So they say VenturesOnline is supposed to have good support?

[JimF]

A simple request. Add .php extensions to Webalizer so that it counts PHP pages as page views in stats reporting. PHP being a fairly common internet programming language these days (you may have heard of it ;) ), you'd think that this would come configured by default, or at least easily added to the standard configuration.

VO's reply to me left much to be desired:

webalizer is integrated tightly into cpanel which means that there is no webalizer.conf unfortunately. Making any changes to cpanel will also be overwritten on the next cpanel update.

If you need flexibility in terms of webstats, you might want to consider installing your own 3rdparty stats.
Okay, I can understand this tight integration with cpanel, that makes total sense. But suggesting that making a change as minimal as adding ".php" somewhere in Cpanel's setup isn't worth it because it would be overwritten, or that I should install my own 3rd party stats tracking software is ridiculous, at best. If I wanted to have this much of a lack of control over my server software, I'd have rented a Windows box.

So then I get referred to the dark, dismal land which is the cpanel support forum. I won't even get started on that one...

Okay, so obviously all of you here who use VO want to count your PHP pages as page views - so what did you do? Did you really have to install a whole new stats package just to gain the functionality of counting PHP page views?

Coming from a host (http://www.futurequest.net) that provides excellent top notch support, I am almost speechless at the lack of interest in helping me solve my problem that was displayed by the VO support staff. Or maybe I'm just expecting too much from a company that has a reputation of providing excellent support? Either way, my web site still doesn't count PHP pages as page views. And considering my entire site is in PHP, and I need accurate page impression counts to sell advertising to run my business, I'm in a bit of a bind. If this truly is a (dys)function of cpanel, I'm wondering why such stubborn software would be pre-installed?

Anyway, fellow VO-ers, please help me out here...

-jim

[WildWayz]

I don't know what to say.

My site is done in PHP and it counts PHP page hits.

Is it a dedicated server or virtual server?

--James

[chrispadfield]

They do seem to be having a bit of a support problem at the moment, I think they are hiring more people but i know when setting up my server it did not go smootly.

I was asking a question about the DNS, the nameserver appeared to resolve (ie typing traceroute to it) in msdos was going to vosn.net as was the domain but the domain was not showing up.

Their response was something like "Yeah, it should work".

:rolleyes:

There is also a big wish to be able to see bandwidth reports. So far i have been shown my 95% ones but my actual bandwidth usage is still a mystery to me and emails asking for it have not been responded to. On top of that a few of us want IP bandwidth reports, i can't imagine this to be too hard, bandmin and mrtg are both installed but they won't explain how to get them to work.

I went to VO despite the higher prices solely because of their support (i was given an amazing offer from another start up company) but so far it has not been great.

[TommyBALL]

Originally posted by chrispadfield
There is also a big wish to be able to see bandwidth reports. So far i have been shown my 95% ones but my actual bandwidth usage is still a mystery to me and emails asking for it have not been responded to. On top of that a few of us want IP bandwidth reports, i can't imagine this to be too hard, bandmin and mrtg are both installed but they won't explain how to get them to work.If you can get those "Bastard Operators From Hell" ;) to send you the web-log-file(s) for your site, I'll give it a run through our WebTrends Enteprise Suite. It can calculate all kinds of statistics, (including the bandwidth) from the log (if the right data is included in the log of course).

Regards
- Tommy

[chrispadfield]

they are not bad at all, and normally very friendly they are just growing a bit too quick and need some more support people (interviews this week aparently). It is all eva2000's fault, he made us all go over or said he would make his signature even longer. So half of vb is over there now I think :)

What i really want is just a page showing traffic to the IP continually updated. The server is shared so I need to let them know how much they are using. Cpanel is notoriously rubbish for calculating bandwidth (apprently it might not even take gzip into account baaaaaa).

[TommyBALL]

Originally posted by chrispadfield
they are not bad at all, and normally very friendly...Yeah, I know. That was what the ;) was for :)

BTW: Are you still running vb 2.0 beta 3??? :o

Regards
- Tommy

[Jedito]

Originally posted by JimF
A simple request. Add .php extensions to Webalizer so that it counts PHP pages as page views in stats reporting. PHP being a fairly common internet programming language these days (you may have heard of it ;) ), you'd think that this would come configured by default, or at least easily added to the standard configuration.

VO's reply to me left much to be desired:


Okay, I can understand this tight integration with cpanel, that makes total sense. But suggesting that making a change as minimal as adding ".php" somewhere in Cpanel's setup isn't worth it because it would be overwritten, or that I should install my own 3rd party stats tracking software is ridiculous, at best. If I wanted to have this much of a lack of control over my server software, I'd have rented a Windows box.
Anyway, fellow VO-ers, please help me out here...

-jim

Cpanel is updated everynight, so, what they say, if they made a modification in Cpanel (from what I know is a compiled software what you can't modify). It will come useless in the next update.
So, the modification will be running only for 24 hours, or they must do again and again everyday that modification.

BTW I have a dedicated with them. I'm more than happy with their support. Maybe the java support is a bit slow (J/K Mooner I'll made you crazy) :D

[chrispadfield]

Originally posted by TommyBALL
[B]Yeah, I know. That was what the ;) was for :)


:)

Originally posted by TommyBALL
BTW: Are you still running vb 2.0 beta 3??? :o


nah, 2.1. (with 2.3 sessions.php). I would upgrade to 2.3 but there are too many hacks in there at the moment.

[Steve Machol]

I've run into the same 'CPanel will over-write it' answer a couple of times myself. I don't really consider this a sign of bad support from VO though. It's clear they simply provide CPanel but have no control over what it does or doesn't do. Other than this one issue, they've been great.

My question is this: What is a good web stats package to run? I have a dedicated server and would like to have the best (albeit 'free') stats package I can find.

[Jake Bunce]

i like their support. i just e-mail this one guy and he takes care of contacting VO. i just sit back and bark out orders. ;)

[eva2000]

unfortunately this is in the hands of cpanel team :(

it would be like asking a web host who hosts a vBulletin forum to make vB work with postgresql and not just mysql... the web host doesn't know how and the vB developers like the Cpanel developers are working on it

For stats i use faststats log analyser www.mach5.com to download the logs and crunch the stats on my own pc. Lovely stats and very fast between 100 - 480 kilobytes per minute it can crunch at :)

[Paul L.]

I dont think its a lack of interest in helping you more than a lack of control over cpanel and to be honest we are just about fed up with it, we have something in the works for a better control panel solution that we have full control over but it is down the road aways.

The tech is correct cpanel will undo any changes made in the nightly update and break a few more things wile doing it :(
There should have been a better responce in the ticket and I am going to work on that issue so that it dose not happen again, But keep in mind we do not have the code to cpanel to make the changes some people would like, all we can do is pass it along to the cpanel team and see if they do something about it.

On the needing support people yes we was behind in hiring support people but we have hired 3 new guys and got Chuck one of our better techs back from his much needed time off.
We hope to have theses techs fully trained in a few weeks and things will get better.

[Nicholas Brown]

When Cpanel starts webalizer, it passes all the options at run time. Personally I dont think this is the best way to do it at all - but enough have asked to bring in webalizer.conf but that was months ago - options are still being passed at run time :rolleyes:

[chrispadfield]

Originally posted by chrispadfield
they are not bad at all, and normally very friendly they are just growing a bit too quick and need some more support people (interviews this week aparently). It is all eva2000's fault, he made us all go over or said he would make his signature even longer. So half of vb is over there now I think :)


Unfortunatly I am not so sure I agree with my past comments on VO anymore. After singing their praises in other threads (this thread was my first problem with them) they seem to be getting less and less helpful.

I wanted to be able to run php as a cgi. This is so i can run php scripts through the command line. This is a standard feature of cpanel and WHM. It is also avaliable on the virtual hosts that VO have (i have a reseller account as well so tested it there).

Anyway, the fist problem was the mail() was not working when running PHP through the cgi version. After beating my head against a wall trying to figure it out I sent a ticket. VO quickly responded and sorted out the problem. Yipee.. this is why I choose them as a host.

2nd problem. I was testing the script again and needed to do a query to mysql. Uh oh.. mysql_connect() function not found. Basically, PHP had been built without mysql support.

This I found rather strange. The apache version was built with mysql, I had been told but another use of cpanel/whm (nick from here) that mysql support is standard in the cgi version and also VO's virtual hosts have mysql there.

So i wrote a ticket to VO. The guy who answered it said:


I'll look into this and respond shortly.
eric 10-Oct-2001 08:11:00


a couple of hours later (fair enough) i got:


the binary PHP that is on our servers is installed by the default cpanel install. If required this can be recompiled with mysql support. I'm not sure if tech charges would apply, but let me know if you're interested and I'll find out.
eric 10-Oct-2001 10:57:04


Not quire sure what was foud out in those 3 hours. Would have been nice to know if tech charges would apply or not. In fact, since 08:07:28 we had got nowhere.

So i replied:


Can you find out if charges will apply for this and if so how much. I would prefere not to pay any more for what to me is a configuration error even if it is a problem caused by the software you/i am using.
padders 10-Oct-2001 12:27:14


I got the response:


Hi Chris,

I've forwarded this to Mooneer who will give you more details.
eric 10-Oct-2001 12:31:51


Fine. I thought. So I waited about 7 or 8 hours. After not hearing anything, I started another ticket (because replying to the one I already had would not notify anyone) and asked what was going on. The ticket was immediatly closed (straight after asking it) saying Mooneer would get back to me and he was busy.

Ok. I waited, another 5 or 6 hours. Now i was getting annoyed so i wrote an email to the guys who run the place. The response:


edit.. (removed the section that proves mysql is not there, something i already knew as that was the purpose of the ticket!).


If you need us to change that i'll have to apply a tech charge since thats not part of the normal setup of a system, its just something that cpanel likes to sneak in.

DanielP 11-Oct-2001 21:19:31



So it took from

10-Oct-2001 08:07:28

to 11-Oct-2001 21:19:31

to tell me that my new dedicated server (it is two weeks old) that has PHP set up wrong will cost me to have it put right (no idea how much yet).

Personally i think this is rubbish. the PHP cgi is set up wrong. It does not have mysql support which is just crazy. VO know this because their own servers have the cgi set up with mySQL support. I paid about $1,000 for my first month including set up fee, i find it hard to believe this could not have happened then.

I have sent another email expressing my worry over the lack of support. I went to VO because of the recommendations here for good support. i turned down another host that gave me a really good offer because I did not know what their support would be like. At the moment i am beginning to regret that decision. I have had about 5 tickets since I got the server, all to fix problems with the original set up. Hardly much to ask IMHO.

Anyway. I am posting this here as much to vent as anything else. I wasted a good day yesterday trying to work out how I am going to install the cgi version myself properly. As i have also prasied VO when they did good I also think it is fair enough to say when I think they have done bad. Great servers but at the moment not so great support.

Here's to hoping the new people they employ will give them more chance to solve problems.

[Paul L.]

Chris And to anybody eles having problems Please contact me Directly paul@venturesonline.com and I will get your issues put to rest. I think the problem here is we do not use the cpanel/whm version of Mysql and your thinking we do and the version we install a more up todate version dose not have what you need compiled in at default.

As far as our Virtual servers we recompile them to support our customers needs because they do not have root access to do so there selfs.

As a server owner like your self adding updates and recompiling Mysql is not part of standerd support and we do charge to handle such issues as do most all server providers.

If you will contact me I will have this taken care of for you this time.

[chrispadfield]

Thanks Paul. I sent an email to John, Pat and Daniel. I thought that might be enough :) Pat has now emailed me so I hope it is all going to be sorted.

MySQL is not the problem at all, the problem is PHP which has not been compiled --with mysql. ie PHP can't use mysql.

[chrispadfield]

VO fixed this for me. Although it took longer than it should have I am glad it all got done. They also apologised and I definitely think the sign of a good host is to know when perhaps they made a little mistake :)

My server is running extremley well, it used to crash all the time at my last host and have had no problems what so ever at VO so I am certainly happy about that!

[mjames]

Anyone else seeing what I'm seeing? It seems a host is really good at first, everyone raves about them, few use them. Then, it seems, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and they suddenly become really popular. Reminds me of HostRocket, they used to get 100% praises, as VO does now. After these companies grow so quickly, customers start noticing problems and the host quickly loses a little bit of its good reputation.

I'm not saying VO is bad, but it is apparent some are having a few problems now whereas they didn't in the earlier days. I guess there are goods and bads with large expansion in a short span.

[Jedito]

Its quite impossible to please all the people all the time, and the more people you have, the better chance a few of them will have a problem to write in about.

[eva2000]

Originally posted by JimF
A simple request. Add .php extensions to Webalizer so that it counts PHP pages as page views in stats reporting. PHP being a fairly common internet programming language these days (you may have heard of it ;) ), you'd think that this would come configured by default, or at least easily added to the standard configuration.
well i already passed on this workaround to Jim but i'll link to it here as well http://i4net.tv/marticle/get.php?action=getarticle&articleid=22 :D

[neogeniseva]

major warining about this site guy!!!!

me and a friend of mine where looking around and we just happen to see quit a few errors. it seem the admin of it used all the original settings. and we say that and where about to so called "hack" into it and get all the usersname and passwords that are members on the site and also found a away to get into everyones DB and edit it. so be careful if you pick this hosting. ohh and we deleted all the evidence so do think about reporting us.. and i have not told you how "he" is so;)

[Jake Bunce]

?

[Nicholas Brown]

As a server owner like your self adding updates and recompiling Mysql is not part of standerd support and we do charge to handle such issues as do most all server providers.


Mysql Support is built into PHP4 by default

If you really dont believe me, download buildapache.sea from cpanel.net - run it then stop it and it will decompress all the files.

take a look at all the files in there - I think its ./build or something and you will see the way cpanel builds php.

Chris' PHP had been specifically compiled --without-mysql

Just pointing out facts ;)

Cheers

[Hooper]

Originally posted by Nicholas Brown


Mysql Support is built into PHP4 by default

If you really dont believe me, download buildapache.sea from cpanel.net - run it then stop it and it will decompress all the files.

take a look at all the files in there - I think its ./build or something and you will see the way cpanel builds php.

Chris' PHP had been specifically compiled --without-mysql

Just pointing out facts ;)

Cheers

How interesting. I didn't know this. So to think that the PHP had been compiled without mysql shows lack of competancy by the host. Fact is, I am with VO. And within the next couple of months I had intentions of purchasing one of the dedicated servers. But if this is going to be the the type of support and statements to situations, I will think about another host.

Just as VO has increased revenue by voices of many hundreds of vBulletin fans, we can also take a few bucks out of their pockets if they are not going to give us the support we desire. Even the posts I am reading in here by VO are not in their best interest to be voiced as they have.


Jim and Chris,

Sorry to hear of these problems. While the Cpanel may indeed be out of the hands of VO, customer service is not. Those were pathetic email responses that you have posted in here. If indeed PHP is compiled with Mysql by default, then I would say VO is not looking to good in this thread.

I cannot believe that PHP pages cannot be read accurately for statistical purposes due to Cpanel. And the response of using a third party script is indeed another poor response to this situation. If Cpanel is not working correctly and implemented in such a way to read php files. Then VO should call who is in charge of Cpanel and tell them you want the fix for it immediately. VO should not be taking the side of the Cpanel Team over the voices of their customers. We pay for the Cpanel. This statement by VO is rediculous. If it doesn't work fix it or get rid of it. No more bull**** answers. Maybe they should have left the original VO site design and spent the time giving kind and quick responses to their customers.

Thank You all for posting your current displeasures with VO. Very much appreciated. I went to VO in the beginning because of what I read here as many people have. Things can always change if the service does not improve dramatically.

[DanielCP]

Nicholas, that buildapache.sea is for the apache php version NOT the cgi php version which is run from the shell.

You can login to ANY cpanel server and type

php -i
at the shell to get the phpinfo page output of the php cgi version. Cpanel installs a php version for its self, pho 4.0.4PL1 if i'm not mistaken, it is compiled without php, cpanel apparently included this for use in its internal settings as well as I would assume for using php in its customizable thems, and they somehow decided to link it to let it run as the php cgi eventhou its not properly compiled to do so.

So don't blame me for something which I have no control over.


Daniel Pearson
CTO VenturesOnline

[Hooper]

<edit> This thread has been edited by the author.</edit>

[Jake Bunce]

bah! professionalism is overrated. as long as stuff gets done or adequat explanations are provided. :p

...but that's me

[Hooper]

Originally posted by Jakeman
bah! professionalism is overrated. as long as stuff gets done or adequat explanations are provided. :p

...but that's me

Hi Jakeman,

Some may feel this way for sure. They are happy if they get an answer to a question at all. But those spending any amount of money on a dedicated server per month will expect professional curteous responses to issues. Especially someone like myself just getting into the dedicated environment. If that will not be the case, we might as well know now. This is what JimF was complaining about in general with this topic. Service starts with a good attitude. Where you find lack thereof you will find poor service. If poor service in regards to dedicated accounts, what then for the virtual accounts?

I'll wait a little longer before I make my decisions now. I'll consult with Eva2000 and a few others before I decide to get the dedicated when I'm ready.

I will be using WebTrends for my statistics. If anyone has any knowledge of how WebTrends works with php, please post your experience somewhere for us WebTrends Newbies. ;)

Thank You.

[Paul L.]

I am not here defending this or taking sides but Daniel takes things like this personal so I see both Daniels side as a co worker and yours as a customer.
Cpanel is just a touchy situation right now with us.
But I do agree it could have been worded better but keep in mind this is not the only voice in VO.



This is about the only bad post over the 100s of good I have seen on VO and that alone says a lot for a company the size we are, and this issue was solved over a week ago and we apologized for the situation and made the customer happy.

Trust me when I say we are working hard to make our support even better than it already is , here are a few things we have done in the past few weeks.

We have hired 3 new full time techs and one of our techs that was off for medical reasons is back, making the total 8 techs not including the 4 other internal staff and 1 full time network person.

We have added to our support hours at customers requests and will soon have 24/7 support.

We have talked to our techs about the way tickets are taken care of and asked that they provide as much details into the situation as possible and to make sure the out come is a happy customer even if the problem can not be solved by us and has to be passed on to the cpanel team.


Customers asked for a control panel solution other than cpanel so we partnered with plesk to offer there control panel solution.
And we are working on other internal solutions for this as well to have even more control.

We also have opend a new local office for our techs so they can work on issues together and provide better solutions to problems.

Posts like this will only make us better and stronger we try hard to be the best at what we do, but we also know you will not make every customer 100% happy but it wont keep us from trying.

Your comments are not on deaf ears we look at everything said and look for better ways to improve from that.

[Freddie Bingham]

Not the horror known as PLESK!

[Paul L.]

LoL Well its not the best either but has way less bugs :)

[chrispadfield]

Before people do get the wrong impression, VO are normally very helpfull, I had been using them for virtual hosting and they helped on a number of ocassions, I just had quite a sticky start to getting me new server going.

The main problem is really with the hosting software avaliable. I just hope something that works better will be developed soon. VO sorted my problem out and with the new techs believe they will be onto anything else in the future even quicker.

[DanielCP]

Well, I'm quite sorry that my reply was not polite. Cpanel, even thou it is the best software currently avaliable for the job it does, it is riddiculed with bugs and improper coding , or just plain updating things which dramatically changes how something works without even the slightest word from the programmer about what is being done. So i'm sure if you had to deal with hundreds of support calls on various cpanel issues which you could not fix and knew would most likley not be fixed then you'd probabbly be a bit touchy on the subject as well. I've worked with cpanel for almost two years now, my only hope is that maybe, just maybe, cpanel's replacement will work much better.

I never said I was the perfect spokesman, I just have a tendancy of speaking my mind rather than letting feelings or thoughts sit there and eat away at me. I'll be honest, I was angry and quite upset at both your words and Nicholas's misconception on the part of php and I make no attempt to hide that.

[Jake Bunce]

hmmm, all i see here is a few misunderstandings and some crap talking in order to get problems solved (not usually the best way). this is getting way too complicated... was the original problem solved?

[eva2000]

Originally posted by Jakeman
was the original problem solved? well the original problem's solution is here http://i4net.tv/marticle/get.php?action=getarticle&articleid=22

I already passed this onto JimF and i use this solution as well and it gives you full control over webalizer's configuration :D

[Hooper]

Cpanel does have it's problems. My previous host had a wonderful administraion setup in terms of function. But it was developed by them for their company. They had such tight integration of administration panel and company site that they were able to charge an extra 10 bucks for everything they did. I mean to tell you that every change you made to your account in the panel would cost. Add a database, they would charge. Add an email account, they would charge. I think the only thing I wasn't charged for was running an auto cron job that I can remember. Each of your options said something to the effect of "By clicking here you are authorizing (company name) to charge your account."

Nice Panel to make money with. So I left for VO. I can't say I would like to see another Administration Panel like this either. I started with less than a 20 dollar account per month and cannot even remember what my bill was. I assure you it wasn't 20 bucks though.

I rated my hosting experiences a while back. Here is where I've been. Hosting (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16754&highlight=ventures+online)

[PepsiCoke]

Originally posted by chrispadfield


Unfortunatly I am not so sure I agree with my past comments on VO anymore. After singing their praises in other threads (this thread was my first problem with them) they seem to be getting less and less helpful.



Its very common in the hosting industry as the more you grow, the less one-on-one support becomes. This is something clearly seen with VO at times.

With the amount of growth they have seen, and having to move NOC's clear across the country, they have done a really great job.

[Martin]

ditto the post above.

VO and vBulletin have one thing in common. They neither one expected the phenomenal growth they experienced, and hit a rough spot in catching customer service up to the rate of growth. They have made great strides in accomplishing the catchup and I expect they will both be around for a long time to come.

[eva2000]

Originally posted by Martin
ditto the post above.

VO and vBulletin have one thing in common. They neither one expected the phenomenal growth they experienced, and hit a rough spot in catching customer service up to the rate of growth. They have made great strides in accomplishing the catchup and I expect they will both be around for a long time to come. agree fully :)

like anyone here who is an admin of a growing vB forum and site(s) notice that you have less time to have one on one talks with your members and visitors and moderators and site staff etc once you are growing like crazy ??

[Nicholas Brown]

Originally posted by freddie
Not the horror known as PLESK!

Ey! PSA 2.0 is cool :D

And buildapache.sea does do the CGI of PHP - Ive used it