| Sunday, February 11, 2007 |  |
| Server4you sucks a bit |
| For the past year my main server has been at Server4you in Germany. They had the best deal I could find anywhere, for a fast server with good connectivity. Only problem was that they turned out to only speak German, and that they wanted me to pay for a year up front, because I wasn't in Germany. Took them a couple of months to set the server up, but it worked great when it was up. At least as long as there weren't any problems. The first big surprise was when I realized they didn't have 24/7 tech support. I hadn't even imagined that possibility. So, if something goes down, it of course is always just after midnight, and particularly in the weekend, just after their support line closed. And it then turned out that my 15 minute server reboot facility doesn't work either at such a time, as somebody at their end would have to go and do it.
And then they closed their support e-mail addresses, so that one only could contact them through their online control panel, and they take a couple of days to answer most things. Or by phone, which takes hours to get through to, and costs something every time. But so far so good until yesterday. When the server came up for renewal after the first year, I had sent a message to the accounting department if I couldn't please pay per month, rather than per year. Which it took them two weeks to respond to. After a couple of messages back and forth like that, I called them. And they repeated that no way they could do that, as I wasn't in Germany, so they had no way of controlling that I actually paid. And they said my server would be turned off soon if I didn't pay. So, I sent them their €1000 for this year, as I said I would, and sent them a fax with the bank transfer confirmation, as they said I should. That was several weeks ago, in January. So, now, yesterday, half past midnight, somebody halts the server. Of course that's 1/2 hour after I possibly can get hold of anybody. So, I call them in the morning, now Saturday. Tech support says that my account had been cancelled and no longer exists, and there's nothing they can do to turn on the server, as it is accounting who controls it, and they of course aren't there before Monday So, that starts to seriously suck. There's a lot going on on that server, dozens of quite popular sites, a lot of mail accounts, including my own, and many mailing lists. It can't really be down for several days. So, most of the weekend until now I've been busy bringing everything up on my other server, at 1and1 in the States. Luckily the backup situation was pretty good, databases replicated, and other files at the most a few hours old. But, still, that is very messy, and there are always little things missing. Seems like everything is working. But I really had better things to use my weekend for. So, I take back any recommendation I might have made to rent servers from those guys. In the meantime, I've noticed that OVH here in France has good deals. So, if Server4you for some reason holds on to that I no longer have an account with them, and they pay my money back, that's what I'd go for. [ Diary | 2007-02-11 17:22 | 24 comments | PermaLink ] More > |