Made to pay for their mistake

[snappermorgan]

I have been with HG for a while now and have had little to no problems. I have always been pleased with the amount of offerings versus the price, but sometimes it only takes one incident to turn someone off and this may be one of them.

I have a reseller account and one of my clients has about 5 web apps that use Mysql. Their site went down yesterday and after some investigation it turned out all the .idx files that MySql uses for its database files were now missing. Since we do not have access to any of the mysql datafiles I could not fully diagnose the problem, instead relying on PhpMyAdmin to report the error to me. This error only appeared when I would try to execute any command against their databases. All the tables show up, but once you click on them, you get a file not found error.

After submitting a ticket, I got a response a couple of hours later saying that all was well and it must have been a temporary glitch. Well, it appeared the tech only clicked on each database and not the tables, and since he didn't see an error message then that was as far as he was going to go.

I quickly emailed him back and explained the situation again, making it clear exactly what the problem was. And I waited. No response, even after another email that stated for the second time how critical it was to get this fixed.

I finally received a very nice apology email THIS MORNING, and to top it all off, the files were gone. They were corrupted and the data was lost. But for only $15 I could have a database restore from last week's back up.

So let me get this straight. HG loses all my data, and then tells me I need to pay $15 to get it from last week's backup? I got an apology and an upsell in the same email. It almost sounded like an insurance racket.

Well, I sucked it up and paid the 15 dollars and miracle upon miracles, I got a response under half an hour that the restore was complete. Wow. money does talk.

But the restore didn't work. Same error. I have no way of knowing if the restore happened at all since I was told this would fix the problem. And since it didn't do a thing, I sent another email. No Response. Another Email. No response.

I finally found an old backup of all the databases and restored them myself just to get the web apps up and running, albeit now out of date. I sent another email asking them to not overwrite my databases if they should do a proper restore, but I have yet to see a response.

In fact, that is a theme I have found here, the sometimes/often blackhole of communications. In my case, I was asked to pay a fee I feel should have been eaten by HG since it is their fault the data files are missing. I'm not asking them to recoup any of my lost revenue. All I ask is that they act out of good faith. Making me pay for their mistake is not good faith. And the problem still isn't fixed, nor does it look like my $15 did any good.

At this point, I would be happy with a $15 refund and an apology. As a customer for close to 2 years, I have felt ignored and brazenly taken advantage of.

For anybody here who wants to look up my ticket, the id is: GTV-675800

[GatorBrent]

Hello,


I would be happy to refund you the $15.00 but what makes you sure the data corruption is our fault? Data corruption can happen with perfect hardware, and is infact usually the cause from the script being used or user error.


If this was something caused by the server it would have most likely affected everyone on it. This did not happen as I would be the first to know about it.


Backups are done over the weekends, and when we do a restore all we can do is restore from the last backup done. This would have meant the corruption existed also at time when it was last backed up.

Please pm your ticket on the restore as well as any questions you have.


Thanks!

[snappermorgan]

Thanks for the offer. I have already accepted the refund. Let me take a moment to explain my frustration.

The applications that are installed on this account are 5 years old and have been using Mysql this entire time. They used to reside on another host but two years ago I moved to hostgator. They have always worked without flaw and are actually commercial php directory applications. My trust in them is really solid considering at one time I had ten of these applications running, all using mysql.

It is possible the application caused the corruption, though without any code modification i don't see how. It may have been a hack, but if the hacker could get into the database then he got into my client's web account also, and I don't have remote access set up for Mysql and the account had not been hacked.

The problem was that all the index files were missing. Every database on this one account had all their index files missing, as if the data folder that held them was erased. Now, I don't know if this was the case, but I was told that they were corrupt by technical support.

I understand that the backup could have restored a previously corrupted copy, but unfortunately my client checks this website everyday as it is a revenue generating site. So, unless he was lying to me, then the corruption happened that day.

I don't know what caused the problem. it could have been hardware or a file system corruption. I understand that these things happen. I am a programmer for a firm that has enterprise level web applications that eat up tens of thousands of dollars in co-location fees, so I understand intimately all that can go wrong.

The point is, I had a client who was seriously ticked off and I had no answers due to the poor communication. And after practically begging for an answer, I'm told all the data is lost and I'll have to pay for a restore which had no effect. And then I was left in the dark again with no responses. I was fed up.

I am staying with Hostgator because I have had no problems except this one. I know these things will happen, I just want you guys to work a little bit more on having your tech team at least respond to posted tickets instead of having 12 hours go by without a response.

[GatorBrent]

Index file being a .html right? If so I am positive this is not corruption but an exploit probably from bad permissions on either the page or the folder. This is VERY common amonst customers and actually has nothing to do with us or the server.

Think of it like you buy one of the worlds best vault from us. (our server/hosting) But get everything stolen out of it from leaving the vault open.


Please let me know if we are talking about a .htm .html or .shtml


What exactly do you mean by "index file"

[snappermorgan]

I'm actually talking about neither. The index file I am speaking of is the .idx file that resides with all of the other database files within the MySQL "data" folder. It is the index of the table in your database. The error message says that they were missing though tech support told me the databases were corrupted. All of them. These files are only accessed my MySQL and not a php script. If they become corrupted its not through bad programming or permissions as this is comparing apples to oranges.

Think of it as the dll files in your system folder of your operating system. You don't ever access them directly, but rather, your applciations and operating system access them. If they become corrupted it is because the application failed, the Operating System failed, or the Hard Drive failed. The failure being any number of things.

So, if this is an exploit then you have bigger problems than someone gaining entry to my home folder. Since the data and index files of a database are only accessible by mysql, admin or root, then you have someone rooting around where they shouldn't. And this is why I was upset when I was asked to pay. Yes, it is everyone's responsibility to back up, but if the failure is on your end, then there should not be a charge for the remedy.