We had pre-empted this. Most of our routers/switches already have a higher limit and we have recently spent £250,000 on network upgrades to improve the rest of our network. These had not yet been installed as we believed we had room to spare. However, last night there was a sudden increase in the number of routes being announced to the world and at 9AM we hit the limit.

Due to human factors it took us approximately half an hour to find the cause of the issue. At that point we applied a fix on the only router we believed was affected. This took effect after a reboot (which caused approximately 60 seconds of packet loss as indicated on the graph) and the majority of people who could not access our network were then able to. However some users were still reporting problems so we continued to investigate. We believed the issue may lie elsewhere as customers were also reporting issues reaching websites such as eBay and Skype but, despite the lack of any log entries to indicate, it turns out another of our Cisco routers had also hit its routing limit. The same configuration change was applied to that router and, at that point, the remaining people still having problems accessing their site were now able to again.

It seems many other high profile ISPs also suffered the same issue today and most have now fixed their own networks.

 

[Faevilangel]

That's rather uncanny

http://status.vidahost.com
http://status.tsohost.com

Are they related in anyway?

Yes, Vidahost's parent company bought TSOhost not so long ago (Vidahost is one of 3 companies run by paragon internet)

 

[ecoleman]

If that's the case, I'm surprised that people are complaining about Vidahost.

I've dealt with all of the directors directly before when I've had a problem and they have all been extremely helpful in resolving issues.

Granted, I don't think they man the phones themselves anymore, but TSO service has always been superb.

 

[AllUpHere]

If you ever try online chat on the vidahost site, make sure you have an hour to kill.

 

[ballista]

I've used Vidahost for years with no issues. I heard of them originally through this forum. Customer service has always been faultless with any queries. I do recall some emails recently about some server outages but just par for the course I think. Just goes to show not everyone gets the same service I guess but I definitely cant fault our hosting service with them.

 

[Mico Dabs]

Hi everyone, just joined this forum after reading this post at great length.

Have been hunting around the last few days as I'm starting out on the path I'm sure others here have started a long time ago; starting up my own little vinyl cutting operation. It's not going to make millions but its something I always wanted to do and now have the time to spend on it. I've seen so many forums and posts on this subject its staggering.

Anyway; Vidahost seem to be the big hitters from what I can gather; sure, as any tech. based business will know, there WILL be problems, there WILL be unhappy customers.

Its how you take care of them during these times that matters most and stays longest in customers' memories I guess.
I used to work for a well known media providing company and if the average customer saw how we ran around like headless chickens trying to keep the network stable they'd've probably likened it to the cat in Tom and Jerry trying to catch all the plates with his arms, legs, nose and tail.
We're not talking about one or two residential homes and the odd business premises here and there; when part of our network fell over, it took streets out at a time.
Working in the pouring rain trying to hunt down faults and sort them within tight timescales whilst being polite and explanative to affected customers is not easy at all for anyone; but when things get sorted and normal service is restored THAT is when you see the fallout and the flack coming in, and it is so satisfying to know you fixed things rapidly AND kept paying customers informed and made them feel a bit special, because they are after all is said and done.

It takes a special kind of customer to accept that faults DO happen, often, and to work WITH the host. Hosts aren't charities or government bodies that will simply hand you a Ferrari when their fault affects your business; but they DO realise they have dropped the ball and usually offer some kind of apology.
To refuse that is kind of stepping outside of the understanding you both have (regardless of T's & C's) and once this stage is reached I guess a host would prefer to say 'you can always leave if you want, we'll release you from your contractual obligations.'

And from what I have trawled in the last few days is that Vidahost seem to get it right mostly, and when they don't, they say so and try to help you back on your feet.

That's all I'm after really.

So, I'm signing up with Vidahost and if the moderators are ok with it would like to keep this thread updated periodically with events, in particular the customer service side of things and how I am spoken with during calls as this seems to have been the OP's main gripe from what I can see.

Am I correct in saying I should register my domain somewhere else and then point traffic to my Vidahost site?

 

[Seb de Lemos]

Hey Guys

Seb here from Vidahost. This thread is a bit upsetting for me because, though I think it's an open and honest thread for the most part, I don't think there is any thing more we could have done for the first poster. We spent hours, perhaps days, trying to help over the year. Now this thread is third on Google for Vidahost and it's a little frustrating the way it comes off on the subject and first page.

Anyway, to answer the last couple of posts:

1. On Live Chat, we're changing the way it works. Ten new support staff are being trained up from next Thursday and one of their jobs will be to man live chat. We're still perfecting it and changing the system (we've written our own live chat system) so sorry if there have been bugs. Response time should be immediate, so if there is a chat left unanswered it's a coding bug I will track down

2. On the network outage that occured two days ago, the best thing for me to do is to refer you to the RFO above. We're always completely honest and any disruption is as frustrating for us as it is for our clients. I've just included the graph of the outage. For most users there was just one burst of downtime (around 3 mins) as we rebooted the router. For UK users on the majority of ISPs, we peer with your internet providers over LINX and those connections were largely unaffected.

---

Obviously this downtime is still unacceptable.

3. On registering a domain name elsewhere and pointing to us, that's entirely up to you. Every domain registrar has to comply with regulations from ICANN, so even if something disastrously wrong were to happen (extremely unlikely, if not impossible) then your domain is still safe. Most of the domain issues I've come accross have occured when there is a long chain between the registry (e.g. Verisign, Nominet) and the end registrant, through resellers and so on.

 

[Mico Dabs]

Hi Seb, nice to see Vidahost taking the bull by the horns and being proactive on forums.
With you saying that, re. the hosting and domain provider being one in the same, I didn't even know about ICANN until you mentioned them,a quick Google search restored my slight worries,so thanks for that.
With that in mind, and bearing in mind what you said about this thread being high up ib the search results currently, I feel confident registering with and having Vidahost host my domain also.

Ta muchly, and don't beat yourself up too much, most people know these issues occur all the time (count how many you have on your entire setup in 24hrs lol).

I know I'm only going to be a very small sized user compared to companies that have circa 100 domains etc, but who knows where my little enterprise could end up in a few years time lol

Keep up the good work over at Vidahost Seb!!!!

 

[Seb de Lemos]

Thanks

If you want some backstory on ICANN and how and why it regulates, read under "Effects on industry due to RegisterFly collapse" on WIkipedia here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RegisterFly

And the related ICANN President's statement here:

https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2007-03-21-en

 

[MG72]

Just a quick update on the issues I had with Vidahost back in July. I was unhappy with the service I received when I sent in a ticket. Adam, from Vidahost, seemed to accept that it had not been handled in the way it should have been. However, I would say that the service provided by Adam and Dominic has been spot on from that point onwards.

They have assisted (and this was not asked for) in cleaning up the websites, and on the suggestion of Adam, my account has now been migrated to the Cloud service they provide.

I understand that things can go wrong, and I run a business that has thousands of new customers every year and know that all will not run smoothly. In my view it is how the issues are resolved, and in the case of Vidahost I am happy to say they have redeemed themselves in my eyes. From a customer who was going to leave them after 4 years, I am now happy to stay with them. I do feel that as upset I was at the way I was initially dealt with, it is only fair that I make public how well they have dealt with it since.

Well done to Dominic and Adam, thank you for your help and assistance.

 

[Faevilangel]

Glad you got it sorted, as you rightly said, things can go wrong, it's how the company deals with it that matters!

 

[Dominic Taylor]

Just a quick update on the issues I had with Vidahost back in July. I was unhappy with the service I received when I sent in a ticket. Adam, from Vidahost, seemed to accept that it had not been handled in the way it should have been. However, I would say that the service provided by Adam and Dominic has been spot on from that point onwards.

They have assisted (and this was not asked for) in cleaning up the websites, and on the suggestion of Adam, my account has now been migrated to the Cloud service they provide.

I understand that things can go wrong, and I run a business that has thousands of new customers every year and know that all will not run smoothly. In my view it is how the issues are resolved, and in the case of Vidahost I am happy to say they have redeemed themselves in my eyes. From a customer who was going to leave them after 4 years, I am now happy to stay with them. I do feel that as upset I was at the way I was initially dealt with, it is only fair that I make public how well they have dealt with it since.

Well done to Dominic and Adam, thank you for your help and assistance.

Thanks, that's much appreciated. In recent months I've written tools to automate the hassle of this and I think that's what you got from me in the ticket recently. Glad it helped.

The same hacked site situation (multiple sites, one cPanel account) applied to another poster in this thread although back then I had to run through the sites manually with you (and we did get them all fixed and working). Which is what made me create tools

I'm not sure if WordPress tells site owners about outdated components beyond plugins? As that is a common problem we've been seeing recently - your plugins might be up to date but if you have an old theme installed which contains an insecure script, that becomes the way in.

When the 'original' major Timthumb issue came out a few years ago, we patched every affected file on our cloud system as the patch was simple. We also block ~90% of all bruteforce attempts to WordPress sites as standard. Bots send more requests per second to our system than the entirety of the traffic we handled a few years ago. It's crazy. I think Cloudflare said they identified/blocked 200,000 IPs taking part in WordPress/CMS bruteforcing. We see something like 50 million bot hits blocked each day.

Years ago I had 10 servers in total, and now I have more than half a rack dedicated to just dealing with bots/spam. I don't get the chance much but I do like showing off my spam filtering cluster although there's only so many times you can refresh an haproxy report.

In the past few months the number of hacked sites / other similar issues has been, essentially, a pain for everyone. 5 years ago, most of the code being exploited today didn't exist. In the last few months alone there have been serious issues in a whole range of popular plugins :/

Yes, Vidahost's parent company bought TSOhost not so long ago (Vidahost is one of 3 companies run by paragon internet)

I wish it was that way around (I would then own the entire group!) but our history is detailed here Guess who is who from the picture for a free domain

Also, for anyone new, regarding the original poster who started this thread - although it appears they've now deleted their forum account - my replies about their particular issue are on pages 1/2. As then, I'm not going to break the DPA and discuss their account but I think I can fairly say that they got back in touch with us via our support system and we continued working with them, like we do with thousands of our clients every day.

In case anyone is wondering, we've never asked for the thread to be removed (!), and I actually got a message from UKBF management thanking me for keeping a friendly/productive discussion. We get the occasional ticket or PM asking about this thread and I give the exact same response. Even to my mother. Who has recently also discovered Twitter....

Finally, if anyone has any problems/questions of any kind at any point, our email/phone is the best way to get urgent help (there are ~30 support/sales people versus one of me!) but you're welcome to PM me here as always (I don't post here so much now but that's solely because I work every waking moment but I do try to post in threads where I can help, I don't know a lot about retail or legal/HR/accounting!) as my forum account comes through to my work email address.

I could go on but I should catch up on my tickets now!

 

[Gillie]

Well I have just moved to Vidahost - transferred cpanel from some others and some emails yesterday back and forth sorted it all out - some nice bods there put up with my daft questions - it was transferring a few sites and emails worked throughout during and after without having to do anything. For some strange reason I thought I would have to alter stuff and spend hours talking others through it all - but nope no one even noticed!

(Ok so I do have a history of tempting fate - so ain't saying anything more on this!)