My web-server host is Host Monster. Every now and then (maybe once per couple of months), the server goes down. It appears to be a reboot, because it is down for about 15 minutes, and then there is 5 minutes where the Apache webserver is up, but the MySQL server is down.
What disappoints me is that I have never recieved an email or other communication from HostMonster to give advance warning of a down-time, and after the fact, they never report any such incidents to me. How many times has my server been rebooted? How much down-time has it had? I will never know, because this information is not available through the host control panel, and they never tell you.
Just today, my server went down for 30 minutes, including the e-mail server. I opened a chat to HostMonster support. After a 30 minute wait time, this was the response…
[Initial Question] Provider: HostMonster - My Domain is: "seanbdurkin.id.au" My webserver is down. Also I can't log in to control panel. It appears the server for the control panel is down too.
(5:25) [System] Customer has entered chat and is waiting for an agent.
(6:4) [ChatSnipedManually] {"staffId":"229"}
(6:8) [Jean C.] Please verify the last 4 characters of the account password or the last 4 digits of the credit card on file and I'll look into that for you. Please rate your chat experience! We appreciate your feedback.
(6:9) [Sean B. Durkin] (redacted)
(6:10) [Jean C.] Thank you, give me a moment to look into that for you. We appreciate your patience.
(6:11) [Sean B. Durkin] The website is back up now. But it was down for 30 minutes or so.
(6:14) [Jean C.] sorry about that
(6:14) [Jean C.] We will keep an eye on the server for you
(6:14) [Sean B. Durkin] Is there any way I can get advance notice of down-time?
(6:17) [Sean B. Durkin] Hello
(6:19) [Sean B. Durkin] I guess that means no. Thanks for your time.
(6:19) [ChatClosedByCustomer] {}
(6:19) [System] Chat closed by customer request.
How can I improve on my website’s up-time? Any suggestions anyone?
Hi Sean,
That seems to be very poor quality of customer service.
I think it’s time you changed the hosting provider.
I do not have much experience into web development, I’ve been hosting my client’s websites with bigrock.com, rather with their Indian counterpart bigrock.in. They are based out of Mumbai, India, however, they have never let me down in terms of service quality nor server up-time.
2 Years of dedicated hosting on the BigRock servers.
You could try Amazon’s server’s as well.
Thanks for that advice. I will investigate.