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.