Why Cheap Hosting Isn’t So Cheap

When I’ve got time to kill, I like to read my fellow web developers’ tales of woe. It’s like when I watch a movie about a post-apocalyptic future — I’m both fascinated and happy I’m not the one getting chased by nuclear mutants.

Well, today I have a tale of my own. Friday I wake up to a phone call from a panicking client. Their website is down, and since the site is a major marketing tool for the company, it’s a pretty serious issue.

We hop into *figure this out figure this out what’s going on* mode. We realize that the site isn’t really down–every page but the main index was accessible, but none of the includes that rely on the $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] variable are working.

Transcript after the jump.

Lauren> Hi, our client’s website, www.xxxxxxxx.com, is down. Can you please
Lauren> look into it?

Lauren> Thanks 

——————-

Dear sir
We have received your trouble ticket and would need more information from
you to provide better assistance.

Please send us your server IP and login info.

——————

<We send the login info>

——————

Hello,

please provide Plesk admin password.

——————

Lauren> Well, we tracked down the issue — suddenly the
Lauren> $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] variable is blank.

Lauren> I can’t imagine why, we haven’t changed any settings. But hope
Lauren> this helps.

——————

Hi,

We are working on resolving your issue and will get back to you once the issue is resolved.

——————

Hello,

You need change nameservers for your domain to :

ns1.xxxxxxxx.com – xxx.xxx.xxx.xx
ns2.xxxxxxxx.com – xxx.xxx.xxx.xx

—————–

Lauren> Why? I don’t have access to that at the moment, I’ll have to track down
Lauren> someone. But this doesn’t make any sense.

—————–

Hello,

Your domain  using incorrect name servers, you need change it with your domain registrar.

—————–

Lauren> Also, why was the $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] variable blank?

—————–

Hello,

We  are  not  sure  why the variable was blank, we do not edit clients
configurations unless we are provided root access and specifically asked.

—————–

Lauren> Have they always been incorrect? This is the first time I’ve heard about
Lauren> it.

Lauren> Can you please explain why that made the site go down? Because I still
Lauren> see the homepage, which wouldn’t be visible if the DNS was pointed at
Lauren> the wrong server.

—————–

Hi,

Your domain working fine now.

—————–

Lauren> The site is still down. Only the home page is working, for instance:

Lauren> http://www.xxxxxxxx.com/a-random-page

Lauren> Prior to whatever you guys did, every page *but* the home page was available, except for

Lauren> includes.

Lauren> What’s the fix here?

—————–
<Note: there was about a 30 min delay here. Perhaps I was a little impatient >

Lauren> This is critical, and I still haven’t heard anything back. Will changing
Lauren> the nameservers fix this problem, whatever it is?

Lauren> We have got to get this taken care of. Please respond.

—————–

Hi,

Your  dns settings working correct, please secn us RDP password and we
check server settings.

—————–

<I send them a list of account information>

—————–

Hello,

server  working  without  problems http://www.xxxxxxxx.com/info.php ,
please check your site code.

—————–

Lauren> The website was working fine before I contacted support yesterday for an
Lauren> unrelated issue. None of the files in our www site structure have been
Lauren> changed since last year, it is *not* an issue with our site code.

Lauren> This is getting ridiculous, am I even speaking to the same person?

—————-

Hello,

We have not made any changes on your site today

—————-

<At this point, we call the US-based support line. It’s a VPS hosting account, which is only handled by the offshore support team. However, after hearing our story, the man agrees to look into the situation.>

—————-

Dear Lauren

We still working on resolving your issue.
Our administrator will reply back once the issue has been resolved.

—————-

Hi,

Your Plesk admin password incorrect, did you change it?

—————-

Lauren> Nope, the one I sent you worked a couple of hours ago. Make sure you
Lauren> aren’t using the plesk client password.

—————-

Dear Client.
Please provide your wordpress admin password

—————-

<And at this point, we’d already transferred the site, and I wanted to keep my remaining bit of sanity. The end.>

The moral of the story: While the client may have saved money on the cost of a cheap server, they ended up having to pay us to deal with the crappy support team all day and for transferring the site. Hosting with a better, managed service server plan (I’m looking at you, Wiredtree) would have been the more economical option.

Note: We are not affiliated with Wiredtree in any way. We’re just fans

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 10:17 pm and is filed under Web Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.