Grrrr

[Deleted member 1609]

I am very angry with myself and my host right now.

My forum was down for almost a full day, so I e-mailed my host to see what was up. The support team member originally told me that they had upgraded the node and that it was working now. I tried it, and it didn't, of course. I e-mailed again and they said that they were investigating the issue. He asked me if I would like him to recreate my VPS on a different node. I agreed thinking that he would transfer the data. After I had already agreed, he said it would wipe all my data.

He didn't inform me that it would wipe my data until after I had agreed. I sent an e-mail back asking him not to recreate the VPS after all because I had not taken a backup of my forum for about a week (which I know was stupid). However, he just went and recreated my VPS on a different node despite the fact that he had not informed me that all my data had been wiped until I had already agreed, and he didn't give me a chance to back out.

That being said, I lost over a week of posts because of my stupidity and because of my host. I am very frustrated right now, and I realize that I'm partially to blame because I don't take backups frequently enough, but I didn't really expect my host to delete my data abruptly either.

 

[Cosmic]

Yeah you should complain about that experience to the host’s higher ups. The person who you were dealing with should be fired for incompetence. And maybe find a different host too. Did you have a backup? What host do you use?

 

[Deleted member 1609]

I had a backup of all the files, but I did not have a database backup for the forum for the past week or so. I used HostBRZ because I got a coupon from LowEndBox. It had pretty decent reviews, but experiencing nearly a full day of downtime after less than a month of using their service and having all of my data deleted without proper warning does not bode well. I have requested a refund for the inconvenience, so we'll see how that goes. Obviously, I will be switching hosts.

 

[Azareal]

This is one big reason I don't use shared, I know this case was a VPS and all, but I simply don't want to deal with any host's support team any-more than I absolutely have to, they're usually either useless or create more problems than they solve.

 

[Page]

That's what we don't need! trying to build up the member base and the content then this happens. They shouldn't have gone ahead in the first place, even if you agreed they shouldn't went full stream ahead. Host provider should have said regards backing up. That's an bad host provider if they been down for a day and not caring for the clients.

So website still down for me! so full week building what we have lost.

 

[Ash]

That's not great. I would be asking for a lot more than just a refund because that is straight up incompetence. 1000 posts is a lot for a forum whether it's new or not.

 

[Deleted member 1609]

Here's the thing: a thousand posts for FP would be a shame.

A thousand posts to my brand new community is devastating, especially when I was starting to get a small amount of success, and this could totally ruin my community.

 

[USHost247]

Yeah you should complain about that experience to the host’s higher ups. The person who you were dealing with should be fired for incompetence. And maybe find a different host too. Did you have a backup? What host do you use?

Both parties are partially at fault here. The host should have double verified that the customer understood what the results of recreating a vps would do to the current data they have. The customer should always make sure they have a recent backup. Unless in the terms of service or service contract, webhosts are not required to keep backups current of your data but most do so out of courtesy to the customer. USHost247 for example takes multiple backups a week and stores them off the server for cases like this when customers don't perform their own backups, but we are not required to do so.

I strongly urge each and every person who runs a website or has any database data on a host to always back it up. No matter how small or large.

Here's the thing: a thousand posts for FP would be a shame.

A thousand posts to my brand new community is devastating, especially when I was starting to get a small amount of success, and this could totally ruin my community.

Things happen, humans make mistakes or else we wouldn't be human. People don't live 100 years and make no mistakes. Find the reason why the mistake happen, learn from it and keep it from happening again, and continue on.

 

[Deleted member 1609]

Yeah, I mean, taking backups will obviously be a higher priority for me in the future. It's still very frustrating that they did not provide me with proper customer service.

 

[USHost247]

Yeah, I mean, taking backups will obviously be a higher priority for me in the future. It's still very frustrating that they did not provide me with proper customer service.

It's very unfortunate that their steps to verify that you actually want your data wiped were not longer to allow time for you to fully understand what will happen.

Side note: Your site doesn't seem to be loading.

Spoiler: Error

This site can’t be reached
meowsepad.org took too long to respond.

• Search Google for mouse pad org

ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

 

[Deleted member 1609]

Yeah, I'm in the process of switching hosts. The site had been down for more than a day before my host decided to delete my data. :3

 

[USHost247]

Yeah, I'm in the process of switching hosts. The site had been down for more than a day before my host decided to delete my data. :3

Ohh, I was under the impression you eventually got it back online. Alright, good luck with that! If there is anything I can do to be of any assistance, let me know.

 

[Deleted member 1609]

Thanks!

 

[Jason76]

So you can't get a backup from a few days ago? I know Host Gator and maybe other ones demand extra payment for backups.

 

[Cosmic]

Both parties are partially at fault here. The host should have double verified that the customer understood what the results of recreating a vps would do to the current data they have. The customer should always make sure they have a recent backup. Unless in the terms of service or service contract, webhosts are not required to keep backups current of your data but most do so out of courtesy to the customer. USHost247 for example takes multiple backups a week and stores them off the server for cases like this when customers don't perform their own backups, but we are not required to do so.

Web hosts have very few absolute requirements, as the industry is largely unregulated. But a customer still can and should expect excellence from the host that they choose to do business with.

There is no industry requirement for > 99.99% uptime, but any reasonable host should provide it. There is no industry requirement for hosts to preserve data, but any reasonable web host should ensure that data is not lost except due to customer error, failure to pay, or true act of god. Many hosts invest heavily in providing this level of support. AWS S3, for example, can survive the physical destruction of an entire data center, as customer data is replicated to multiple separate facilities.

Hosts do not provide backups out of courtesy, but because it strengthens their business. By providing a greater degree of certainty that their errors cause less impact to the customer, they decrease the rate at which customers have bad experiences and choose different web hosts to do business with.

Yes, customers should take backups, but that does not remove the burden from hosting providers. Yes, restaurant customers should check their food to make sure that there aren’t any spiders in it, but it’s still the restaurants fault if there is one.

 

[Jason76]

Yes, customers should take backups, but that does not remove the burden from hosting providers. Yes, restaurant customers should check their food to make sure that there aren’t any spiders in it, but it’s still the restaurants fault if there is one.

Hosting companies demanding people make their own backups is bad business.

 

[Ajay]

Yes, customers should take backups, but that does not remove the burden from hosting providers. Yes, restaurant customers should check their food to make sure that there aren’t any spiders in it, but it’s still the restaurants fault if there is one.

Hosting companies demanding people make their own backups is bad business.

It can be considered bad business from a consumer standpoint, but it's still not required for them to do so in most cases.

 

[Azareal]

There are any number of reasons why backups may or may not be made, but the general rule, is that you should take a backup each week, perhaps even more frequently. Maybe, the host should do it, if they say they do, then they certainly should, but unless you're using a premium host, I wouldn't expect much out of them.

A backup will always be the difference between a huge disaster and an inconvenience, albeit a really annoying one.

 

[Azareal]

AWS S3, for example, can survive the physical destruction of an entire data center, as customer data is replicated to multiple separate facilities.

AWS is not an ordinary host and their prices reflect it.

There are basically four levels of support. Commodity hosts, premium hosts, business hosts, and enterprise hosts. The huge cloud services are a little different due to the trade-offs they make, but not all hosts are built the same and I don't know what sort of host this was.

 

[Scarlharp]

Your host's fault, not yours. Don't bash yourself at all. :/

Ordinary humans make mistakes and forget things, and that's fine. When you're running a business, and you deliberately act incompetent, that's not acceptable.

I'd say something about this elsewhere if anyone else asks or if you have a blog to share your experience. 🙂

I'm sorry to hear that though. Um, what was the link to your site?