Hostmysite.com
May 27, 2008Very unhappy with current provider and they are a very attractive company.
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HostMySite / LiquidWeb
Jan 4, 2009We need to move couple of sites from their current platform. If you had to pick either HostMySite or LiquidWeb, which one would you choose for shared hosting?
It will be nice to have Pros and Cons
HostMySite VPS 1 Year Review
Aug 15, 2008One year has gone by since we bought our hosting plan at HostMySite (HMS) and I thought I'd post another review. You can read my previous review here (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=659594)
The Short Of It
We have 2 IIS Coldfusion VPS (CF VPS+ plan). The first one we had was originally just a CF VPS (for developing) but we later changed it over to a CF VPS+ (more ram, more space, etc). This VPS is 1 year and 1 month old. Our production VPS which currently hosts our website is a healthy 1 year old. The reliability has been great and we never had any speed or performance issues.
We are very happy at HMS. We have had very little issues with the our VPSes and those issues are usually resolved very quickly. Anytime we needed support, it was overall always quick and helpful. We recommend HMS to anyone who needs a Windows VPS.
Security and Friends
The SSL certificate we purchased from our previous host expired so we bought a new one via HMS. At first the order we placed was apparently processed by them but wasn't sent to the issuer for processing. We didn't find out until we sent a ticket in wondering about the status. They immediately processed it for us. Except for the fact that they processed it for 1 year when we bought it for 3. So another ticket flew across the internet and flew back to us just as quickly resolving the problem.
They asked if they wanted them to install it and we emphatically said yes. They installed the certificate and we were set. Or so we thought. We began having issues with our merchant account not being able to verify our SSL certificate. They forgot to add in the intermediate certificate so that third party processors can see verify it's legitimacy. This was resolved very quickly (faster than we expected) and we have not had issues with it since.
The One Thing
The only thing we'd like to mention was an incident that occurred several months ago. One day, out of the apparently gray clouds, for some reason our site could not be connected to. After shaking our fists futilely at the weather gods, we sat down and tried to figure out what was wrong. By doing the basic diagnostics to make sure it wasn't us or our ISP we cursed the Lunar Goddess and contacted HMS to see what was up. They fixed it but didn't tell us what the issue was. Apologies in the form of cup cakes to the Moon was issued.
The next day, the same problem occurred or at least we thought and was told it was the same problem. We could not access our site. This time we did both live chat and started a ticket (for documentation, last time we just called). In the live chat they stated it was an issue with the node and not specific to our VPS and they were working on it. They said it was the same issue as yesterday.
This is where it starts getting dicey.
They also responded via the ticket that the firewall was blocking the ports and not the same issue as yesterday. Now considering only one person has access to the VPS (via RDC) to make changes and he did not log in to make any changes to the firewall (why would we?) that explanation didn't even seem plausible. And the ports blocked (pretty much everything except FTP) didn't make any sense. We went back and forth, with me explaining that after several months of not touching the firewall after setup, why would we inexplicable block ourselves out? Why would we even touch the firewall? Also that it can't be a coincidence with the node issues yesterday and they had already stated it was the same issue.
After a bit of going back and forth, they finally came to the conclusion that the patch they applied to fix the node issue made changes to the firewall which caused the subsequent issue. While this explanation didn't exactly seem completely kosher, we weren't going waste more time asking for a better explanation.
Now given that the total "downtime" of both issues was about 5 hours we thought we'd see how much of a resistance they will put up for the uptime guarantee. The first issue we pretty much knew wasn't going to get any attention because according to their TOS, they will only refund for time it was down when you posted a support ticket. Since we did this over the phone, there was no documentation to speak of when it went down and when it got fixed.
As for the second issue (which did have a ticket) they stated that since the VPS was technically up, the uptime guarantee did not apply even if the problem was caused by them (they didn't specifically say that but it was implied). While we didn't expect anything from it and didn't bother to pursue it, that response raised some eyebrows. While within their rights, it did seem a bit "whoa". They did apologize and were very polite and respectful. It was pretty much what we expected in terms of responses.
The Train Ride
While the above issue may seem bad, it was a one-time event. These things can happen. We haven't had any uptime, access or server issues since that problem. Support is quick and helpful.
The site has been running fine for months with no downtime.
We are overall very happy with HMS and would recommend them to anyone who needs a Windows VPS.
Overall Rating: 9.5/10
Support: 9/10
Reliability: 9/10
Speed and Bandwidth: 10/10
HostMySite.com Unreliable Web Host
Mar 20, 2009Unbelievable how bad HostMySite.com has become. At one time they were pretty much at the top but there has been enough mistakes, bad service and lack of support on HostMySite.com's part to warn others. The most recent situation could have come out of a modern day Three Stooges skit. When I asked to have a host set up three were generated instead by billing.
When I contacted support about the web not showing he stated that he could see the files I had upload just fine. I looked in the HostMySite.com control panel and found the duplicate entries for the domain. When I contact support again, another technician said that he could see the HostMySite "under construction" page just fine - two different IPs. After finding the duplicate errors I requested that HostMySite.com remove the other entries so that the domain was using only one IP.
I received an email stating the reason for the conflict was due to duplicate entries and that the support ticket was forwarded to billing to remove the duplicates (no kidding). Long story short was nothing happened so I contacted them again and was informed that the support request was stuck in the billing queue - no one had looked at it. My deadline had already pasted (marketing).
More to that story but I sure would like to hear from others that may have had bad encounters from HostMySite.com.
Being one that has been around the block with internet marketing I can say that the original mistake could have been forgiven. The inability on their part to correct the mistake cause for concern. HostMySite.com's lack of concern for their mistake unforgivable.
HostMySite VPS Constantly Crashing Or Slow
Feb 5, 2009I give HMS VPS hosting two thumbs down. <--- flip those over
This VPS I am working with is constantly crashing or slow.
Seeing as pricing wise how they are a "premium" VPS provider, the service is anything.
(By service I mean the VPS service provided, their tech support is quick to respond, the problem remains, but they are quick to respond, usually it seems they just reboot the vps)
Does anyone know how many VPS's the put on one server?
Is there anyway from the command line to view my virtuozzo stats to see if their were any blocks? Ex. oomgarpages, numothersock, kmemsize, etc.
