More Web Hosting Nightmares
Things went from bad to worse since my last post about the problems I’ve been having. What started as a minor problem with random error pages turned into the site being completely down. Yesterday we hit rock bottom and I was about to lose my flipping mind.
I mentioned the other day I was moving to a new host, which I did. One was recommended to me for it’s ability to run Zen Carts without problems. That was my biggest concern, so I went ahead and set up an account. I’m sure this host would have been fine had they done things right, but they didn’t. Let me explain…
Moving websites is a hassle yes, but in theory you should have no down time. When you buy just hosting, generally you get some type of welcome letter that has “important information” in it. This includes your nameservers (which you set from the account where your domain name is), username/password, and temporary addresses where your site is. That temporary is the IP address where your hosting is. Yes you can log into it just like you would a normal site before you even think of changing the name servers. You upload your files, make sure the site works on the new host, THEN change the nameservers. No visitor even sees a switch.
The host I moved to earlier this week did not send that welcome letter (stated I “should have gotten it”, but made no attempts at resending…just said they “forwarded it to their tech department”….still waiting!) I had nothing but the billing manager to log into. Nice I could pay them, but not get to my site. Hmm. I will give them credit for good customer service though…sorta. They did answer my ticket pretty quickly, and state they would move my site over for me. Great! Although when I asked if I would have problems like I did before, those questions were ignored. Not great. So I gave them the information to move the site over anyway (stupid on my part), thinking it might be alright. The fact I had to ask for the nameservers should have been my first clue.
Yesterday I woke up to the entire store down. Since I did not have that temp address I couldn’t check before changing the nameservers. Well I found out when the domain resolved - NO shopping cart. Great. Apparently they didn’t move the site by hand, but in one big lump. Of course databases aren’t going to work right. So I decided to do a fresh install of Zen, and upload my database thinking that would solve the problem. Nope. I assumed there was something wrong with their database and opened another ticket. They assumed there was too, finally telling me they’d have their “tech support” look into it. Ah ok, who was I talking to then?
Since it looked like I was going to have to start from scratch, I decided to go with a less hassle shopping cart - CubeCart. That was a joke to say the least. Things that were already on Zen I had to hunt for, and most weren’t free. Not to mention I had to fight for at least an hour just getting shipping to work right. *SIGH*. Frustrated beyond belief, I took my kid to Tae Kwan Do class thinking maybe a fresh mind would have a better solution. And it did!
Assuming there was problems with this host, I went off looking for another when I got home. HostGator has been raved about so I decided to give them a shot. I got my welcome letter immediately, so already score one for them! I did the same thing I had done earlier - fresh install of Zen with my database, but still the same results. So it hadn’t been their database after all, but rather the way it was being moved. That would have been nice to know 12 hours prior! I went and found help files for Zen, and figured out EXACTLY what I was doing wrong. Within an hour or two, I had my entire site restored on the new host. HURRAY! Oh yeah, and all this done before I changed the nameservers no less, which I did before I went to bed. 
So when I woke up this morning, I was greeted with a fully functioning site. BIG sigh of relief. While I won’t completely recommend HostGator just yet until I see if there’s any problems with the cart, I will say I wish I would have moved to them a long time ago. It really would have saved me a big headache.  :roll:
Increasing in Him,
Kara
Topics: Business Stuff |