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Smallweb - Dev NULL :(
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Smallweb - Dev NULL :(

Signed up for smallweb a month and a half back and got this today. Lost all my sites that were on that server!

Dear Customer,

Earlier today the server hosting Los Angeles website data suffered a
networking failure which prevented it from connecting to a network and
performing standard tasks. Attempts to restore the network were made
but ultimately after the server being offline for such a prolonged
period of time we attempted to re-install the server and possibly
migrate backups elsewhere.

However it was discovered that our system backups for this location
were not suitable to be restored and thus unfortunately we are
announcing the IMMEDIATE CLOSURE OF SHARED-LAX1.

I am extremely disappointed in myself for having to deliver this news
to you and this is not how I wanted 2020 to start but I would like to
learn from this experience going forward to improve our other
available locations.

Because we can no longer deliver your service you are entitled to a
full refund. To claim a refund, please respond to this email or open a
support ticket. Your refund will be processed within 7 days and your
LAX service will no longer be accessible through your client area.

If you have any questions, please let me know. I am extremely sorry
for this disastrous event.

«1

Comments

  • However it was discovered that our system backups for this location were not suitable to be restored

    @Mic-hael I think you need to provide a clear explanation for what happened. This is vague.

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Corrupted backups or non-existence backup or too old to use.

    Name your poison, there are aplenty.

    Thanked by 2yoursunny Janevski
  • DPDP Administrator, The Domain Guy

    😮

  • Were the backups not verified before the OS reload was initiated? I'm also curious how a network issue caused you to have to rebuild the server. Also, 1 server goes down and you close that site/location?

  • hzrhzr Member

    You got a 100% refund, that's more than they needed to do. Keep your own backups.

    Thanked by 1kspll7
  • MichaelCeeMichaelCee Barred
    edited January 2020

    The script I use to transfer backups to a remote location included incorrect labelling which transferred backups of "LUX" to the "LAX" destination. Unfortunately there was not a deep enough confirmation before the reload.

    Because of this, more reliable methods for backup retention need to be implemented. For those servers powered by the Cloud, I will be setting up automatic drive backups direct with my providers where applicable. As well as that, I will be increasing my redundancy for these backups and implementing stricter and clearer policies going forward.

    The events of yesterday are extremely disappointing and ones I never wish to repeat.

    For affected clients, I offer a new service in our other locations or a full refund and thank you to those whom I have spoke with personally for your support. I hope to do better.

  • tester4tester4 Member
    edited January 2020

    @hzr said:
    You got a 100% refund, that's more than they needed to do. Keep your own backups.

    Pretty bad way to look at something. User should have kept own backups but ultimately I shouldn't need to expect to walk in one day to a service provider saying we had to reinstall an entire server because we couldn't get the network to work properly, without checking their own backups before doing so and just offering a refund as compensation....

    And no, a 100% refund is 100% what they NEEDED to do - your comment about them not needing to do that is just stupid.

    FYI: Not saying anything against you @Mic-hael - shit happens, just pointing out the flaws in this reply.

  • @hzr said:
    You got a 100% refund, that's more than they needed to do. Keep your own backups.

    I think that's the least they could do.

    Thanked by 1MichaelCee
  • @Mic-hael said:
    The script I use to transfer backups to a remote location included incorrect labelling which transferred backups of "LUX" to the "LAX" destination. Unfortunately there was not a deep enough confirmation before the reload.

    Because of this, more reliable methods for backup retention need to be implemented. For those servers powered by the Cloud, I will be setting up automatic drive backups direct with my providers where applicable. As well as that, I will be increasing my redundancy for these backups and implementing stricter and clearer policies going forward.

    The events of yesterday are extremely disappointing and ones I never wish to repeat.

    For affected clients, I offer a new service in our other locations or a full refund and thank you to those whom I have spoke with personally for your support. I hope to do better.

    If you ran a test of your backup script prior to deployment, you would have seen that the Lux backup remote destination directory is empty and correcting the spelling in your script is a trivial matter. It sure sounds like you didn't test the location backup procedure prior to deployment.

    Offering full refund is the right thing to do. However, assuming your account is right, it is a very damning indication of your ability to provide reliable service, and I am sure you have no ambition to become a second-class provider.

  • @tester4 said:

    @hzr said:
    You got a 100% refund, that's more than they needed to do. Keep your own backups.

    Pretty bad way to look at something. User should have kept own backups but ultimately I shouldn't need to expect to walk in one day to a service provider saying we had to reinstall an entire server because we couldn't get the network to work properly, without checking their own backups before doing so and just offering a refund as compensation....

    And no, a 100% refund is 100% what they NEEDED to do - your comment about them not needing to do that is just stupid.

    FYI: Not saying anything against you @Mic-hael - shit happens, just pointing out the flaws in this reply.

    Whether you're saying shit about me or not it's very much applicable. As @poisson says a refund for a lack of service is the very least I could do.

    Thanked by 1poisson
  • If you ran a test of your backup script prior to deployment, you would have seen that the Lux backup remote destination directory is empty and correcting the spelling in your script is a trivial matter. It sure sounds like you didn't test the location backup procedure prior to deployment.

    You are right that I did not fully complete a test of this script for the LAX location and this is my wrong doing.

    Offering full refund is the right thing to do. However, assuming your account is right, it is a very damning indication of your ability to provide reliable service, and I am sure you have no ambition to become a second-class provider.

    I absolutely have no ambition to provide a service that isn't top quality. I am going to devote more of my time to properly sustain remaining services and ensuring reliability is met and that this never happens again.

    Thank you for your comments.

    Thanked by 2poisson webcraft
  • @Mic-hael said:
    The script I use to transfer backups to a remote location included incorrect labelling which transferred backups of "LUX" to the "LAX" destination. Unfortunately there was not a deep enough confirmation before the reload.

    Because of this, more reliable methods for backup retention need to be implemented. For those servers powered by the Cloud, I will be setting up automatic drive backups direct with my providers where applicable. As well as that, I will be increasing my redundancy for these backups and implementing stricter and clearer policies going forward.

    The events of yesterday are extremely disappointing and ones I never wish to repeat.

    For affected clients, I offer a new service in our other locations or a full refund and thank you to those whom I have spoke with personally for your support. I hope to do better.

    Perfect response!

    Only suggestion would be to put more of that in your notifications to customers (this is what happened, these are the steps we're taking to correct it, these are the steps we're taking to prevent it from happening again, and this is what we're going to do to compensate you). The email that OP shared kind-of read like "we messed up, here's your money back, sorry".

    I'd still buy from you in the future after that response 👍

  • Admitting to human error takes much more integrity than simply issuing a refund, and Mic-hael did it quickly. It doesn't change the past, and I'm sure he feels badly for his customers, but at least he was transparent about it. In addition, he never blamed or hassled his customer for starting this thread. A mistake ending with a class act is the best case scenario here.

  • Shit happens, everybody here has experienced human error before. @Mic-hael will learn from this and be better. Downtime always sucks, data loss sucks more, but it's not life and death.

    Thanked by 2DA_Mark uptime
  • DPDP Administrator, The Domain Guy

    I’m sure @Mic-hael will learn a lot from this incident to improve himself and also to improve the quality of his services 👌🏼

    Thanked by 1MichaelCee
  • Rip my £2.5/yr shared hosting. Fortunately I only host a few demos on it.

    So there will be no more shared hosting in Los angeles? Can I get a similar plan in one of your other locations?

  • IonSwitch_StanIonSwitch_Stan Member, Host Rep
    edited January 2020

    https://status.gandi.net/timeline/events/2109

    They charged customers for backups and lost them. Thanks for the honesty about your outage and not sugarcoating it. I’d respect a provider that said “we made a mistake, it was this, here’s a full refund we’re sorry”.

    Not a whole lot more sword to fall on there.

    and I am sure you have no ambition to become a second-class provider.

    He charges like $1/year. I’d expect something different if It cost more than a cup of coffee a year.

    Thanked by 1maverickp
  • YmpkerYmpker Member
    edited January 2020

    Let me start by saying I don't want to offend anyone with this and I feel for everyone that lost their work and had no backups. I sincerely do..but:

    Shit happens and I am sure @Mic-hael will learn from this moving forward. That being said, anyone that hosts something of only a tiny bit of importance to him at a service that charges far less for a year of service than the minimum hourly wage of most of the countries of the developed world (or, you know, at the price of a cup of coffee) have in place, should have own backups. I commend @Mic-hael for being open about this incident and while a full refund is in line with what others can expect it's not to be taken for granted in such situation, adding to that the fact that I believe he advertises that backups are included in his plans.
    Even All-Inkl, a top-notch shared host I've used in the past did not include backups in their service back then and explicitly stated that they did their own backups for disaster recovery only and at an irregular time frame which sometimes could mean weeks or even months in between a backup. If Michael chooses to do regular backups for disaster recovery with a service at a price point of a cup of coffee that's something to be grateful for. That the integrity wasn't checked sucks, but you should never have to rely on a provider backup for important websites at that price point.

  • @Ympker said:
    Let me start by saying I don't want to offend anyone with this and I feel for everyone that lost their work and had no backups. I sincerely do..but:

    Shit happens and I am sure @Mic-hael will learn from this moving forward. That being said, anyone that hosts something of only a tiny bit of importance to him at a service that charges far less for a year of service than the minimum hourly wage of most of the countries of the developed world (or, you know, at the price of a cup of coffee) have in place, should have own backups. I commend @Mic-hael for being open about this incident and while it a full refund is in line what others can expect it's not to be taken for granted in such situation, adding to that the fact that I believe he advertises that backups are included in his plans.
    Even All-Inkl, a top-notch shared host I've used in the past did not include backups in their service back then and explicitly stated that they did their own backups for disaster recovery only and at an irregular time frame which sometimes could mean weeks or even months in between a backup. If Michael chooses to do regular backups for disaster recovery with a service at a price point of a cup of coffee that's something to be grateful for. That the integrity wasn't checked sucks, but you should never have to rely on a provider backup for important websites at that price point.

    Word

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • "What you pay is what you get" .. Some people think if they pay 3 pounds a year they can get full pro features. You all must realize that with lower costs comes lower specs because the provider for having that low costs needs to cut something. I did not read ToS of Smallweb, but it should be mentioned that the clients need to create own backups locally.

  • vpsGODvpsGOD Member, Host Rep

    closing down location dont justify the reason of data loss

    better try to offer service on same location. user may got service for the loc not for the Price.

  • @vpsGOD said:
    closing down location dont justify the reason of data loss

    better try to offer service on same location. user may got service for the loc not for the Price.

    Here's a deal,

    I'll provide 1 year of free web hosting for those who were affected by this incident.

    I'm not a provider, and this is all done out of my pocket as a courtesy, utilizing some of my idling resellers.

    Specs will be 1GB of storage and 100GB of BW, with unlimited specs (please use it reasonably) and without any kind of guarantee or backup (at least officially). They all include MailChannels, but these are not to be used as alternative to other email services (use MXroute for that).

    You can choose between 3 locations (LA and DE hosted by MyW, and LAS hosted by BuyShared).

    If you're interested, PM me with a screenshot with some kind of proof of service.

  • @sanvit said:

    @vpsGOD said:
    closing down location dont justify the reason of data loss

    better try to offer service on same location. user may got service for the loc not for the Price.

    Here's a deal,

    I'll provide 1 year of free web hosting for those who were affected by this incident.

    I'm not a provider, and this is all done out of my pocket as a courtesy, utilizing some of my idling resellers.

    Specs will be 1GB of storage and 100GB of BW, with unlimited specs (please use it reasonably) and without any kind of guarantee or backup (at least officially). They all include MailChannels, but these are not to be used as alternative to other email services (use MXroute for that).

    You can choose between 3 locations (LA and DE hosted by MyW, and LAS hosted by BuyShared).

    If you're interested, PM me with a screenshot with some kind of proof of service.

    Great offer :)

    Thanked by 2sanvit dahartigan
  • It's just a few dollars a year hosting service and the provider is offering 100% refund. Probably the best compensation a le customer can get.

    Thanked by 1kspll7
  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    True, it's easy to promise stuff with words. Delivering them is different.
    But then it's cheap. Then we will have those who claim to have lost in thousands, and therefore, demand compensation.

  • Thank you everybody for your kind words and comments.

    I posted a follow up describing the incident on my Twitter. I am in the process of communicating with customers for their intentions. A marginal amount including users at LET have urged for the location to be rebuilt. Originally this was not my intention because I felt a refund was owed for the data loss but it is an option I will be going over today.

    Thanked by 3uptime saibal vpsGOD
  • LeeLee Veteran

    niceboy said: It's just a few dollars a year hosting service and the provider is offering 100% refund.

    Just copying what I said on LES.

    Cost is not the issue, you pay what a provider asks you to provide the advertised service.

    Backups at a provider should never be seen as your only route to recovery but;

    Provider backups mean restoring all client accounts after a failure saves them time even if they do have their own.

    It could also be that the provider has a newer backup point which saves the client re-work.

    The most important take away here is that if the provider didn't even notice the backups were not happening in one location then they are not even being tested in any other location so assume they don't exist at all.

    Thanked by 1Limpan
  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    To troll on the misery,

    Smallweb - Small mind - Small ambitions - Small expectations - Small prices.

    Thanked by 1yoursunny
  • @sanvit said:

    @vpsGOD said:
    closing down location dont justify the reason of data loss

    better try to offer service on same location. user may got service for the loc not for the Price.

    Here's a deal,

    I'll provide 1 year of free web hosting for those who were affected by this incident.

    I'm not a provider, and this is all done out of my pocket as a courtesy, utilizing some of my idling resellers.

    Specs will be 1GB of storage and 100GB of BW, with unlimited specs (please use it reasonably) and without any kind of guarantee or backup (at least officially). They all include MailChannels, but these are not to be used as alternative to other email services (use MXroute for that).

    You can choose between 3 locations (LA and DE hosted by MyW, and LAS hosted by BuyShared).

    If you're interested, PM me with a screenshot with some kind of proof of service.

    Are these reseller idling on AlphaRacks? ;)

    Thanked by 1sanvit
  • @Mic-hael said:
    Thank you everybody for your kind words and comments.

    I posted a follow up describing the incident on my Twitter. I am in the process of communicating with customers for their intentions. A marginal amount including users at LET have urged for the location to be rebuilt. Originally this was not my intention because I felt a refund was owed for the data loss but it is an option I will be going over today.

    I still go with SmallWeb when I need shared hosting. The best support ever!
    Lesson learned, SmallWeb will be stronger!

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