JodoHost email nightmare

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Posted by doppess, 11-20-2007, 03:02 PM
I have had chronic email problems on JodoHost since May 2007. Emails not arriving to my clients, not bouncing back, so we never know that there's one missing until someone calls on the telephone. This terrible service is ruining my company's reputation. Now today one of my biggest clients has had NO EMAIL SERVICE for more than two hours. I begged for them to fix it, move me to another email server, anything to get away from these chronic problems. So far I have gotten lips service and very defensive attitude. The technician says to wait another hour, there are emails stuck in the queue. Meanwhile no emails are even trickling in. Yes, I am searching for a new Windows reseller host. Meanwhile, does anyone have any suggestions for a solution to this nightmare?
Posted by rv_irl, 11-20-2007, 03:15 PM
Could you elaborate more on the problem? What is JodoHost saying the problem is? Have they identified it? Any certain error messages?
Posted by LaneHost, 11-20-2007, 03:20 PM
It looks like you are already thinking of the right solutions, which would be to wait for your upstream hosting providing to fix the issue after notifying them of the situation. However since you said it has been since May that you have had these problems which is plenty of time and they have not fixed it nor have been willing to move you to another server then it would be a good time to move to another host as you said you are doing now. Every host big and small will have email problems at one point or another, there isn't a way around this as these types of things happen for a variety of reasons. However, they should be able to fix those email issues within 6 months. I would recommend checking out the offers section on WHT, there always some good deals from some pretty good hosts that should be able to help you out. If you want some recommendations, post your requirements you need from a host including your budget this will help point you in the right direction. Best of luck to you, hope all your email issues get resolved soon.
Posted by doppess, 11-20-2007, 03:40 PM
Most of the time they do not acknowledge there is a problem. I will open a ticket stating that my client was sent an email by a particular address at such a time and it was not received. Jodohost will come back saying no emails came to my client from the address. On the rare occasion when they acknowledge there is a problem, they say to wait. Like now, they're saying email service has been restored but the email is backed up in a queue. Well I've been waiting for more than two hours and so far only four emails have come through to my client. The emails that have not come through have not bounced back either. Sometimes there are long delays in receiving mail ... 5-10 days from the time the email is sent until it arrives in a client's inbox. Today I cannot even submit a trouble ticket because their email system isn't receiving correctly. I've been on live chat for more than two hours
Posted by LaneHost, 11-20-2007, 05:59 PM
Let us know how things go, if they are able to fix the issues you are experiencing or if you decide to move to another host. Did you have a list of windows providers you were eyeing?
Posted by doppess, 11-20-2007, 06:46 PM
i've narrowed the list down to two. both have helm control panels. i tried one with plesk and it did not meet my needs.
Posted by (Stephen), 11-21-2007, 12:59 AM
There was an issue today on the spam filtering server, it was posted on our forum and resolved. The way postfix works it did not send all new message first, or the longest in queue, it was quite random. It is all bad to normal now and working properly. In addition we have given means to client for disabling the spam filtering servers.
Posted by Yash-JH, 11-21-2007, 03:17 AM
levelmeasure, as I've stated many times on this forum, you are the only customer that is reporting such email issues. My staff has spent countless hours working with you to try to replicate your issues, without success. You often complain that emails are never received by you or your clients. Each and every time you have reported this, we have gone through server logs to try to locate these emails that you claim are disappearing, but have found no trace of us ever receiving them. Yes today, we had an issue where one of our spam gateways went down for an hour, causing email to be delayed for a short period of time. However such issues are rare, and we have invested alot of money to create reliable and redundant email infrastructure for our clients. Infact, even though our spam gateway crashed, no email was lost, only delayed. Very rarely, if ever will email get rejected/dropped from our mail servers for no reason. I wish you luck with your new host. Last edited by Yash-JH; 11-21-2007 at 03:29 AM.
Posted by doppess, 11-21-2007, 05:22 AM
The problems on the email servers has been chronic and persistant. Today I went through 26 open tickets going back to January 6, 2007, many of which dealt with the same client having the same problems with missing email. I'm in business to build websites and provide hosting for my customers. Do you imagine that we are wasting our time complaining about missing email when we're really receiving it? At this moment not all of the 17 email tests I have sent to this client have been received. It's been almost 18 hours since I became aware of the latest rash of missing email. No one can do business like this. You haven't found the problem because you're not looking for a solution. You looking to make me stop complaining. You ask me to send you copies of the emails that were never received ... how ridiculous! There are many many many people complaining about this problem, even on your own forum. Shame on you for blaming me for the neglectful way you do business.
Posted by doppess, 11-21-2007, 05:27 AM
Two other examples of reckless business practices: today one of your support tech's sent an email directly to my client, which would have revealed who i buy my hosting from if i had not intercepted it. This is outrageous in a reseller situation. secondly, another tech opened an account with symatac using my email address, without my permission. these are unacceptable business practices.
Posted by Yash-JH, 11-21-2007, 02:40 PM
If they were persistent and chronic, we wouldn't be in the business. Our email systems process over 1 million emails a day, if emails just disappeared then we would have tons of complaints. You are the only client that has complained on a regular basis about email issues. Every time (you say you opened 26 tickets) we have investigated the issue and have not been able to replicate what you experience. many many people? Please show me. Apart from the issue yesterday (which was documented on our forum), you are the only client that has been complaining about email issues no one else is experiencing. Anyway, I apologise for your experience with us. If you need help moving to a new host, please let me or the team know and we will help you.
Posted by Yash-JH, 11-21-2007, 03:00 PM
Levelmeasure, whenever we have faced any sort of email issues, they are always documented on our forum with regular udpdates posted. Email issues are rare, and almost never involve a loss of email (rather a delay, due to our redundant system). Every single ticket you have submitted, has been tested thoroughly, and we haven't found any of the issues you mention. We have told you in the past, part of the problem may be that our spam filter is blocking some of your emails (being returned if you haven't configured a quarantine). We have suggested you disable it and use a different anti-spam system, I am not sure if you have done that. Many emails that you claim have gone missing, have never reached our network. I've had Level3 system and network admins investigate this issue for you, but have found no trace of the email that was apparantly sent to us Some of your complaints have been about configuration issues with your local setup (related to Symantec). Some of your issues have been due to rDNS, because the sending servers don't have a rDNS record for their IPs. (something our mail systems check for, like most servers on the internet). In conclusion, we have worked with you alot on your issues. Sometimes, email may not go through for a variety of reasons, and your host may not be to blame for it, many times. Once again, good luck with your new host. I apologise for your issues.
Posted by Nnyan, 11-21-2007, 05:18 PM
I'm not sure why you think this is ridiculous. I have to troubleshoot e-mail problems on occasion and getting a copy of the original e-mail and any bounce backs can often be helpful. Sometimes the provider even requests this to help troubleshoot the issue. In the 26 tickets you opened with them have you EVER sent them copies? I know how frustrating these types of issues can be but I think you're allowing emotions to cloud your better judgement. Seems like Jodohost is (trying) to work with you and is trying to track down a problem.
Posted by Mikey this way!, 11-23-2007, 09:53 AM
They had done this to me once as well. Lucky for me I intercepted it as well.
Posted by Yash-JH, 11-23-2007, 12:55 PM
It is our policy to use hotmail/yahoo email addresses to test any email complaints. However, if there has been a policy violation on our part, we apologise for this. If you can PM me more information, I'll look into it
Posted by Mikey this way!, 11-24-2007, 03:30 AM
Well, it was more than an year back. I had forgotten about it but, that post reminded me of it. BTW, I didn't even receive a single apology for this error and the email was sent from someid@jodohost.com and NOT Hotmail/Yahoo which is your policy. Infact, I had suggested it to your support staff to use some other Email ID not related to you guys. Anyway, I appreciate your willingness to look into it. I'll PM you the Ticket No.
Posted by Mikey this way!, 11-24-2007, 03:33 AM
Hey Yash, The PM has been sent.
Posted by doppess, 11-24-2007, 09:21 PM
It's ridiculous because we can't receive the original. They're asking me to forward something we can't receive. Yes, I have forwarded things that were delayed in arriving. Obviously, as I mention above, it's not possible to forward something I don't receive. I am angry at this point. First because it's been 11 months of serious email issues. Second, I deal with the human ramifications of lost email everyday, ... like the widow whose husband's obit didn't get into the weekly newspaper because the email from her funeral director arrived at my client's newspaper office 16 hours too late. Or the client who missed his flight to Germany to see his son for Thanksgiving because the email from his travel agent never arrived. Third, my clients are cancelling their accounts with me because I don't provide reliable service. This persistant poor email delivery is going to ruin my business and there is nothing I can do about. I'm totally depended on JodoHost to fix the problem and they haven't. And that's the bottom line really, for me or anyone else in this business. Trying doesn't count unless you can ultimately come up with the goods in the end. Excuses are useless. You are absolutely correct, my patience has run out.
Posted by doppess, 11-24-2007, 09:27 PM
You have an entire section of your forum dedicated to email support. Anyone can see that other people have email issues too. Why would I complain if my clients were getting all their email?
Posted by Mikey this way!, 12-06-2007, 11:48 PM
So many days and still investigating Yash?
Posted by Yash-JH, 12-07-2007, 12:09 AM
Sorry, for not updating you. We already had an internal staff meeting regarding the policy violation, and we will strive to ensure it doesn't happen again
Posted by Mikey this way!, 12-07-2007, 01:15 AM
Thanks Yash.
Posted by davef139, 12-07-2007, 02:13 AM
Heh, what emails didnt you get? For some reason i never get paypal emails but everything else always goes through.
Posted by doppess, 12-07-2007, 09:00 AM
Update ... the one client of mine who had the worse email problems (11 months worth) very nearly quit my hosting service. I closed their Linux account and opened a Windows hosting account for them ... also in my JodoHost reseller. So far I have received two reports of lost email which were false alarms. I think everyone is on pins & needles considering what we went through. Hopefully mail8 will proved to be more stable than mail7 ... at this point all looks well. Knock wood the nightmare is over???? I also must say than JodoHost tech support was extremely prompt in assisting me with the setup of all this customer's special needs during the migration ... i.e. shared SSL, htprotect, etc. A number of features didn't work from the control panel, and JodoHost tech support was quick in getting everything working so I could migrate this site over a 3-day weekend. Kudos to Tanmaya for the prompt replies to my tickets.
Posted by Yash-JH, 12-09-2007, 04:30 PM
davef139, regarding PayPal emails, I believe our tech team has a fix to that issue. Please open a ticket if you are experiencing it. Those PayPal emails are most likely being flagged as SPAM, if your spam settings are too high. levelmeasure, I once again reiterate that the problems you are facing have nothing to do with our email systems or infrastructure. We have ZERO complaints of the nature you are reporting. Emails do not vanish. They either are flagged as spam (you can check your spamfolder, or disable spamchecking) or they get bounced back with an error message (no RDNS, RBL, are some reasons). Mail7 and Mail8 are identical servers, and are used by both Linux and Windows accounts. We have redundancy built into our systems to ensure mail is pooled incase a mailserver is ever down. Our email systems handle over 1 Million emails/day. If email truly went missing, we wouldn't be in business right now. We at JodoHost have always understood email to be the most important and business-critical aspect of our services. However, that said, I am glad that you are not seeing the same issue anymore, so far. I do not know what caused it, but if a change in mail server helped you, I am glad. Tanmaya as well as the rest of our team are always happy to assist you with any problems (email or other). Last edited by Yash-JH; 12-09-2007 at 04:38 PM.
Posted by doppess, 12-11-2007, 09:03 PM
Yash, this conversation is a perfect example of the pointless dialogs I've been stuck in for the past 11 months. Denying there is a problem makes it impossible for you to fix anything. If there were no problems with email then my clients would not complain, I would not request tech support, and you would not have more than 4,000 posts to the Email Support section of your customer forum. Every service provider is going to experience problems at some time. The real test of a good provider is how they respond to those problems. Denial is not a particularly effective approach. I had to be accountable to my clients and accept the blame because they buy their hosting from me. In the same way, I expect you to be accountable to me because I buy hosting from you. The problem is that you accept no responsibility, instead you make excuses that you can't recreate the problems, there are no problems for anyone on your servers but me. Do you honestly think people reading this will believe that? Who are you trying to convince? Not me, because I know better. You know it's not true as well. So, you're trying to white wash you reputation in the forum. Guess what? Your attitude here is hurting you more than anything. I've got a lot of respect for Jodohost, the web servers have been very stable. Some of my clients have had stable email as well, but about half have had problems even with all the spam filters and antivrius filters turned off. Ultimately, I should not have had to close my client's account an open a new one in order to try to fix their email problem. It was an unnecessary inconvenience for my client and myself. It's hard for me to understand than you don't have a better handle on email service that this.
Posted by Yash-JH, 12-11-2007, 09:20 PM
levelmeasure, my position on this issue has never changed. You haven't understood how email systems work, and have consistently blamed any email failure on your host, when there are many variables involved with it. We have consistently found no trace of emails you report went missing, ever being received by our servers My staff has spent countless hours researching your problems, and I doubt any other host would take the time and trouble to do so. If there is a problem ever with our email systems, we notify our clients and are always upfront and open about them. I am sure every client of our's will testify to that. 4000 posts on our forum in the email section doesn't mean there are 4000 problems. Infact, there are zero complaints in our email section that mirror the problems you are facing, over the length of time you are reporting them. I am equally tired of having to pursue this argument with a client, but I have to defend our reputation on this forum, because the problems you are reporting are not representative of our services. If our email services were really that bad, we would not have an open forum, and we would not have the sort of loyal client base we currently have. We wouldn't be adding hundreds of clients each month, and we wouldn't be hosting over 25,000 end-users on our system. Last edited by Yash-JH; 12-11-2007 at 09:27 PM.
Posted by doppess, 12-12-2007, 03:23 PM
Yash, I'm sure everyone here understands exactly where you're coming from. You've made your position very clear. There never were any missing emails, no one but my clients have ever claimed there were any missing emails, and no matter what happened it's not JodoHost's fault. The good news is that the problems disappeared once I moved these clients onto an different email server.

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