Hostgator deleted my database

[ginger]

I'm not usually one to post on message boards and rake people through the coals, but I feel this one needs to be addressed.

I run a commercial site that I"m just getting off the ground at www.MyTripReport.com. I've worked very, very hard for the past six months on this site in the hopes that it will take off and be able to help keep me home with my kids along with a couple of other sites I have, and my home business...anyway, I digress a little.

My site is entirelly php and database-driven and dependant. Well, it appears hostgator was moving servers, co-locating or something, as as usual I was not informed of any activity (as I was not informed of my web stats package changing). In the process somehow my database was completely deleted, which means over 600 members' information, over 4000 destinations, and over 300 trip reports from around the world ....poof! gone. And thus, my database-driven site was gone offline, leaving just the barren white screen with one lonely message to greet those who visited.....No database selected.

I woke this morning and happened to check my site, thank goodness. I live in the Pacific time zone, so I'm sure a few hundred or so viewers saw this message before me. Not good for business, as I get thousands of page impressions a day, and I pay hundreds of dollars a week in advertising to drive visitors to my site. And this is the third or fourth down time period my site has had with hostgator in the past five months. Is that 99.4% uptime? I dunno, my math isn't that great....

I'm not at all happy with hostgator this morning, and will be searching out a more reliable host this afternoon. I have a cool reminder to myself now to backup my database more often, which is good though. But at the same time, I really should be able to feel more confident in my host, and at this time hostgator is not instilling that confidence for me.

I think perhaps the worst aspect of all of this is that no-one from hostgator even acknowledged me by email to apologized or offer any kind of retribution. My live converstaion with "Monica" went well...she remained calm even when I did not. Thank you "Monica". But shame on you hostgator, for not even sending an apology.

[GatorBrent]

9 minutes after you emailed us we responded asking for your sites database that failed in the transfer.

8 minutes after you responded your problem was fixed / nothing lost.

Not for a minute was your site down. Your database was down till you contacted us reporting it.

As the email we sent out stated.....

"If you are having any problems as a result of this move please notify us immediately. We our extremely sorry for the inconvenience and we assure you this move was done in your best interest. We aren't able to disclose all the details yet, but one of the main reasons of the move was to avoid a planned outage in your current section of the datacenter which could have resulted in days of downtime. I thank all of you for your patience and continued support of Hostgator. "

Your server has had over 99.9% uptime since you joined us. %.01 is around 40 minutes downtime a month.

I'm sorry for your problem you had today. No hosting has a 100% uptime, and if you are expecting that from us you won't get it. What we can give you is the 1 minute monitoring we have on all servers, and when there is a problem we are at working fixing it instantly.

[ginger]

This doesn't negate the fact that my site WAS offline for a long period of time, hours in fact.

FYI, a php site that is database driven and dependant, IS offline when it's database is missing. Without a database, it is no longer a site. Without a database, a page is not even displayed, just the message as I stated........No Database Selected. (I'm not a beginner here....I"ve been a software engineer for a few years).

Also......your apology DID NOT come until AFTER I posted this message here. I can appreciate that accidents happen, but really this is the mother of all accidents. I should have received that email warning of the move long before, don't you think? I just don't think it should have been treated like "just something that happens" :roll: . I think it would have been more valuable to me to have heard Hostgator tell me yes, they made a huge mistake, oh my gosh, how could they have done that, and they are so sorry.

[GatorBrent]

You posted here minutes after your support ticket was opened. Woudln't have been able to apologize for something we didn't know about. We are sorry , we are sorry when anyone ever has a problem. We don't like problems they cause us headache, and eat up time.

If it helps you were told sorry before we saw this post. I wasn't even notified of it till when I posted yesterday.

If you ever have another problem open a ticket or call us up, and we will help you as soon as you do. If the ticket is taking to long call... You'll get someone on the phone.