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voxtreme.com sucks - worst downtime worst service!!!

Posted by nomercy, 04-15-2002, 03:34 AM
i dont even know where to start i was goin to keep this off here but i feel like i need to warn other people about voxtreme. my server has now been down for over 10 hours, going on 11. no trace of support staff at the forums, tickets unanswered for 10 hours, priority 1 they advertise 24/7 support. **** that!!!!!!!!!!!! i have lost 4 clients and will probably be around with none by the morning. they do not care, they're killing my business and they are probably asleep (hint 24/7 support hint). i am about to go crazy here. i am losing ,my busines i worked hard for. please recommend me one of these hosts, i am switching with whatever is left. what i am looking for now is a company that has true 24/7 support, enough staff (not staff that goes to bed) and reliable servers. not a overnight company. http://www.nomonthly.co.uk http://www.vibehost.com http://www.mchost.com http://www.splashhost.com http://www.sernio.com
Posted by henrychoo, 04-15-2002, 04:07 AM
I tought i was alone. Well I have had enuf, after only uploading about 40 site their and now its's down, I'm getting about 40 call from this morning and its driving me crazy. nomercy, try this one - I just email them ecommercediscovery.com
Posted by nomercy, 04-15-2002, 04:10 AM
been with ecommercediscovery.com already there is no good host out there i starting to think
Posted by henrychoo, 04-15-2002, 04:18 AM
Whats wrong with ecommercediscovery.com? If that the case our best bet will be splashhost /mchost.
Posted by nomercy, 04-15-2002, 04:27 AM
the owner is a great guy but i dont want to be with any more 1 person companies anymore.
Posted by henrychoo, 04-15-2002, 04:31 AM
I see, but their downtime is minimal then it does really matter much to me. So how is their uptime level? Btw, its stated in WHT that splashhost is operated by Alan alone but I think he said he have hired assistance.
Posted by nomercy, 04-15-2002, 05:08 AM
i've experienced only a few short downtimes and overall they're good. my choice has been between voxtreme and mchost. i chose voxtreme because of the small price difference but i guess you get what you pay for. i have asked mchost for a bail-out account and will hopefully get setup tonight. thats where my business goes or better whats left of it. shame
Posted by Change, 04-15-2002, 05:40 AM
Also look at ukname.net (that was my 2nd choice after voxtreme.. I posted a thread about that choice somewhere on WHT)
Posted by henrychoo, 04-15-2002, 05:50 AM
I'have just mail mchost, I don't know if they will get back to me in time. Btw, i took the promo package and paid full year and its barely 30, days(But lots of work has been put in to move all those accounts) wonder if I can claim it back? How anyone experince with such claime-back? How long it takes?
Posted by Change, 04-15-2002, 05:54 AM
In the forum Voxtreme has said that there was no money-back guarantee on the yearly special, only on the normal packages... but maybe they will give it to you anyway since their service has been so bad considering uptime. I've heard uptime/load problems with McHost too lately btw... so if you have or expect enough customers, maybe you should keep both accounts.
Posted by mdrussell, 04-15-2002, 07:54 AM
If you are on the yearly plan, and want to leave, we will give you a refund. The downtime over the last month has been unacceptable.
Posted by zipcode, 04-15-2002, 08:22 AM
Try splashhost.com, Alan offers a very good service.
Posted by wmac, 04-15-2002, 08:43 AM
But mchost is not that bad, They have increased their support personel and I receive response to my tickets in Max 3 hours. They are very professional and when something happens they do their best to solve it. Soemtimes it is not their fault. For example if burst.net has a problem they will not be able to do anything, do they? I have bee n with ecommercediscovery too and I have been happy during last year. You must know that this is a business and has its problems and something more. Ecom.Discovery, mchost and splashhost are among the best here but this dows not mean they will not have any kind of problem. By the way if you like ensim you can consider remarkablehosting too. Their uptime is something near 100% and their service is great but preapre yourself to pay two or three times the cost you pay to others. Mac
Posted by Mike Feury, 04-15-2002, 10:45 AM
That's the point. I think many Resellers need to take some personal responsibility for misunderstanding what you're getting into. If you need 100% uptime, then you should be paying hundreds or thousands of dollars per month to Verio and similar top-end hosts. If you need 99+% uptime, then you should be paying $100+ per month to mid-level hosts like Mac mentioned. They use your extra money to invest in extra infrastructure to provide that level of service. If you go with low-end hosts like MC, Splash & Vox, then you cannot expect the same level of service as mid-level hosts. As an analogy, if you pay $10-20/month for Internet access, then you cannot expect the broadband speeds of $40-70/month ISPs. I joined Voxtreme recently because for now I don't need 99+% uptime. Would have been silly of me otherwise since Vox doesn't offer any uptime guarantee, wouldn't it? I didn't join Vox either because of many very quick replies I observed and read about. That's almost a given with any new company, and is something which will inevitably disimprove as the company gets bigger. Problem is that support tickets don't arrive at a host in a nice steady stream of 100 per day or hour. When things are rosy, there's only a trickle - so response is very fast. When there's a problem, there's a deluge of tickets, complaints and inquiries - and clearly many response times towards the end of the queue will be slow to very slow. Many clients don't understand this, and think they'll get a faster response if they submit multiple tickets when the first goes unanswered!!! Henry above knows what I mean - there's a problem, so his phone ear is now rosy red I joined Vox for 2 main reasons. The professional and helpful attitudes displayed by all 4 staff members in their general responses to queries and problems and requests. Plus how I observed them reacting to problems. Reaction to problems is the most important indicator in my book, once you've determined that a company appears to be above board. I know there will be regular problems, so how they are dealt with is crucial for the young company to have even a medium-term future. IMO, Vox so far have approached their problems better than most. First of all, problems are generally acknowledged - eg Matt's post above. Secondly, there appears to be a realization that the proper solution is to cure the root cause - rather than treat the symptoms, as so many companies do. To conclude, we Resellers need to understand the level of service we can realistically expect. More importantly, we need to make realistic promises to our own clients - otherwise that phone will just keep on ringing
Posted by wmac, 04-15-2002, 11:07 AM
Mike, I just pay $35/Month to mchost and they have uptime of more than %99.8 not $100+ Something else, I have tested a website on emarkablehosting and I am sure that their uptime in last 2 months has been more than %99.95. And their startup reseller account is $79/Month. You can have a dedicated with webreseller.com (with a very good uptime and Yipes bandwidth) at $109/month. Mac
Posted by decebal, 04-15-2002, 11:19 AM
I'm with splashhost and Alan has an assistant. They have a great and reliable support and the uptime is really great. I'm recommending them. Good luvk and sorry for your problems.
Posted by WCSWEB, 04-15-2002, 12:07 PM
Looks like the guys at voxtreme started the wrong way. I signed up with the a couple of months ago and the first night that I signed up I had a 10 hour downtime I immediately cancelled my account and switched over to datahosts.net. I feel that if you do a search on the mayor providers voxtreme, mchost, splashhost, etc..etc... you will find and realize who to go with there has always been complaints with voxtreme and their uptime I feel that their support is good and that they are trying their best to make it but i guess that they just don't cut it. I will highly recommend datahosts.net i haven't had a problem with them at all great uptime which is the most important thing and on top of that their support is great and that is what makes me happy. I feel that if datahosts, splashhost can provide the highlevel of service that they offer to their clients I think that anyother host should be able to offer the exact same quality of service for the exact same 35.00 a month. these are just my thoughts.
Posted by mdrussell, 04-15-2002, 12:10 PM
I agree, we have had problems with uptime. We have also worked hard to improve it, but have run into obstacles. Improving uptime is top on the list of our priorities.
Posted by 4solutions, 04-15-2002, 01:10 PM
Well, I think that Mike hit the nail on the head there. I went with SplashHost because I was impressed with how Alan handled his server problems several months back. He not only worked tirelessly through the night until the situation was resolved, but all the while he was keeping everyone up-to-date with the progress. As a reseller, for $35 a month, you get to share a server with a bunch of other crazy resellers. Some, like me, are trying to develop simple html brochure websites. Others have 1,500 CGI scripts running all at the same time. It's a miracle these machines have as much uptime as they do. So whether you're with SplashHost, Voxtreme, McHost, or whoever, you are going to experience server downtime. I just don't understand people that expect 100% uptime for $30 or $35 a month. I pay that for my Sprint cell phone and it's basically hit or miss whether it will work in any given location. I don't have any personal experience with Voxtreme, but you have to respect Matt for acknowledging the problem and not trying to hide behind 1,000 excuses. Just my two cents on the subject... (Okay, it's tax day in the U.S., so that two cents is carried over to line 21, less 25% of line 34 added to line 63, unless it's a loss carryforward, then it's readded to line 19 if line 18 is greater than $45,000 )
Posted by WHRKit, 04-15-2002, 02:27 PM
I don't think that resellers expect 100% uptime - but if you have a 12 hour downtime in one piece it is pretty bad. If you have downtime for more than 1 hour several times a month it is critical for a reseller because they are at the mercy of the actual host. So, ask for 100% uptime but expect 99% - if you get 98% - still good - as long as the other things like information flow and support are intact. And it looks like voxtreme is not able to handle these kind of things!
Posted by xirus, 04-15-2002, 02:43 PM
I believe all hosts go through these times of growing pains. Its just a matter of who will get through and who will close the store. The company i am with used to have growing pains, too a few months ago but with more staff members (4 or 5 i think) its back to excellent.
Posted by brookie, 04-15-2002, 05:19 PM
Well, I left MCHost to join Voxtreme. I wish you well but in my experience Voxtreme staff are technically more able, and their info page said what was going on - I'd rather they work on the problem than answer a load of helpdesk calls with "we're working on it". Still waiting for my promised refund from MCHost.
Posted by MCHost-Marc, 04-15-2002, 05:47 PM
brookie: Have you ever joined our server status mailing list? As for the refund, please drop a billing ticket at http://helpdesk.mchost.com with your order ID # and a staff member will check on the status for you
Posted by clearstr, 04-16-2002, 02:56 AM
well I just went through a saga of waiting 5 days until my weblogs were working correctly at mchost.com I also got the We're working on it helpdesk reply... I've never had emails answered. My forum messages not even acknowledged by staff.. What really #$#$ my off was the lack of communication , explanation.. To top it off my logs are now in my personal filespace ( as I asked for) but now the cpanel stats still dont work. d
Posted by jonny b, 04-16-2002, 06:48 AM
give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile!!
Posted by 95 Degrees, 04-24-2002, 12:09 PM
Well, lets hope with the good comments about Alan and SplashHost that as his company gets recommended more and more that he does not fall into the same trap as many 1 or 2-man hosts...where growth outruns them than service that was soooo good, goes sour. I am thinking of going there, so I hope he will grow with the flow and learn from so many other would-be-successful hosts. How about SurrenderOnline...any comments about them? Voxtreme, when written with presales questions were the first (& second) to reply. Almost immediate and quite clear and concise with their explanations. They also seem to have had explanations for downtime in the past in other threads here. Growing pains? Is this downtime/uptime issue resolved now?
Posted by Change, 04-24-2002, 12:59 PM
Well.. Apache is not crashing anymore (due to the fork-bomber), but they've had some BIND problems in the past 2 days. I'm still not sure if I got a trial account at the wrong time or if the situation now is extraordinary.
Posted by Alan - Vox, 04-24-2002, 01:08 PM
Some of my customers will have noticed someone else responding to support tickets, i have trained someone else so as soon as it starts to get too much work for me he can start working straight away and take some of the load off.
Posted by mdrussell, 04-24-2002, 03:05 PM
Hi Change, Everything should be function at 100% now. Are you still experiencing some problems? Please don't hesitate to contact me if this is the case. Regards Matt Last edited by mdrussell; 04-24-2002 at 03:13 PM.
Posted by Change, 04-24-2002, 03:18 PM
Everything is functioning 100% now. I just saw that you were experiencing BIND problems on two seperate servers (both solved within a couple of hours). First on mine and then on one in another datacenter. As far as I know you're working on the BIND problem, so not sure if that's solved. I was merely reporting here. In my hosting life I've never really experienced downtime longer than half an hour or emails not arriving (because of BIND problems in this case), which is why I was wondering if I just got the trial account at an extraordinary time where an unusual amount of problems appeared. I know Vox has a good record, but the recent problems just left me wondering..
Posted by StevenG, 04-25-2002, 05:44 AM
Reading this thread was like taking a breath of fresh air.... Matt much respect. well handled, times like that are tough and you handled that really well. It's not usaually a hosts fault when things like that happen and that is hard for people to grasp. You end up taking it on the chin or making excuses... taking it on the chin takes guts and honesty... it pays off though. It's good to see that all the players are here discussing things civilly - It's good for the industry. Just a few comments I felt like spurting out :-)
Posted by mdrussell, 04-25-2002, 11:24 AM
Steve, thank you for the kind words

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