WOOOHOOOO!!!!!! I finally got away from servage, damn they sucked. My hosting account will expire in about 3 days, so about a week ago i pressed the sexy “Cancel account” button and canceled the account renewal process.

To show the guys and girls @ servage that i’m a nice guy, i submitted my last support ticket after the account cancelation.

If you are/were a servage.net customer than take your time and read this post all the way down, because it’s worth it

My Last Support ticket @ servage

2008-08-27 17:24 Customer

Phew…almost 14 months have passed since i signed up @ servage.

We had arguments, good times, bad times, but it’s over now.

My account will expire on 6th september(i already moved all the files/databases to the new host so most probably i will cancel the account in 24-48 hours), so here are the reasons why i’m not staying with servage:

- MYSQL MYSQL MYSQL MYSQL MYSQL … i think the repetition says it all, from my experience i can take the conclusion that the mysql clusters work like snails, especially the higher value ones(i always loved my 2 databases on mysql16.servage.net)

- support: with no doubt the support response time is great, but there are some people at support who have almost no experience(i didn’t want to use the incompetents word), many times i asked a question and got a stupid answer or an answer that didn’t have anything to do with the question

Don’t worry i saw the good sides of servage also:

- despite the mysql issues the ftp servers and the website’s load time is awsome

- the control panel is a bit weird at the beginning, but its simpler and more organized than cPanel(cpanel has lots of useless junk in it)

Okay…i think i covered everything,

Good bye

PS: i would appreciate if you could forward this ticket to Jan also

I forgot to add something, so submitted a reply:

2008-08-27 17:33 Customer

oh, at the reasons why i’m leaving servage i forgot to include the hack that servage suffered and covered it up with a password change notification w/o letting the customers know what really happened

After quite many hours here’s the reply that i got from Julie:

2008-08-28 03:53 Servage - Julie

Hello,

I very much appreciate your kind words and apologize for the bad times you had regarding Mysql server. If you give us a single chance we will meet up to your requirements and will not give you any chance to experience issues with database servers.

I am forwarding your ticket to my admin Jan as per your advise. I believe he will update you with a great solution.

Thanks a lot

Kind Regards
Julie, Support
Servage Hosting

Yeah…the usual convince the customer to stay lines, here’s my reply:

2008-08-28 11:28 Customer

[quote]I am forwarding your ticket to my admin Jan as per your advise. I believe he will update you with a great solution.[/quote]

I asked you to forward this last ticket to Jan as a good bye ticket and a thanks for his support. My mind is already made up, as mentioned in the previous post new hosting is already purchased elsewhere and data moved.

Thanks again for forwarding the ticket

I think that this drew the line, since Patricia from customer care replied, and simply told me that i can close the ticket:

2008-09-01 14:02 Servage - Patricia

Hello,

We are very sorry to hear that we cannot convenience you to stay. You are able to close the ticket by the control panel.

Kind Regards
Patricia, Customer Care Manager
Servage Hosting

I bet my ass on it that Jan(one of the main admins) never read the ticket, but oh well, don’t really care about that now.

HELLOOO BlueHost!, before signing up at them i researched the web hosting market quite detailedly to make sure i won’t make the same mistake i did with servage a year ago.

I kind of miss servage’s control panel which is really simplistic and organized compared to cpanel which has lots of useless items, but, eh i’ll live without it.

At BlueHost so far i really like the dynamic staff, who are nice and provide to the point answers in the Live Chat and stick with you till you fix your issue, or they help you get the issue sorted.

Here’s a transcript of one of the chats:

Bryan [3:16:08 AM]: Welcome to our real-time support chat. I take multiple chats at a time so I apologize for a delay in my responses. Please let me know what I can do to help you and I will be with you in a moment. And if you are a current customer, please don’t forget to include your domain name.
Tom [3:16:08 AM]: Php upload
[3:16:41 AM]: hello,
[3:17:01 AM]: i recently purhcased hosting from bluehost and i’m in progress of moving my websites
[3:17:05 AM]: i just got to my blog
[3:17:11 AM]: exported the wordpress extended rss file
[3:17:21 AM]: and can’t import it from the wp admin panel
[3:17:27 AM]: because the max filesize is 2mb
[3:17:37 AM]: my WXR having 4mb
Bryan [3:18:08 AM]: Put a php.ini file into the wordpress directories and then modify the upload variable.
[3:18:13 AM]: You should be good at that point.
Tom [3:19:10 AM]: okay…isn’t the php.ini file part of the php core?
Bryan [3:20:12 AM]: No, you’ll need to put one in.
Tom [3:20:17 AM]: empty one?
Bryan [3:22:50 AM]: No, you can get a default by clicking on the PHP Config icon in your CPanel and just copy it into a new one and modify the variables you need.
Tom [3:26:37 AM]: upload_max_filesize = 16M
[3:26:39 AM]: placed it
[3:26:41 AM]: uploaded
[3:27:30 AM]: same stuff Choose a file from your computer: (Maximum size: 2MB
[3:28:41 AM]: okay
[3:28:42 AM]: got it
[3:28:43 AM]:
Bryan [3:28:56 AM]:

As you can see Bryan helped me all the way till i got the settings right, now that’s what i call support!

Mysql

The servers are named box1, box2, box3,box4 and so on, and the mysql server is located at localhost this meaning that every server has its own mysql which is great because mysql is like speedy gonzales compared to servage’s slow mysql and the connection timeouts. So far i didn’t have any mysql errors and hopefully it will stay the same!

Mail

Here’s an other good thing about BlueHost: their mail server’s aren’t blacklisted oat yahoo and gmail. All mails sent from php mail() arrive in the inbox.

The mails sent out by scripts at servage didn’t arrive at yahoo(not even in bulk) and arrived in the spam folder at gmail.

Thanks a lot for reading this post to the end, and if you are at a sucky host and have in mind to switch i warmly recommend Bluehost.

3 days ago servage did it again(i just didn’t have time to post it up). None of my websites were loading, or they loaded and a 404(Not found) Error message popped up. Well this pissed me off and i almost started swearing, but kept it pretty cool.

Here’s my support ticket:

2008-07-07 10:39 Customer

Subject:How on earth can you be so incompetents? (wanted to put such..but because i was very pissed i put “so”)

okay this really does it, for more than a hour either my websites aren’t loading or

Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.
Servage.net Clustered Webhosting running enhanced Apache Webserver

appears

look, there’s a limit to everything and you can say that i endured quite much from servage’s messups(the most important one being servage hacked and not letting customers know about it, i had to read on a forum that the passwords were in fact reset due to a hack, and that the nice trojans that were popping up on my websites occurred also because of the same thing)

so, in max 30minutes i want to see my websites up and running without any issue

In about 2 hours i got a reply(yeah, they are bragging about 30minute support reply. the support is getting worse day by day just as the services do):

2008-07-07 12:20 Support - John

Please check it now. Your sites are loading fine now.

Kind Regards
John, Support
Servage Hosting

Yeah..this pretty much drew the line, as soon as my hosting package expires i’m getting out of there.

__________________

Check out some other “cool” posts about servage:

Some incompetents work @ servage? - April 16th, 2008

Servage has some really incompetent employees - February 22nd, 2008

Servage upgrades accounts to 510GB space and 5010GB bandwidth, but forgets about a “tiny” problem -  January 13th, 2008

SH*T Happens - servage - December 9th, 2007

Servage hosting - Problems over problems -  October 23rd, 2007

Today i got really pissed, because i wanted to upload the core files for the yable project, but i couldn’t because NONE of the FREAKING FTP SERVERS were working.

I did ping checks with a few online tools just to make sure that my internet connection isn’t messing around, i went to the kitchen, and ate a sandwich after which i returned(around 30 minutes) and the FTP servers still weren’t working

If somethings wrong you post up a damn note to your users with a similar text:

Don’t use the ftp because we are experiencing problems or something like that, but nothing.

I wrote the ticket, and before submitting it i rechecked the ftp server connection and it was working(i’m always this “lucky”, i really wanted to argue with them, but i can’t really argue with them after the problem is fixed,lol.

Heres the ticket i wanted to submit:

Title: Incompetents?

Content:

Okay…now i’m really at the edge here, and if i wouldn’t be a web developer i would most probably start swearing this time. What i don’t understand is HOW THE HECK can the ftp servers be offline?(i checked with website tools also so don’t blame my inernet connection)

Status: Resolving IP-Address for ftp.servage.net Error: Invalid hostname or host not found Error: Critical error Error: Could not connect to server
status: Resolving IP-Address for ftp1.servage.net Error: Invalid hostname or host not found Error: Critical error Error: Could not connect to server
Status: Resolving IP-Address for ftp2.servage.net Error: Invalid hostname or host not found Error: Critical error Error: Could not connect to server
Status: Resolving IP-Address for ftp3.servage.net Error: Invalid hostname or host not found Error: Critical error Error: Could not connect to server

This isn’t professionalism. This is just stupid and gives the feeling that incompetents work @ servage. also, please forward this ticket to one of the main admins(Jan preferred)

My suggestion is that you avoid servage like fire, especially if your website needs mysql support.

I still can’t figure out how they got 95% customer satisfaction result(to be hones no one from the staff ever asked me an opinion about their services). Servage is good for static content and to store files, and thats about it.

Here’s a duwhyt’s review who also uses servage for quite a while:

Avoid servage. I’m hosted at them and i’m absolutely not satisfied. If you want your site to have a good uptime, and your website doesn;t need php and mysql support choose them. I wasted a month with a php/mysql script till i figured out what’s up. As i moved to Bluehost the script started working like a charm.

Also they have huge problems with the email system which they still didn’t fix, and they are fixing it for quite a while now. My hosting will expire in a few months and i’ll surely move to an other webhost.

I also sustain the email problem. MANY of servage’s ip’s are blocked by yahoo, and mails never get to destination(yahoo mail users) because of this. Sucks doesn’t it?

This thing really pissed me off, and i almost started cursing, really.

It all started 11 days ago when i wanted to login to my mail account on servage’s roundcube mail i got the cool message:

Roundcube is down for maintenance
Please use squirremail for webmail-support

I was like: well the probably took down srv-1 (the 1st webmail server) so i went to main webmail login page and noticed i can’t select roundcube as a webmail agent.

So i started a support ticket and in a friendly way asked them what’s up:

Feb 10 - 15:22 GMT - Customer

i recently noticed that roundcube mail was taken out
what is the reason that caused its removal?
will it be put back?, if not which script will be its replacement?
squirremail is just old, the ’90’s are long gone

cheers

Here’s what answer i got:

Feb 10 - 15:27 GMT - Support - John

Hello,
Unfortunately there is a problem on the roundcube-webmail system. We are working hard to resolve this issue.
We are sorry about the inconvenience.

I told to myself: “oh what the heck problems pop up, i can use squirremail for 1-2 days”, but those 2 days became almost 10 days(when support ticket is auto-closed) so i got pissed and wrote an other support ticket:

Feb 19 - 15:05 GMT - Customer

i’m sorry to interrupt you from your “hard” work, 9 DAYS HAVE PASSED and still noting. You can’t call that hard work and professionalism.
Also fix the DAMN DATABASE SERVERS, i’m getting 50-100 database error emails from my forum software: “can’t connect to database”
i am getting sick and tired of having to argue every week and submit tickets weekly, its NOT my responsability to provide quality service, ITS YOURS.

Here’s what the “bright” staff member answers me:

Feb 19 - 15:39 GMT - Support - John

Hello,
Please use the other webmail interface squirrelmail as of now. We are still working on the Roundcube issue and will update you once we fixed it.

I was really pissed and didn’t want to further argue with him because i would have really cursed. What the heck? more than 2 weeks pass and they are unable to put atleast one server back up. This is what i call incompetents.

I deleted a few addon domains from the control panel and i got stunned when i saw this:

WTF? Servage is registrar for my domain:yable.net?

I think not, here’s what the Whois sais:

Registration Service Provided By: NameCheap.com
Contact: support@NameCheap.com
Visit: http://www.namecheap.com/

And yes the whois is correct. I did register it on namecheap and i’m planning on further extending it.

I am getting really,really,really sick of servage.net. I have to argue with them on a weekly basis. But you can be sure that i won’t make the same mistake again.

From the 16th day at servage(they have 15 day money-back guarantee) i realized that i made a VERY bad choice choosing to host my sites and business at them, and realized that clustered hosting sucks so bad… About 5 minutes ago i wanted to make an other blog post when i get the 404 page, i quickly open up my other site hosted here(webarea.ro) same stuff. Yes, this happened 5 minutes ago(check timestamp)