ASO Downtime > Looking to a New Host (Again)

hotwire132002 · Sep 16, 2007

I switched to A Small Orange about a month ago, after hearing great things about them from pretty much everyone I talked to.

Unfortunately, over the past few days, I've been experiencing short (10-15 minute) periods of downtime on and off for a few hours each day. This is *extremely* frustrating, because by the time tech support gets my question, the server is back up.

First question is, has anyone else seen similar problems with ASO, and if so, do you have any recommended solution?

Secondly, what other web hosts would you recommend? I'm looking for the most reliable server possible; downtime is really not an option.

Thanks for any insight!

taylorwilsdon · Sep 16, 2007

Try http://webhostingtalk.com

A little while in the shared hosting section should develop some pretty strong ideas of who's a goody and which to avoid.

Mac In School · Sep 17, 2007

Submit a tech support request that includes a tracert report. This will help determine if the problem is on their end, your end, or somewhere in between.

If you don't get satisfactory results from that, tell them you haven't been getting the performance you thought you'd be getting, and ask if they will move you to another server.

I don't believe it's a company-wide ASO problem. Here is a report on one of my ASO sites, from an independent monitoring service (attached).

You have a Private Message too.

Flowbee · Sep 17, 2007

I haven't had any problems with ASO uptime. Just checked my logs for the last couple of days and don't see any gaps in service. Just submit a support ticket and have them check it out.

shecky · Sep 18, 2007

they have been down for me for about 1/2 hour (11:45AM EST). i was told there is a heavy server load and it will be back shortly.

needless to say im pissed. i am learning that there is no such thing as reliable shared webhosting. its only which ones suck less.

Mac In School · Sep 18, 2007

I'm still showing 0 outages and 0 failed replies. It must be the particular server you're on.

ChrisWB · Sep 18, 2007

It's very rare that I have any downtime with ASO. What price range and type of hosting are you looking for?

hotwire132002 · Sep 18, 2007

ChrisWB said:
It's very rare that I have any downtime with ASO. What price range and type of hosting are you looking for?

Well, if it wasn't for these short but frequent outages, ASO's $20/month plan would be working perfectly for me. In other words, that's about the feature set and price I'm looking at; reliability is key.

shecky · Sep 18, 2007

i am hearing that media temple has their act together again; i'm debating trying it out even tho i had horrible experience when the grid server first started. the same $20 gets you a lot more from them than from ASO and if its fast and reliable i may give it another try.

radiantm3 · Sep 18, 2007

If uptime is critical, get out of shared hosting plans. It's like living in an apartment. If a neighbor's apartment catches on fire, you will all potentially suffer.

shecky · Sep 18, 2007

radiantm3 said:
If uptime is critical, get out of shared hosting plans. It's like living in an apartment. If a neighbor's apartment catches on fire, you will all potentially suffer.

ive never even looked at a dedicated server (or virtual server or whatever its called) as i always figured the price would be insane; looks like ASO and media temple start at about $50/month. id be willing to think about it at no more than $30/month.

which leads me to a bunch of questions, such as what's the advantage, digg effects on another site on my shared server that kill me no longer do so on a dedicated server? is a lower-end dedicated server better than a higher-end shared one (RAM and hardware wise i mean) etc...?

ChrisWB · Sep 18, 2007

Media Temple was merely alright for me. I never regretted my switch to ASO.

Shecky,

The advantage of a fully-managed private server is you have all of the resources (CPU cycles, RAM, disk space, etc) available to you. On a properly managed shared server, you shouldn't notice much of a difference. The advantage of a VPS is you're able to control everything that happens within your little environment.

displaced · Sep 18, 2007

You can check if it's due to a server outage/reboot by checking a url on your asmallorange server.

For example, my A Small Orange account is based on their server named 'Ivan'. I can check its uptime by visiting:

http://ivan.asmallorange.com/uptime

Replace 'ivan' with the name of your server for the relevant info. Also, try posting in their forums (http://forums.asmallorange.com/) to see if other users based on the same server as you are getting similar problems. That should help narrow down whether it's a problem with ASO themselves or a network between you and them.

hotwire132002 · Sep 18, 2007

displaced said:
You can check if it's due to a server outage/reboot by checking a url on your asmallorange server.

For example, my A Small Orange account is based on their server named 'Ivan'. I can check its uptime by visiting:

http://ivan.asmallorange.com/uptime

Replace 'ivan' with the name of your server for the relevant info. Also, try posting in their forums (http://forums.asmallorange.com/) to see if other users based on the same server as you are getting similar problems. That should help narrow down whether it's a problem with ASO themselves or a network between you and them.

Interesting... I'm on Ivan too... you haven't had any problems?

displaced · Sep 18, 2007

hotwire132002 said:
Interesting... I'm on Ivan too... you haven't had any problems?

Not that I've noticed. I've been engrossed in an email conversation for most of the day using my ASO-hosted mailbox and not had any problems...

Still -- that could mean it was only http hosting that was down, not email. My site's only for the odd personal bits and bobs, so I quite possibly wouldn't notice if web hosting went down but mail stayed up.

Checking the forums, there's no-one mentioning problems with Ivan, and the global service status page at http://status.asmallorange.com/ shows Ivan as being fine. Very strange!

Next time you have problems, try accessing some of the other ASO servers listed on that global status page. That'll at least check to see if the problem is with Ivan himself or the ASO network in general (or your routing to it).

hotwire132002 · Sep 18, 2007

displaced said:
Not that I've noticed. I've been engrossed in an email conversation for most of the day using my ASO-hosted mailbox and not had any problems...

Still -- that could mean it was only http hosting that was down, not email. My site's only for the odd personal bits and bobs, so I quite possibly wouldn't notice if web hosting went down but mail stayed up.

Checking the forums, there's no-one mentioning problems with Ivan, and the global service status page at http://status.asmallorange.com/ shows Ivan as being fine. Very strange!

Next time you have problems, try accessing some of the other ASO servers listed on that global status page. That'll at least check to see if the problem is with Ivan himself or the ASO network in general (or your routing to it).

Good ideas... next time the server goes down, I'll check the global service page...

displaced · Sep 18, 2007

I've installed the Web Monitor widget on my mac mini which is on 24/7. I'll leave it monitoring my ASO website for a few days, then we can match up any downtime periods!

hotwire132002 · Sep 18, 2007

displaced said:
I've installed the Web Monitor widget on my mac mini which is on 24/7. I'll leave it monitoring my ASO website for a few days, then we can match up any downtime periods!

I'll put it on the G5 at my office tomorrow; that machine is on 24/7. We'll see what happens! =)

shecky · Sep 19, 2007

i did the same with the widget and i saw a bunch of access times in the 3500ms+ range and one timeout in the last 24 hours. i asked ASO to move me to a new server and they are doing it no problem. im still not convinced (mt) may not be worth another shot but lets see if this changes anything.

the server i am on now that they are moving me from is Pickett

hotwire132002 · Sep 19, 2007

shecky said:
i did the same with the widget and i saw a bunch of access times in the 3500ms+ range and one timeout in the last 24 hours. i asked ASO to move me to a new server and they are doing it no problem. im still not convinced (mt) may not be worth another shot but lets see if this changes anything.

the server i am on now that they are moving me from is Pickett

I had a busy day today... completely forgot to install the widget... I'll install it on my laptop now and run it overnight, then put it on the G5 tomorrow and see how it goes.

Looks like I may not be the only one with this problem...

Mac In School · Sep 19, 2007

My site monitoring service came up with 2 outages (8 failed checks):

September, 18: 17:47 - 17:52 (2 failed checks)

September, 19: 08:23 - 08:49 (6 failed checks)

ASO Downtime > Looking to a New Host (Again)

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