GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - a tale of 7 years of hosting problems

basschick · 11-13-2003, 04:35 PM

when we started in this business, we started to promoted our phone sex lines. we got our first domain and found a host reading computer magazines.

after a couple months, i asked our host if he thought our package was sufficient to host adult sites. i was beginning to see a lot of traffic. he said yes. the next month, a bill for $1200 - mostly overages - arrived. so we found our first adult host.

they charged $100 for 30 gig, which actually was quite good then. they were nice, in the biz, and we got going. then their provider started having massive problems with slowages. it got to be an industry joke. it lasted till they moved their servers.

then the industry got busier and $100 per 30 gigs wasn't good enough. we got a top level virtual account with the host of a friend who i had seen a lot of people host with. after a month, he said we had to get our own server. i ran out and bought one and fedexed it to him. things were good for a while.

then our sites got slow. i emailed him, and he said that they were having problems being worked out with sprint. i said okay, let's see how it goes.

well, another month in, when all our galleries in the world had been taken down 'cause of slowness, and he didn't answer my emails, i got ahold of his "secretary". the guy said the owner of the company had forwarded his phone to the secretary's house and stopped contacting him. he was getting calls day and night asking what was going on, and he had no idea. he also told me (never could be sure) that the server i fedexed was not being used for our sites - that this guy got lots of us to send servers, kept us on virtual and used the servers for other things.

be that as it may, we decided it was past time to move. i found a place run by two guys that said they'd charge us $600 a month for 1mbps, which at that time was good. they also got us set up before our money reached them. i was so grateful - i sent them some dedicated customers, and always spoke very well of them. i still think they're really nice guys.

over a period of time, the fact that there was no 24 hour support caused a couple problems. also when i got there, they had no experience except with nt, so i was on an nt server which caused a lot of problems. and then bandwidth went down. they were letting me have up to 1.5 mbps for my money, but that was no longer competitive and things were getting to be a problem.

i talked to a friend and we agreed to share a server at another host that was extremely well spoken of on the boards. they said they'd upload our stuff, and told me it went fine, but in reality they missed a lot of my stuff - especially galleries, which got deleted off all the tgps once the name servers had changed. then within three days, we started seeing downtime.

they let us out of the agreement, which i really appreciated.

we moved to datahosters, and although we had the occasion problem, overall this was the best hosting i had experienced in all these years. then came the fateful day that frank at datahosters decided to give up his hosting business.

we agreed to be moved to candidhosting and frank said he'd set up our server himself. and then he disappeared.

we were getting close to the time we needed to be on the new server, so i contact mark at candidhosting and he put me in touch with one of the guys setting up the servers. this guy worked his ass off to get our server up to specs for us, and he actually worked without sleep on this massive migration for 3 days.

then on easter night, i got a call. someone working for datahosters went in and was working on all the servers, and was changing stuff in ours. it was too late to stop him by the time i heard.

once our domains came up, it became evident in minutes that the new file structure the guy set up didn't work. candidhosting support busted butt to get that straightened out.

but over the next couple of months, problems came up. the guy had reconfigured our apache, candid thought we wanted it that way, but it didn't work that way so they'd make minor changes which would fix the problem till the next showed up. finally an admin at candid luckily got mad about this apache, and when i heard, i had them totally reconfigure.

the long and short is that without these hosting problems, our income would be at least double what it is. every time we've had a long downtime, more of our galleries and sites get pulled down from where they're listed. we've been blacklisted from some good link sites and tgps. our last problem i watched our daily traffic drop 50%. old galleries still make sales, and not having them up removes that piece of our income. and each time our galleries start getting archived, we have another hosting problem and they're gone.

i guess i'm just venting. with good hosting, i would have time to spend on other projects. our income would be bigger. i'd spend less time worrying.

good hosts = good business!

11-13-2003, 04:35 PM
basschick Confirmed User Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: el lay, ca usa Posts: 2,540	a tale of 7 years of hosting problems - loooooooong post when we started in this business, we started to promoted our phone sex lines. we got our first domain and found a host reading computer magazines. after a couple months, i asked our host if he thought our package was sufficient to host adult sites. i was beginning to see a lot of traffic. he said yes. the next month, a bill for $1200 - mostly overages - arrived. so we found our first adult host. they charged $100 for 30 gig, which actually was quite good then. they were nice, in the biz, and we got going. then their provider started having massive problems with slowages. it got to be an industry joke. it lasted till they moved their servers. then the industry got busier and $100 per 30 gigs wasn't good enough. we got a top level virtual account with the host of a friend who i had seen a lot of people host with. after a month, he said we had to get our own server. i ran out and bought one and fedexed it to him. things were good for a while. then our sites got slow. i emailed him, and he said that they were having problems being worked out with sprint. i said okay, let's see how it goes. well, another month in, when all our galleries in the world had been taken down 'cause of slowness, and he didn't answer my emails, i got ahold of his "secretary". the guy said the owner of the company had forwarded his phone to the secretary's house and stopped contacting him. he was getting calls day and night asking what was going on, and he had no idea. he also told me (never could be sure) that the server i fedexed was not being used for our sites - that this guy got lots of us to send servers, kept us on virtual and used the servers for other things. be that as it may, we decided it was past time to move. i found a place run by two guys that said they'd charge us $600 a month for 1mbps, which at that time was good. they also got us set up before our money reached them. i was so grateful - i sent them some dedicated customers, and always spoke very well of them. i still think they're really nice guys. over a period of time, the fact that there was no 24 hour support caused a couple problems. also when i got there, they had no experience except with nt, so i was on an nt server which caused a lot of problems. and then bandwidth went down. they were letting me have up to 1.5 mbps for my money, but that was no longer competitive and things were getting to be a problem. i talked to a friend and we agreed to share a server at another host that was extremely well spoken of on the boards. they said they'd upload our stuff, and told me it went fine, but in reality they missed a lot of my stuff - especially galleries, which got deleted off all the tgps once the name servers had changed. then within three days, we started seeing downtime. they let us out of the agreement, which i really appreciated. we moved to datahosters, and although we had the occasion problem, overall this was the best hosting i had experienced in all these years. then came the fateful day that frank at datahosters decided to give up his hosting business. we agreed to be moved to candidhosting and frank said he'd set up our server himself. and then he disappeared. we were getting close to the time we needed to be on the new server, so i contact mark at candidhosting and he put me in touch with one of the guys setting up the servers. this guy worked his ass off to get our server up to specs for us, and he actually worked without sleep on this massive migration for 3 days. then on easter night, i got a call. someone working for datahosters went in and was working on all the servers, and was changing stuff in ours. it was too late to stop him by the time i heard. once our domains came up, it became evident in minutes that the new file structure the guy set up didn't work. candidhosting support busted butt to get that straightened out. but over the next couple of months, problems came up. the guy had reconfigured our apache, candid thought we wanted it that way, but it didn't work that way so they'd make minor changes which would fix the problem till the next showed up. finally an admin at candid luckily got mad about this apache, and when i heard, i had them totally reconfigure. the long and short is that without these hosting problems, our income would be at least double what it is. every time we've had a long downtime, more of our galleries and sites get pulled down from where they're listed. we've been blacklisted from some good link sites and tgps. our last problem i watched our daily traffic drop 50%. old galleries still make sales, and not having them up removes that piece of our income. and each time our galleries start getting archived, we have another hosting problem and they're gone. i guess i'm just venting. with good hosting, i would have time to spend on other projects. our income would be bigger. i'd spend less time worrying. good hosts = good business! __________________ Got Gay and For Women Traffic?