control panel and mail down??

[Logan]

OK. We had originally thought this problem was due to ISP caching but we now realize this is due to a major DNS issue which we are working to resolve. We are hoping it would be fixed within the next few hours and all these problems will disappear. An announcement has been made in the Critical Alerts section.
...
The major DNS problem is with MSSQL4. All email should be coming in at the moment. Yorri, please try sending an email via Yahoo and tell me if it comes through. This problem should be completely resolved within a few hours as emails from some domains may still be rejected.

I was able to send myself an e-mail from Yahoo. Last night it bounced back, but now it appears to be working. But I still have to use the IP address to retrieve my mail.

 

[yorri]

We are looking into why that email bounced.

I'd just like to point to our record prior to undertaking this datacenter shift. Apart from one MSSQL3 problem, we were maintaining very high uptime on all our servers. The whole point of this shift was not only to correct the blocked IP problem but to be in a datacenter that our company has good business ties with. For example, in global compass, we were extremely limited in standby servers. If we had one available during the MSSQL3 problem, we could have had the server up in 30 minutes. In the new datacenter, we'd have alot of flexibility. We virtually have unlimited standby servers if we ever need them. We have flexibility in the IP addresses assigned to us, our IP blocks, server backups, etc. We have a very good emergency administration contract with them as well...

We have one more set of changes coming up very soon that involve the installation of better software (hordemail), installation of a new information system for downtime and server status and introduction of reseller packages. Once these changes are completed, I can guarantee you these sort of problems will be a thing of the past.

Well your prior record didn't helped me in all the problems of the datacenter shift nor did it help me with your problems yesterday. Telling me this does not make the problems go away nor does it make it less frustrating for a customer. For example, I still cannot connect to the control panel. So...you having more access to a standby server means little to me right now.

In addition, I was unable to check, receive or manage any of my services with jodohost yesterday or right now.

Regarding uptime....Your network page yesterday was showing uptime but it doesn't indicate problems with name servers and since your website was up yesterday, I am sure all the services like Hosting Assured will show that jodohost was up and running. This is the truth but it it misleading to the public as the uptime of Jodohost's website is not an indicator of how the rest of the services are running...Yesterday and today's problem is a perfect example of this.

I am sure it is not easy running a hosting business and it is probably inevitable that these sorts of problems do occur because these are the same downtime problems I have experienced at every host I have ever been with. The only difference between those companies and Jodohost is...

You own up to the problems AND You have excellent communication with your customers. This is the only reason I haven't jumped ship and probably will not over this but it will most likely prevent me from referring other people to your business as they remind me of the times email gets bounced back or when the website is down.

I don't know about others but I seem to have friends that get ticked off when my email isn't working and over the past couple years of bad web hosts it has happened a lot. Just like a musician who is only as good as his last hit...Web hosts are only as good as their last problem.

I am looking forward to the day when these problems are history but it is going to take more than this post to win back my trust and I certainly fear the next upcoming changes because it is obvious that you cannot guarantee smooth transitions.

 

[Yash]

Could you please describe the error you are currently facing with the Control Panel? Do you get a cannot find server error or a 500 error? Also, what other services are you having problems with? All services are running at 100%. We are still working on the name servers however

I'd also like to say that we don't hide anything from our customers or potential customers. These support forums are open and every potential customer can see these posts. We however do have plans to close this section when we introduce the new network status page. As I said, it would provide accurate data that it would pull directly from the servers. It would give accurate uptime stats as well as downtime information and would probably have a diagnosis module to help you solve common site down or mail problems without opening a ticket with us.

Hopefully, we'll have some new faces here at JodoHost as well that would allow us to distribute the support load and provide something close to 24x7 support. This is all planned for September along with new software such as HordeMail

This is something we are not rushing into. The datacenter shift was extremely important because many customers were complaining about our IPs being blacklisted. The September changes are just to better our existing services and are nothing close to the complexity involved in a datacenter shift.

 

[Mike]

Well, this datacenter shift didn't go as well as it should have but I do appreciate their effort. How many companies can afford setting up parallel servers and then having data transfered and synced while all the sites were live? I think JodoHost put too much effort in planning and less in testing.

Is (or was) this DNS problem related to the DC shift because isn't it over?

 

[Yash]

This problem seems to have been caused when we turned off the redirect scripts. So technically yes, it was a result of us doing the last step of the DC shift.

 

[yorri]

Could you please describe the error you are currently facing with the Control Panel? Do you get a cannot find server error or a 500 error? Also, what other services are you having problems with? All services are running at 100%. We are still working on the name servers however

I'd also like to say that we don't hide anything from our customers or potential customers. These support forums are open and every potential customer can see these posts. We however do have plans to close this section when we introduce the new network status page. As I said, it would provide accurate data that it would pull directly from the servers. It would give accurate uptime stats as well as downtime information and would probably have a diagnosis module to help you solve common site down or mail problems without opening a ticket with us.

Hopefully, we'll have some new faces here at JodoHost as well that would allow us to distribute the support load and provide something close to 24x7 support. This is all planned for September along with new software such as HordeMail

This is something we are not rushing into. The datacenter shift was extremely important because many customers were complaining about our IPs being blacklisted. The September changes are just to better our existing services and are nothing close to the complexity involved in a datacenter shift.

I am getting a cannot find server error.

I wasn't implying that you hid information. I was just mentioning that just because your servers are up and running doesn't mean your customers can use them and/or the services running on them. Obviously when there are name server issues, or ip caching issues or whatever else..these problems are not necessarily recorded by monitoring software so it falsly looks like everything is working fine...hense my apprehension awhile back when you added the seal of Hosting Assured.

It may be true that one or more of your server may only have been down for a few minutes but it's been almost 24 hours since I have been able to get to the control panel...this is just an example of what I am trying to express above. So...just because something is running doesn't mean it is working...and something that is not working is no better than a down server.

As for other services not working....I think the control panel is the only thing down for me right now. I have changed outlook to use ips but I am hosting a domain for a friend who is non computer literate user who relies on mail.hisdomain.com to use webmail so as long as the name servers are not working correctly..he cannot access his mail and you probably have been in a situation where you have had to explain things to non computer literate people....it is not easy. He just knows where the bookmark is and that is not working right now for him because mail.hisdomain.com is redirecting him to the jodohost.com website.

 

[yorri]

Just wanted to give an update from my end

You are probably still working on the problem but.....

I am finally able to get to the control panel and mail.domain.com is redirecting to the new ips

but yahoo is still using that old ip of 69.61.30.175...which means mail from yahoo is still being bounced back.

 

[Yash]

Re: Just wanted to give an update from my end

but yahoo is still using that old ip of 69.61.30.175...which means mail from yahoo is still being bounced back.

Are you sure? I had sent out a test email from Yahoo and came in fine. Robert is reporting the same thing...

We fixed the DNS problem... we are just letting the changes propogate mainly mssql2 and mssql4 before we make an announcement. The mail server and control panel IP had over 24 hours to propogate which is enough...

 

[yorri]

Re: Re: Just wanted to give an update from my end

Are you sure? I had sent out a test email from Yahoo and came in fine. Robert is reporting the same thing...

We fixed the DNS problem... we are just letting the changes propogate mainly mssql2 and mssql4 before we make an announcement. The mail server and control panel IP had over 24 hours to propogate which is enough...

I just sent another email and it came through this time. So it looks like everything is back to normal now.

When I wrote the last post I had just sent one and it was bouncing back...here is the header from the bounced email. I guess it just needed another hour or so to propogate.

=================================================

Message from yahoo.com.
Unable to deliver message to the following address(es).

<@yorri.com>:
69.61.30.175 does not like recipient.
Remote host said: 550 5.7.1 Unable to relay for[/email]
Giving up on 69.61.30.175.

--- Original message follows.

Return-Path: <@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Received: from [24.201.154.] by web10504.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP;
Sun, 24 Aug 2003 17:12:07 PDT
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2003 17:12:07 -0700 (PDT)