Hosting Company Love affair - with a sad ending

[The Admin]

I first met my hosting company on a weekend night back in 2008. I asked them some questions and they actually responded quickly. I fell in love. Any hosting company that will respond that quickly on a weekend must really care about their customers. A few days later, I has hooked and signed up and married that hosting company. A few months later, I had a problem with my server, and they were able to fix the problem. They even explained what they did to fix it. Around my first anniversary, we upgraded to a new server with more memory and cpus. They responded surprisingly fast and gave a clear and complete recount of all the steps they took for the upgrade.
I remember in 2010 when they gave me extra memory and extra disk space for no extra charge. Life was good. In 2012, I complained about slow performance during results, and they suggested some parameter changes which helped the situation. Then I got another upgraded server. I also convinced my employer to switch to this hosting company too. Later that year, my main contact stopped responding to my questions. I was pretty upset, but then embarrassed to learn that he had an illness in the family that took him away from his job for a while. Then is was time for another server upgrade with more memory and more power.

In 2013 there were some problems that were not resolved as smoothly as in the past.

Everything changed on July of this year. I got a new server which should have been slightly faster and better than the last one. But it was slower - significantly slower. It didn't make any sense. I talked to a few nice people in Tech Support who were very sympathetic, but they didn't actually do anything to help the situation. I got a new tech person each time I reminded them of the problem. Each time, the tech would make we reexplain the problem and would politely question whether there was actually a problem, of if I was just doing something wrong. Days would pass with no contact at all. I told them when results would be run - I gave them the weekly schedule. But they would never remember to monitor the server during those times. Then, they'd tell me how smoothly it was running when no results were running. Then there was the time that they ran some code which killed a horse without having any idea that running someone's code without asking could be dangerous. I realized that we needed to get a divorce. I kept hoping that they'd decide to pay attention to me and fix the problem, but they would go days without any response. Then there was the time that they accused me of being wrong about results running at a certain time. They told me that the server wasn't running anything. I had to point out to them that they were looking at the wrong server. It was over.

In a last ditch effort to save the relationship I wrote to them... "I no longer have any confidence that you will be able to figure this out. It has been 4 days and you are still trying to verify the facts that I gave you. I would love to have it fixed, but I am also looking for alternate hosting options. I have been with you for many years and have referred many clients to you. This round of tech support has been very disappointing." They didn't even acknowledge the fact that I had threatened to leave.

A number of days later, they did respond saying that they made a change and wanted to know if it helped. It did not. Plus I had already decided to move on. I had found a new company that responded quickly to my questions. I explained what I needed and they suggested a server that would fulfill the needs. It was a more modern server with more flexibility. I was in love again. This Tuesday, we will leave the old company and start with the new one. There may be surprises ahead, but I am confident that we can work out any problems.

I wonder if the old company will even notice when I officially divorce (cancel) them later next week. I wonder if they will come crawling back saying that we can work it out?

Here's to a bright new future!

[Ali Hedgestone]

Leaving the familiar can be hard. I remember my first server move oh so long ago. Moved from a remotely hosted server to a custom refurbished rig in my basement. 2 weeks later, my new server needed a new hard drive. Got that sorted and everything was golden for many flip-flops. May the new server and company perform above expectations for years to come.

Thank you for all your work and responsiveness.

[Johanna Stk]

You are doing a great job!

[Ronnie Dee]

I have empathy for you.

[Lori Hamill]

It always amazes me just how much you go through to keep us children happy. You are appreciated so much more than I could ever express in words. Thank you.

[Alleyne Torres]

sometimes you gotta kick them to the curb

[Laura Smith]

A touching tribute to a lost love. Here's to new beginnings!

[The Steward]

I was at the wedding. It was a beautiful affair. So sad to see it go down in flames like this.

[Stormy Peak]

I hope your new company never disappoints you like the old one finally did.
Thanks for all the work you do in keeping the site up and running.

Stormy

[Nick Gilmore]

Makes me think your original contact was the gem, not the actual server, I hope he and his family are well.

Many happy returns with the new arrangement.

And, a huge thankyou for fighting on our behalf! For all you do, we love you dearly!

[Lucas Davenport]

And that story, actually, will likely be repeated. Unfortunately. I mentioned to you privately I had a large well-advertised server company that hosted my web-site for many years. About every two years they would change servers for their own reasons: sometimes I am quite sure it was because other clients on the same server needed more capacity. And as I told you personally, the last server change didn't work: an incompatability between my sales software version X and their new server. Well, OK, go back to the old server with the tape back up copy. You didn't save the tape back up copy!!?? You got rid of it after 24 hours??? Guess what, an end of my web-site. Poof, gone into cyber space. No apologies, no we're sorry, no we can fix it this way. Unfortunately the sales staff will tell and promise you anything; but the tech people are there for six months and then they move on. The scenario of unending contacts between yourself and their tech people, repeating the same info, so some new tech person could put it on their desk, only to pass it on again, was so familiar I had to speak up.

For all of us I hope you/we have a better happy ending. But be aware, unless you can control your own server destiny, this story will likely sound familiar again.

[Lori Hamill]

New server came through the TBS auction with flying colors for me.

[Laura Ferguson]

I have to agree - the new server handled the gut check/acid test spectacularly.

[Cathie Morris]

Thank you for weathering the storms for us! And all the work that you do behind the scenes!

[Josh Lamp I]

That comedy of errors only cost the sim populous about 70 mil, give or take. Couldn't stop the auction?