Unscheduled Maintenance

[GatorBenF]

At this time, we are currently doing routine maintenance on the following boxes:

porsche.websitewelcome.com
puma.websitewelcome.com
ram.websitewelcome.com
ranger.websitewelcome.com
s2000.websitewelcome.com
saab.websitewelcome.com
santafe.websitewelcome.com
saturn.websitewelcome.com
scion.websitewelcome.com
sentra.websitewelcome.com
skyline.websitewelcome.com
solara.websitewelcome.com
taurus.websitewelcome.com
tbird.websitewelcome.com
thing.websitewelcome.com
tiburon.websitewelcome.com
viper.websitewelcome.com
vito.websitewelcome.com
volvo.websitewelcome.com
gator50.hostgator.com
tahoe.websitewelcome.com
gator54.hostgator.com
gator51.hostgator.com
gator52.hostgator.com
cobra.websitewelcome.com
gator56.hostgator.com
gator53.hostgator.com
highlander.websitewelcome.com
gator55.hostgator.com
mclaren.websitewelcome.com
gator58.hostgator.com
metro.websitewelcome.com
gator57.hostgator.com
sunfire.websitewelcome.com
gator59.hostgator.com
gator60.hostgator.com
duster.websitewelcome.com
gator61.hostgator.com
chevelle.websitewelcome.com
lancer.websitewelcome.com
gator62.hostgator.com
gator64.hostgator.com
gator63.hostgator.com
saleen.websitewelcome.com
maserati.websitewelcome.com
gator65.hostgator.com
gator66.hostgator.com
caprice.websitewelcome.com
gator72.hostgator.com
gator71.hostgator.com
gator68.hostgator.com
gator70.hostgator.com
gator67.hostgator.com
camaro.websitewelcome.com
gator75.hostgator.com
gator69.hostgator.com
hemi.websitewelcome.com
shelby.websitewelcome.com
fusion.websitewelcome.com
golf.websitewelcome.com
gator97.hostgator.com
gator73.hostgator.com
gator76.hostgator.com
datsun.websitewelcome.com
gator74.hostgator.com
matrix.websitewelcome.com
bugatti.websitewelcome.com
gator77.hostgator.com
gator181.hostgator.com
gator81.hostgator.com
omni.websitewelcome.com
superbee.websitewelcome.com
reliant.websitewelcome.com
gator78.hostgator.com
gator79.hostgator.com
gator80.hostgator.com
gator82.hostgator.com
gator83.hostgator.com
gator85.hostgator.com
denali.websitewelcome.com
gator84.hostgator.com
integra.websitewelcome.com
gator86.hostgator.com
enzo.websitewelcome.com
gator88.hostgator.com
gator87.hostgator.com
impreza.websitewelcome.com
stratus.websitewelcome.com
gator89.hostgator.com
gator90.hostgator.com
vanquish.websitewelcome.com
gator91.hostgator.com
gator92.hostgator.com
mr2turbo.websitewelcome.com
gator96.hostgator.com
smartcar.websitewelcome.com
gator93.hostgator.com
gator94.hostgator.com
gator95.hostgator.com
aerostar.websitewelcome.com

We apologize for this and thank you for your cooperation.

[dodgeboard]

Back up - thanks!

I realize unscheduled maintenance happens unexpectedly. As an IT person, I understand that. But may I make a suggestion?? I think you should change the default notification of "Under Maintenance" to something that looks a little more official.

I popped on to check my sites after being out of town all week, only to find this cheesy "Under maintenance" screen pop up. Looked like something put together by a 10 year old hacker. I truly thought all my sites had been hacked. My heart skipped a beat and my blood pressure went through the roof until the live chat support person led me to this notice. I seriously doubted this page was generated by the HostGator team as it did not in any way represent the usual error pages that HostGator normally generates.

Something that indicates it was a Host Gator initiated maintenance would be nice. The well known Gator would make it look official.

[striddy]

Originally Posted by dodgeboard

Something that indicates it was a Host Gator initiated maintenance would be nice. The well known Gator would make it look official.

But not for reseller servers of course.

[jill]

I agree. I thought the same thing - hackers. I've been hacked in the past - not fun.

Also, an email alerting us to the issue would be mighty nice.

[lschaef]

I agree. I thought the server was hacked as well and sent a support ticket to that effect before I checked here.

For us resellers it would be nice if we could create our own Under Maintenance page that would appear.

An email alert would be nice too.

[rez]

Originally Posted by striddy

But not for reseller servers of course.

Agreed. We don't want a Host gator logo, that would be horrible. But I'm sure that's why there isn't one, they know that. (hey no offense, it's a cool logo, ha.)

Well I'm just glad this was late night for me but an e-mail if possible, would be nice. Then again, this thread is titled "unscheduled". To bad the work I need to do is online only.

Oh well, it is a shared plan. I hope this concludes our 1% down time, ha. Hey by the way, 99% up time of what? A month? a year? It could be of 10 years all in one shot. That's a lot of down time, ha. Kinda reminds me of the old Dove soap ad. 100% pure.. pure what?

Not my fault I have this free time to babble...

[striddy]

Originally Posted by rez

Hey by the way, 99% up time of what? A month? a year?

It's per month.

This is from the reseller page.

We guarantee that your site will be up 99.9% of the time we host it. This guarantee includes both network and server failures. If your site isn't up 99.9% in any one month we will issue a full refund for the month.

[dbltoe]

It's like when you kid is lost at the fair. You're at first happy to find them and then, ready to kill them for getting out of your site.

I was relieved to find we weren't hacked, but pissed when the first line of the post said routine maintenance and I was not even notified by email.

AND>>>> I just discovered that some pages are coming up with http://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/ as a link on the page.

[rez]

Hey, thanks striddy. Good to know. I didnt notice that over a year ago. I kinda wondered as I was typing it if it was detailed somewhere. Looks like its not maintenance anyway.

So what about the Dove? Pure what?

[rez]

hmmm. Does say routine doesnt it? I guess i slept through this in the past. I will be using my account wayyyy more this year. I'll have to read up on the "routine" of when and how long. Yikes, I'm not ready for a dedicated yet.

[rez]

well I'm back up. Good luck to you all. btw, it would be nice of a hacker to write "routine maintenance" as he deletes your drive when he could write, "this site sucks" or something, ha.

[sneggiwt]

I have a feeling anytime hostgator has servers go down, they quickly load that page and call it "unscheduled maintenance" so that it's not included in the downtime guarantee.

[rez]

Originally Posted by sneggiwt

I have a feeling anytime hostgator has servers go down, they quickly load that page and call it "unscheduled maintenance" so that it's not included in the downtime guarantee.

Well that's a disturbing thought. Do you experience the maintenance screen a lot? Or are you just simply concluding this because it is possible to do.

[sneggiwt]

This is the first time I've seen the screen, but given past issues I've had with hostgator, and some shady stuff that they've done, it wouldn't surprise me at all if that's what they did.

Also, my site has been down for 5 or 6 hours now. This isn't routine maintenance... what the hell is going on?

[cah]

I'm in gator90. My site is up now but unable to connect to mysql. I hope this can be fixed soon.

[fuzzfree]

Hello

mysql errors appear in SOLARA in various sites (various tables are in use) and the scripts are not working.

Can anyone check this? Probably restart mysql?? It is impossible to check 1 by 1 every db

[slapshotw]

Originally Posted by rez

Well that's a disturbing thought. Do you experience the maintenance screen a lot? Or are you just simply concluding this because it is possible to do.

sneggiwt's idea about it being a sham is unfounded and untrue...Do you think it's more likely that all the servers in the list happened to go down at the same time, and Hostgator took the time to put up some temporary page and lie about it instead of fixing them, or that they had to make a security update to all of them and so decided to do them together at off hours?

-Matt

[virtvir5]

Unfortunately, currently common business practices and "commercial ethics" (oxymoron?) do tend to create a lot of cynicism amongst end users. In my experience so far, Host Gator appears to be a notable and very refreshing exception. In general, it seems safe to accept what they tell you at face value.

[plagarto]

My box wasn't in the above list yet I also experienced the "maintenance" screen. The problem is that now I'm getting database errors like "crashed" tables and others.

Could somebody explain a little what kind of maintenance was done to understand what was messed up?

[slapshotw]

Did you file a ticket with support yet plagarto?

[plagarto]

No. This just happened 30 minutes ago.

[ws-ns]

Originally Posted by lschaef

I agree. I thought the server was hacked as well and sent a support ticket to that effect before I checked here.

For us resellers it would be nice if we could create our own Under Maintenance page that would appear.

An email alert would be nice too.

Spot on!

Definitely the email alert - even if it were just before the event would be great - so we could check emails and find that it was happening.

I wonder if it isnt done too early as it might be a security issue, where nasties might be able to take advantage during what might be a week link (nothing to be sure here) but would explain the consistant LACK of fore-warning.

Generally I have been very pleased with HG so little down time - they do need to have some maintenance time for sure - well done to the system guys for the good ship we all sail in.

And our own maintenance page would be a real smooth selling point (for HG) and help us resellers look better too.

Not the case at the moment - as we dont know about it unless online at the time (we were this time) or one of our clients call us to ask what is happening (very embarrasing if we dont know).

Would also be great to have some kind of time frame - even an guess-timate would be good - or nicer yet - like my ISP - regular updates as the event happens.

My two cents worth
PH

[rjhoward]

I don't understand how maintenance can be both 'routine' and 'unscheduled'.

[inmongo]

I agree - the notice looks like a hacker. My heart skipped a beat as well.

[flyingfox]

I'm generally happy with HG but as others have said we really need to be informed if there's going to be maintenance.

For my business, as for most others I'm sure, it stops everything else workwise when this happens and we have to field phone calls, try and work out what's happened, reassure customers etc.

Would also love brandable outage screen.