Thanks for the input, Bruce. It is hard to know what their motivations are but I have dealt with many webhosts and you know when you are getting candid and direct responses and not ones taken from 1001 Ways to Avoid Telling the Truth.
We had the site down again today and this is the report from the webhost: - I checked the website and I found that it is returning the index.php file as a download-able file instead of parsing it through PHP. - Please allow me some time to review the server configuration and locate the source of the problem. Then later: - It seems like the problem in this case was caused by incorrectly set handler for the PHP scripts. I removed the handler from the .htaccess file and your website is now working properly. I've discovered that mod_bwlimited is used exclusively for cPanel but I don't know exactly what it limits. I have also found one other instance of the above downloading php file problem: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=386325 and it is definitely a server build problem. I guess for cPanel (and whm) to act as an interface for all the php settings then they would hold a primary place in any server build that uses them. This host advertises that it hosts 80,000 Joomla sites. Maybe they have little trojan horses that randomly sabotage Drupal sites! We are being very careful to be polite and not tell them that we are vamoosing. You had bad experiences with GoDaddy? I've had similar with HostGator. Their technicians make you feel like you are a genius. Some of these outfits should just be upfront and say "Sorry, we don't offer any support services. If your server works, you're lucky. If it doesn't try some other hosting megalith". On Mar 12, 11:53 am, Bruce Clement <[email protected]> wrote: > Assuming they are rational, and fairly competent there's a number of options. > > Building from scratch shows either they are trying to squeeze as much > performance as possible out of their hardware or they are using a > distribution like Gentoo or LFS where that is the norm. It's possible > that they don't know how to configure their server properly. I choose > to pay $8/month for directadmin on my production server & other than > easy management of users, one of the big reasons I have it is it does > custom builds specifically designed to support web hosting. I'm not > sure I'd want to be doing my own builds. > > If they are trying to squeeze as much performance as possible these > days then either they live in a low labour cost area where hardware > and/or electricity is relatively a lot more expensive or they are > running very huge numbers of servers. > > The evasive answers suggest one of: > * they are incompetent, > * they know there are severe problems because of the way they > designed their setup, > * they are only interested in retaining customers who fit a narrow > set of needs & your customer has just gone outside their parameters, > or > * they are so big they just don't care about their customers except > in bulk ... ask me one day over coffee about my experiences when I > hosted with Godaddy starting as an emergency measure when my hosting > went west 48 hours before flying out of the country for a month's > holiday in India. > > Word to the wise ... get fully set up on the new host with DNS > switched over and resolving globally before telling them you are > leaving. I've heard too many stories of smaller hosting companies > pulling the switch as soon as the client gives notice of ending > hosting rather than waiting until the end of the already paid period. > > Bruce > > On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 9:16 AM, Kent Parker <[email protected]> wrote: > > [Long tale of woe] > > -- > Bruce Clement > > Home: http://www.clement.co.nz/ > Twitter: http://twitter.com/Bruce_Clement > Directory:http://www.searchme.co.nz/ > > "Before attempting to create something new, it is vital to have a good > appreciation of everything that already exists in this field." Mikhail > Kalashnikov -- NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug To post, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected]
