Back up again

The server just came back up again. I guess that it was just 1and1 taking it down to swap the drives into another server. I'll have to wait and see if this solves the problem of the crashing every three or four days. I hope so, I'm really tired of getting up in the wee hours of the night every few days to reboot the server…

Down - to replace server?

The server at 1and1 just went down again. Hopefully this is just 1and1 taking it down to move the hard drives to another server as they emailed an hour or so ago. There's no way to tell at this point.

Back up after maintenance

The server is back up again after the memory checks. The 1and1 tech emailed that the memory tests passed. He's put in a request for the hard drives to be put in another server to see if that solves the problem. I tried to get the other techs at 1and1 to do this almost four months ago when the crashes started but they refused.

Down for memory check by 1and1 tech

The 1and1 techs have just taken the server down to do memory checks.

No badblocks found

The badblocks scans of both hard drives requested by the 1and1.com tech turned up no bad blocks. I emailed the tech the results a couple of minutes ago.

Up again for now

They got it to reboot finally about 23 minutes ago. I've been talking to 1and1 support about the server's history since then. The person at 1and1 seems more inclined to replace the server but asked that I run a bad block scan on the drives and send it to him first. It'll take several hours to complete. It's running in the background now and I'll check the results when I get up in the morning.

Since it's 6 AM there no one is around who can give me the contact info for their corporate hq.

They put me on hold

I talked to 1and1's tech support and told them to reboot the server. I've also asked how to contact their corporate hq in Germany since the American operation either can't or won't fix the server.

I've now been on hold on my cell phone for 14 minutes. The server is still down.

What a surprise, 1and1 server down again

1and1 has proved once again just how bad a hosting company it is. The server that their techs "fixed" has crashed again a little over a day later. Even knowing that this server has been crashing every few days for four months didn't get them to fix anything. Even after they read the server's history in this blog a little over a day ago they still wouldn't replace the server. I know they read the blog because the person I talked to on the 26th went to it while I was talking to him. They apparently don't know enough about servers to fix anything. Or maybe they just don't care. I'm going to try to get hold of their corporate headquarters, I think it's in Germany.

For now I've put in another call to what they laughingly call "tech support" to see if I can get them to reboot the server again.

Up again

The server is back up again. 1and1 got it to reboot. Since it's been a week or so since I backed it up I just did a backup and copied it to both another 1and1 server and to my server at godaddy.com.

Now that I can see the logs it looks like it actually went down around 2:40 PM. I just didn't notice it until a little after 5 PM.

Now we'll see if they do anything to make the server not crash every three or four days.    :^(

I miss the "good old days" when it was economical to run small hosting companies. It used to be great to just get up and walk down the hall to the server room if there was a problem. Now it just doesn't make sense economically unless you have hundreds of servers. At the largest we only had around a dozen physical servers on a T3 and hosted around 800 domains.

Called 1and1 about lockup

I called 1and1 tech support about the server lockup. He opened a trouble ticket (131545308) and said they'd see what was wrong. At least this time I'm talking to the data center in Kansas instead of the Pennsylvania office. Maybe talking to someone who can physically touch the server will make a difference. I gave him the URL to this blog so they could see what's been happening. I emailed it to their sales, support, billing, complaints (manager), and even the press rep but that was months ago and it doesn't sound like they put it on the account record.

Down again and won't reboot this time.

The server at 1and1.com just went down again. I tried to reboot it but it still didn't come back up.

1and1 hosting server down again after two days up

The server at 1and1.com just locked up again. It's been two days and a few hours since the last crash. That's sooner than the average which is around three days between lockups. 1and1.com's management claims that this is normal for a linux server and won't repair or replace the server. Unless I've lost count this is the 30th crash since early February.

1and.com server crashed after 4 days this time

The 1and1.com server crashed again a few minutes ago. It stayed up for slightly more than it's average, four whole days since the previous crash.

A new record, 1and1.com server up for 11 days!!

The crummy server I rent from 1and1.com appears to have a new record, it stayed up for 11 whole days. It's average is around three or four days up between crashes. 1and1's servers are the most unreliable ones I've seen in the twelve years since I registered my first domain and setup my first web server.

Only up a short time

The 1and1 server locked up again. It's been less than 24 hours since the last crash. Lowest quality server I've ever had. What they call tech support is the worst too.

Rebooted again.

Down again

The 1and1 server seems to be getting worse and crashing more and more. It just crashed again.

Can you say crappy server?

I knew you could. At least you can if you rent a server from 1and1 hosting at 1and1.com. 1and1's servers are the most unreliable servers on the internet. The one I rent has crashed 25 times since the 2nd of February. That works out to around a crash every 3 1/2 days. 1and1's so called tech support claims that you have to prove it's a hardware problem before they'll repair or replace the server. Of course, there's no way to prove it without having physical access to the server. And only they have access to the data center the server is located in.

Crash number 24

The server I rent from 1and1 hosting (www.1and1.com) crashed again. The name 1and1 hosting is a synonym for unreliable hosting. :^(

This is the 24th crash in three months. 1and1 won't repair or replace the server because it can't be proved that it's their fault. They claim that Linux (CentOS 5.2 actually) is so unreliable that websites crash it. The same websites ran without a problem for over five years on the FreeBSD operating system. I have several other Linux servers (including one using CentOS 5.2) and none of them have any problems. The problem here is either their hardware or something they did wrong in setting up the OS on the computer.

Down again, naturally

The 1and1 Hosting server locked up again about 10 minutes ago. I waited to reboot it to see if it would unlock in 5 minutes the way it did the last time. It didn't so I rebooted it a minute or so ago.

1and1.com must be the worst hosting company in the world. This server has been crashing periodically since I started trying to use it in late January. The problem was reported to 1and1.com tech support on February 2nd but their attitude is "not our problem". They claim you have to prove it's their fault the server is crashing before they'll do anything. Let's see, it's their server, they installed the software on it, and it's in their data center. Whose fault could it be? 1and1 Hosting just refuses to accept responsibility for the servers it provides.

Oh, by the way, this is the 23rd time the server has locked up since I started counting in early February. If you're looking for an unreliable hosting company, look no further than 1and1.com. If you actually want your website to stay up (unreasonable expectation, I know) then go somewhere else.

Locked up and unlocked without rebooting

The 1and1 server stopped responding about 5 minutes ago. I tried to ping it and got no response. Then I tried to ssh into it, unable to connect. When I connected to the serial console it had the same thing on it as some of the other lockups:

RAID1 conf printout:
--- wd:2 rd:2
disk 0, wo:0, o:1, dev:sda7
disk 1, wo:0, o:1, dev:sdb7

and it wouldn't respond either.

By the time that I logged into the 1and1 control panel to tell it to reboot the server the server started responding again. It began to respond to pings and let me ssh into it. I thought maybe it had been rebooted by someone else but the uptime command says 25 days so it didn't reboot.

I don't know what could make it stop responding for 5 minutes and then resume normal operation. With both the network and serial console not responding it should have been dead until a reboot. I hate this crummy server. I've got to make time to move the remaining sites to another server so I can dump this one.

Server down at 1and1 hosting for the 22nd time

Unfortunately, the server has been down this time since around 6:30 am. It's around 8:00 am now so it was down for about an hour and a half. Usually I catch it and reboot within a few minutes. This time I was up late programming and didn't wake up when the server monitor running on my laptop went off. I've had to sleep with the laptop next to my bed for the last month and a half (since Feb 2nd) because 1and1 refuses to repair or replace the server. Their support rules don't call for replacing a server that crashes several times a week. For them it's apparently normal for servers to crash that often. That and they play the "blame game". They claim it's the customer's fault the server is crashing. However, they can't explain how it could be my fault the server is crashing.

Fortunately, all of the DNS has been transferred to another server. Also all the email and most of the web sites. I've also transferred all of my domain registrations from 1and1 to goDaddy. The last 10 domains should complete transfer in the next few days. This weekend should see the transfer of the few remaining websites to the new server and then I can abandon this piece of junk server from 1and1.com.

1and1 hosting server is down for 21st time

The server I rent at 1and1 hosting went down again a few minutes ago. This is the twenty first crash since I started trying to use the server around the 2nd of February.

All of the email accounts and most of the websites have been moved from this unreliable server to a server at goDaddy. I hope to get the remaining sites moved this weekend.

1and1 hosting server is down for 20th time

The server that I rent from 1and1 hosting is down again. This is the 20th time it's crashed since February 2nd. It stayed up for 3 1/2 days this time.

1and1 Hosting has refused to repair or replace the server. They claim it's the customer's problem if the server keeps crashing. They say that you have to prove the crashes are their fault before they'll look at the server and consider fixing or replacing it.

I'm about half way through moving from 1and1 hosting to goDaddy. Because of other postings on the web about problems with 1and1 hosting I'm transferring all the domains I have registered through 1and1.com to goDaddy.com. Others have posted stories about 1and1 holding domains registered with them hostage because of other disputes with them. To be safe I'm moving all my domains to goDaddy.com even though it's costing me around $300.00 in transfer/renewal fees.


Once again before rebooting the serial console showed only:

RAID1 conf printout:
--- wd:2 rd:2
disk 0, wo:0, o:1, dev:sda7
disk 1, wo:0, o:1, dev:sdb7

1and.com server only stayed up 15 hours this time

I hope this isn't a trend, the server crashed again after only 15 hours. It's been going around a week between crashes lately. Much better than the 2 or 3 crashes a day a month ago. Anyway, I had to reboot it just after 8 this morning and now just before 12 at night it locked up again and I had to reboot it.

The 1and1 web server has crashed 19 times since February 2nd. 38 days divided by 19 crashes is an average of 2 days between crashes. 1and1 web servers are really unreliable. The 6 year old server I had at Hostway went for years between reboots and even then it didn't lock up, I just rebooted it because of software upgrades.

The 19 crashes in 38 days figure doesn't count the 6 or 8 crashes before they replaced the hard drive. Since then the logs show the following reboots:

Feb 3 21:09:23
Feb 4 15:49:29
Feb 4 21:24:33
Feb 5 05:05:07
Feb 5 13:05:00
Feb 10 05:46:24
Feb 11 05:59:42
Feb 13 17:20:54
Feb 14 00:53:56
Feb 14 18:01:01
Feb 15 21:37:32
Feb 19 15:54:07
Feb 19 20:26:18
Feb 26 00:41:51
Mar 5 07:53:51
Mar 9 18:14:18
Mar 14 08:14:48
Mar 14 23:56:23

1and1.com server down again

Well, the server is down again. I've given up on 1and1.com as a web hosting provider. I'm slowly moving the websites and domain registrations over to another provider. It's ridiculous that 1and1.com's policy is that you have to prove to them it's their fault that the server is crashing before they'll replace it. The fact that it keeps crashing would be a clue to anyone with at least half a brain.

Once again before reboot the serial console showed only:

RAID1 conf printout:
--- wd:2 rd:2
disk 0, wo:0, o:1, dev:sda7
disk 1, wo:0, o:1, dev:sdb7

Server at 1and1.com down again

I just had to reboot the unreliable server that I rent from 1and1.com. It's crashed again and again since I rented it. I tried to get it replaced through 1and1's tech support but they insist that they won't replace it because there's no proof it's their problem. They provided the server and loaded the operating system but claim they're not responsible if it doesn't work right. Reputable hosting companies repair or replace servers that crash. After 1and's tech support refused I emailed their complaints address (management), sales, billing, tech support, and even their press contact. No one was willing to do a thing about it crashing.

The serial console was locked up but showed this before the reboot:

RAID1 conf printout:
--- wd:2 rd:2
disk 0, wo:0, o:1, dev:sda7
disk 1, wo:0, o:1, dev:sdb7

Unreliable 1and1.com server crashes again

The software I'm using to monitor the defective server 1and1.com provides just notified me that the server has crashed again. By 1and1 hosting's standards this server is great, it stayed up for a whole week before it crashed this time. Once again, the logs and serial console show no reason for the crash. I rebooted it again

It's hard to imagine how 1and1.com stays in business with their normal server being this unreliable. Their management insists that they're not responsible if the server they provide crashes all the time. Nor will they repair or replace it. I get the impression that they don't have anyone on staff who knows enough about webservers and the linux operating system to troubleshoot problems like this.

Defective 1and1.com server crashed again

I just had to reboot the defective server that 1and1.com is providing again. However, it is a new record, the server stayed up a whole 7 days between crashes. The previous crash was on the 19th. In the beginning it was crashing several times a day. Then it started crashing around once a day. This time it went a whole week before it crashed again.

1and1.com's management insists it's not their problem if a server crashes. How they came up with that I don't know, they provide the server hardware, they chose, configured, and installed the Linux operating system on it, and they provide the network connection. I've been working with Unix and Linux computers as long as they've existed (back to the old Dec minicomputers) and the only reason a Unix/Linux server crashes is either a hardware problem or a problem with the operating system. User programs like the Apache web server can crash themselves but not the whole operating system. 1and1.com's tech support is so inexperienced with Unix/Linux that they claim the web software can and does (at 1and1) often crash the entire server.

The brand new server at 1and1.com is apparently inferior to a 6 year old server running an outdated version of the FreeBsd operating system that I had at Hostway. That server ran these same websites and a lot more and never crashed in 6 years. Around once ever year or so I made some change to the configuration and deliberately rebooted it but other than that it was always up.

1and1.com server didn't stay up long this time

The shitty server 1and1.com provided just crashed again. I rebooted it.

A new record, 1and1.com server up for 4 whole days

I think we have a new worlds record, the 1and1.com server actually stayed up for 4 days! Actually I think we're about 6 hours short of 4 days but who's counting. Of course, a server with a reputable hosting company would stay up for years but for a 1and1.com server this is good. The ancient server I had at Hostway was never down unless I deliberately took it down for software upgrades.

As you may have guessed from the above the server just crashed again and I rebooted it. Nothing on the serial console this time.

1and1.com server crashes again

The server at 1and1.com locked up again and I had to reboot it. How 1and1 can continue to claim it's not their problem escapes me. The servers we had before at Hostway ran for more than 400 days between reboots and those reboots were deliberate because of software updates. The 1and1 servers need to be rebooted daily because of lockups.

Before the reboot the serial console had this on it:

RAID1 conf printout:
--- wd:2 rd:2
disk 0, wo:0, o:1, dev:sda7
disk 1, wo:0, o:1, dev:sdb7
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any key to continue.
Press any

Down again

The server I rent at 1and1.com just went down again. I just rebooted it. 1and1.com is the most unreliable hosting service in the world.

Down again

The server at 1and1.com just locked up again. I rebooted it again.

Another day, another lockup at 1and1.com

I just had to reboot the server I rent from 1and1.com again. Just like the other times it just locked up. No error messages, nothing. Even the serial console is dead.

It's now been 11 days that the server has been crashing almost daily. Sometimes two or three times a day. 1and1's position is that I have to prove that it's their hardware before they'll replace it. They don't seem to care at all that the server is unreliable. They count on the fact that there's no way to prove it's the hardware. They claim that it's the websites crashing the server. The websites had all been up for over 400 days on a 6 year old server with no downtime. I guess the "new" servers from 1and1.com aren't as good as a 6 year old server from Hostway.

If you're thinking about hosting at 1and1.com I recommend you don't do it. Not only do their technicians not seem to know what they're doing, their management is so unethical that they won't replace a server that continues to crash.

Emailing 1and1.com management again

I just emailed 1and1.com again about the server crashing. Once again I emailed the complaint address I got from tech support, sales, billing, support, and their press contact.

A free month of hosting on an unreliable server that crashes every day really isn't much of a deal. The fact that 1and1's corporate policy is not to replace or fix a server that crashes constantly amazes me. Any reputable hosting company would correct the problem, not offer discounts.

I can only hope that at least a few people will read my blog entries on 1and1 and not do business with you.

Harold Hankins
http://1and1hostingproblems.blogspot.com/

1and1.com server down again

I just had to reboot the server again because it locked up.

Anyone looking for hosting should stay far away from 1and1.com. It's stupid, they want to give me a free month of hosting to make up for the server crashing all the time. They won't fix the server the way any reputable hosting company would, they just want to give me a discount because the server is unreliable. Unbelievable.

Server at 1and1.com down once again

I guess I spoke (typed?) too soon about the server not locking up anymore. It just did it again.

I've been working on websites for 12 years (my first domain was registered in 1997) and I've never have such an unreliable web host. In all the years I was at Rackspace and later Hostway I never had any significant down time. The one time there was a problem Hostway replaced the server immediately. 1and1 doesn't even seem surprised or concerned that the server is locking up. It appears that unreliable servers are the norm at 1and1.com. While their website would make you think they're a commercial web host, their support is more geared toward the casual website. One that it doesn't matter if it's down.

still up!

It's been almost 4 days since the last time the server locked up. I haven't done anything to it and the logs don't show 1and1 having done anything either. It worries me not knowing why it was going down or why it's staying up now.

For now I guess I'll just keep monitoring the server and see what happens.

A reply to my email

I just received a reply to my email to complaints@1and1.com.

Thank you for contacting us.

I understand that you've been upset with our technical
support team. This is something that I can only
apologize for. This is an aspect of our service that
we're always trying to improve. This is why your
feedback is so important to us. We can now look through
and see where and if we made mistakes. Then, we can
look into making sure that this doesn't happen again.
Again, we can only apologize for this frustration that
you've suffered.

We want to apologize for this downtime. As well,
as a sign of good faith in our working relationship,
we have since added a free month of hosting to your
package.

If you have any further questions please do not
hesitate to contact us.

--
Sincerely,
Zachary Lambert
Customer Service
1&1 Internet

1and1.com server dies again!

At 1:02 pm I noticed the server was down again and restarted it. I've lost count of how many times it's locked up. I think it's now locked up more times after 1and1 "repaired" the server than before they worked on it. It's certainly locking up more often now.

1and1 still hasn't contacted me about the problems I emailed them about last night. I guess they never will. At any reputable hosting company a server that crashes again and again would be a top priority. 1and1.com's management apparently doesn't care about their customers.

No response to my emailed complaint

There's still no response to the complaint I emailed 1and1 last night. 1and1 management apparently doesn't care enough to even respond to complaints about poor service and servers crashing constantly. Or maybe they get so many complaints like this that they can't respond to them all. You'd think one of the six recipients would be professional enough to respond.

And it's locked up again!

At 5:00 am I got up to check on the server and it was down again. I restarted it and went back to bed. This getting up every few hours to check on the server gets old quick.

Feb 5 05:05:07 ns1 syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

Down again

At 9:20 pm I noticed the server was down again and restarted it.

Feb 4 21:24:33 ns1 syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

Emailing 1and.com management about the server problems

At 7:10 pm I emailed everyone I could think of at 1and1 telling them about the problems. I emailed the complaint address I got from tech support. I also sent the email to sales, billing, support, and their press contact. I even sent a copy to the press contact in Germany since that's where their main office is.

from Harold Hankins
to complaints@1and1.com, info@1and1.com, billing@1and1.com, support@1and1.com
cc press@1and1.com, presse@united-internet.de
date Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 7:10 PM
subject Poor support - Customer ID 8544991

I've been a 1and1 customer for domain registrations for around 5 years. The server I was using at Hostway was getting old, we'd had it for 6 or 8 years. I decided to switch to 1and1 for hosting since the domain registrations were there. BIG MISTAKE. Since I started loading websites on your server 3 days ago the server has been down more than it's been up.

Your company has no competent support. The technicians in the data center replaced the ram in my server yesterday around 3 am and never even bothered to check if the server booted up when they were done. It was still down when I got up at 6 am. I called tech support and got the only good support I've gotten from you. The tech booted the server in recovery mode, found that the file system was corrupt and couldn't be fixed with fsck. He had me make a backup that was current and put in an order for the data center techs to replace the drives and re-image the server. They worked on what should have been a 2 hour job for 11 hours. From 7:30 am until around 6 pm. Any competent tech having that much trouble trying to load the os would have realized there were problems with the server and replaced it. I then spent a couple of hours getting the most critical websites back up. It ran until around 11:30 am and locked up again. I found out around 3 pm and called tech support again. He wanted me to back up the server again and reimage it. Said that you need proof that it's a hardware problem before replacing the server. That was just stupid, it took the techs on site 11 hours to reimage it because they had problems. After talking a while the best he could suggest was that I order another server and move to it and that he'd waive the cancellation fees on this server and credit back the startup costs. That's even stupider. Why should I put out the money to order another server and wait for it to be credited back. Any reputable hosting company would fix the problem.

You can probably guess what I'm going to be posting on my blog and other forums about 1and1.

Harold Hankins
(702)xxx-xxxx

--------------

1and1.com server down again

At 3:49 pm I found server was locked up again. I rebooted the server and checked it's log files. From the log entries it locked up at around 11:40 am. As with the previous lock ups there were no entries in the log to explain why the server locked up.

I called 1and1 tech support again and told them the server was still having the same problem as before they worked on it. He wanted me to backup the server again and to re-image the operating system again. He claims there's no proof that the server is bad so they won't replace the server unless I order another one. Apparently at 1and1 a server that crashes three or four times a day is still considered a good server.

I told him I'd contact the company's management tomorrow morning and complain about the bad service.

For now I'll have to just get up every few hours all night and check the server.

1and1.com techs are incompetent

Around 3 am 1and1.com's data center tech replaced the ram in the 1and1.com server and never bothered to check if server booted back up when he was done. It didn't. Anyone even marginally qualified to work on a server would have made sure the server came back up.

When I got up around 6:30 am I noticed that the server was down and called 1and1.com's tech support. The tech found that the file system was corrupt and tried to fix it using the fsck utility. It couldn't be fixed so he asked that I make a current backup so they could replace the disk drives and re-image the server's operating system. He estimated that it would take about 2 hours to complete the drive replacement and re-image. This was the only person at 1and1.com I've talked to who seemed to know what he was doing.

I made the best backups I could with the damaged file system and at 7:30 am I called 1and1.com tech support and told them the backup was done and they could work on the server. The data center tech spent all day replacing the drives and re-imaging the server. I called them every few hours to check on the status of the repair and was told they were having problems getting server to re-image. They spent all day (10.5 hours) trying to get the server back up. Any good technician would have realized that the server had more hardware problems and replaced it with a new server. Not at 1and1.com, you have to prove that the hardware is bad before they'll replace the server. They won't accept the fact that it locks up three or four times a day as proof that the server is bad.

They were supposed to phone and email me when they finished but they never did. At around 6:00 pm I noticed that server had just come back up and I reloaded the most critical websites and got them back online.

1and1.com finally emailed me at 10:55 am the next morning to let me know that they were done.

The start of problems with 1and1.com hosting

I found the server down and called tech support at 1and1.com. He told me how to reboot through control panel and said they would run diagnostics on the server. I asked that they work on it midnight - 3 am pacific time when usage is lower.

Feb 2 07:15:38 ns1 syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

I also noticed in the logs the following reboots earlier:

Jan 5 15:35:09 ns1 syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

Jan 28 08:47:39 ns1 syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

Jan 31 18:36:35 ns1 syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

Feb 1 11:01:23 ns1 syslogd 1.4.1: restart.