Picking a host for your website is probably one of the most important things you’ll ever do. And fate forbid that host goes down, you’ll need all the support you can get. Actually, all you really need is somebody that is willing to investigate the issue in a timely manner, and timely is the category that Leaseweb’s technical support fits least in to.

Yesterday (Monday, 25th July ’08) the server stopped responding. I know I paid my bill because I have a receipt, so surely they haven’t cut it off?! Panic set in, there were people trying to access the server, I have two business clients relying on that server – one for the website, okay so that isn’t too bad, and the other for email! Lucky for me it’s the end of the working day, except – oh no, Leaseweb’s technical support is closed. They’re not in my time zone either, of course they can’t be blamed for that, it was my choice to rent a server outside of my country after all.

I power cycled the server, but still after five minutes of waiting my ka-billions of pings received no word from the server. At this stage just about every scenario is running through my head – the kind of scenarios where you imagine all of your work being swallowed by quick sand. I actually almost had a panic attack, and promptly (and I hasten to add unfairly) bit my wife’s head off. I didn’t realise that the stress of a server going down could cause me to feel this way. And now, I’m in their hands.

I email Support to tell them my server is inaccessible… I wait, and wait… and I wait some more. But no reply, not for Steve. The one waiting. The one literally peeing his pants because he needs that server to come back online. And finally, more than four hours later, I receive a reply! Quote:

Could you send us the login credentials to check this?

What? Are you kidding me? I thought they’d have this stuff logged! They sent me the password in the first place! And hold on, if they need the login credentials, the server must be up and running right? Well, I emailed them the password to the root account (which they defined originally anyway) and sat patiently on a reply. At this point you’d think they’d prioritise your ticket given your server is entirely inaccessible and they should ultimately be liable for issues that are their fault. But even after sitting up half the night, a reply seemed as likely to arrive as the real life postman delivering mail at three in the morning.

I decided to try to sleep – luckily, a kind gentleman at webhostingtalk.com offered some hosting services to me for free. I only really needed the mail server, and that was a relief. I couldn’t thank him enough.

I awoke at gone 9AM, to find an email I had just recently received. Looks like the server had been online since approximately 8.45AM. Good timing on my part, bad response time on theirs. But the response time is nothing in comparison to the response.

Dear costumer,

 

After replacing the UTP cable your server is back online.

Don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions.

 

 

Kind regards,

 

*** ***** ******

LeaseWeb – Hardware Support

You have got to be kidding me. I can forgive the bad spelling and grammar, but that isn’t the issue here. We all know there will be language barriers when we’re working with people in another country. But to report that the server’s network cable was the cause of all this trouble – and to rub it in I had to wait more than 24 hours for the network cable to be replaced? The server, hosted in a datacenter, had a faulty network cable? Now, that is a hard one to swallow. I’ve never had to replace a network cable unless it has been interfered with, and unless Leaseweb have their network cables trailing to the floors of the datacenter I just don’t see how they could possibly be damaged. But more troubling to me is the fact that the server obviously wasn’t running during the time I couldn’t access it because my main site’s scheduled task didn’t log its work. Any other time where the server has remained live but inaccessible to the net I have had proof that this task has continued processing. I’m not suggesting Leaseweb are liars, but wait, actually, I am. But not officially, I don’t want to be sued, I just feel it’s a bit conspicuous.

There are definitely unanswered questions that, to be honest with you, I just cannot be bothered to ask because I have no faith in their support system or honesty. The first issue I had with this server was a disk crash, to which they did not apologise or offer me a refund, or any other kind of compensation. Their motto was “shit happens” – not in those words, but you catch the drift. I feel as though I had SUCKER written across my forehead.

A big downside to this is that I’m scared to use services in other countries now, I’ve almost become prejudist because of this experience. I’m sure that not all Dutch hosting services are like this, but I was hestitant to go outside of the UK in the first place, you can only imagine how I feel now.

I cannot recommend Leaseweb for a mission critical application. If your server going down equals loss of business (which presumably it would if you’re willing to fork out the money for a dedicated server in the first place), I recommend against renting a server with them with all my heart. I will be looking for a new host as of now, and this time I’m going to get one in my own country – I feel as though I have more leverage being that to sue them I don’t have to cross the border.

If you’re going to be looking for a host, check out www.webhostingtalk.com to get the low down on all the providers.

Has anybody else had an experience, good or bad? Let me and any other readers know by leaving a comment.

UPDATE: I am no longer a Leaseweb customer – after another crash, I decided it was time to vacate their data centre. I am now a member of Liquidweb, a US hosting company with a good reputation, and their service has been amazing. I can’t recommend them enough; stay tuned for a review.