Had enough of VO, just wanted to share..

[JimF]

Everyone here glows over VenturesOnline. I never saw what all the big fuss was about, but hey, they were cheap. After 2 years of dedicated hosting with them, I finally reached wits end.

Apache would randomly decide to crash at least once a week. Create a help desk ticket, and the clueless techs had the audacity to blame me. Why, because I had heavy traffic? The POS server would buckle under ANY sort of heavy load (100+/- people on forums).

Their CPanel/WHM auto-updates would inevitably cause something to crash, so I'd turn it off. Then I'd get an email saying I was responsible for a hole in software that I don't even use. Again - it's my fault.

From tech support, to sales (unanswered emails about server upgrades and add-ons), to billing (they have lied to me countless times about their policies and things I've "agreed" to, and mistakes), they are positively the worst company I've ever had to deal with.

Again, everyone here loves VO. And if you didn't have to deal with them (ever) or you were able to completely manage your own server without the help of CPanel or WHM, I could see that being the case.

But I've been with a new hosting company that has been 100x more reliable and better to work with than VO. And the prices are better!!

To any prospective clients: stay away.

I'm not going to mention the name of my new host because that's not what my purpose is. I just want to bring to light the fact that VO is NOT all they are cracked up to be.

-jim

[adrianchew]

They can be good for a while, but I found it much more cost effective to just figure it all out myself and DIY. I started out with VO on virtual, but never went further - I didn't like how they moderated their support forums and how they dealt with the launch of the VPS service and customers of that, so I went elsewhere for a VPS, and now I'm on to a dedicated that I manage myself.

I've had zero need for support once the dedicated server was up and running - the only tickets I've filed at this provider was to get IP addresses, reverse DNS entries - and everything else I just read how other people do online and do it for myself. In the long run - this is the best way to do it - I don't mess up, and if I do, I fix it - never ever needed a human to go reboot the box either.

[JimF]

never ever needed a human to go reboot the box either.That's the thing - there were times that I had to use the emergency pager to go reboot my machine, and only because there was heavy traffic. I wasn't doing anything to it at the time! In fact, I was out to dinner.

If you're just starting out, VO might be a good place. But for dedicated servers, I can't recommend that you stay far enough away from them.

It wasn't until I got a real host that I figured out how terrible VO is.

-jim

[Steve Machol]

Sorry I can't agree with you at all Jim. I've had a dedicated server with VO for over two years now and they have been great. Honestly if I had the kind of problems you've reported I would have left them a long time ago (as I did my previous two hosts.)

I'm sorry to hear your experience was so bad but I really can't vouch for it based on my experiences with them.

[redbox]

I was with them for over a year, using a variety of hosting products. I had one of their dedicated servers back when they were around $700 a month. I also had a v650 plan and a VPS.

The dedicated server was good, though overpriced, and the support was great. I had an account on a v650 (no longer available) and was very happy with it, but moved it to a VPS for more room. Unfortunately, my experiences with the VPS were a nightmare. They advertised it as being great for forums, but let's just say they only support small forums. The amount of RAM was way too low, and Apache constantly failed. Their general response to any ticket was a suggestion to upgrade to another dedicated server. I was ready to do it, until...

The final straw for me was actually the attitude of a particular tech, who shall remain nameless. Said tech was very condescending to a lot of customers and I was always thankful that I was never on the receiving end. When it finally happened to me, I immediately searched out a new host and left VO behind.

[Scott MacVicar]

Jim we've also purchased a new server outside of VO at a fraction of the cost and the vbulletin sites should be moving to it fairly soon.

[JimF]

Sorry I can't agree with you at all Jim. I've had a dedicated server with VO for over two years now and they have been great. Honestly if I had the kind of problems you've reported I would have left them a long time ago (as I did my previous two hosts.)

I'm sorry to hear your experience was so bad but I really can't vouch for it based on my experiences with them.
As they say, eventually, even a blind squirrel will find a nut.

-jim

[JimF]

The final straw for me was actually the attitude of a particular tech, who shall remain nameless. Said tech was very condescending to a lot of customers and I was always thankful that I was never on the receiving end. When it finally happened to me, I immediately searched out a new host and left VO behind.It was my experience that every technical support staff member had that kind of condescending attitude.

As Jim Caple says "They screen for ignorant and hostile applicants. Then they hire them."

-jim

[JimF]

Jim we've also purchased a new server outside of VO at a fraction of the cost and the vbulletin sites should be moving to it fairly soon.
Scott, I'm actually surprised it's taken this long :).

-jim

[Floris]

Sorry I can't agree with you at all Jim. I've had a dedicated server with VO for over two years now and they have been great. Honestly if I had the kind of problems you've reported I would have left them a long time ago (as I did my previous two hosts.)

I'm sorry to hear your experience was so bad but I really can't vouch for it based on my experiences with them.
Same here,
Two of my clients have a dedicated server there, and they are a pretty active forum with 125 average at the whois online and we hardly get any errors.

[Floris]

Jim we've also purchased a new server outside of VO at a fraction of the cost and the vbulletin sites should be moving to it fairly soon.
Ah, Moving again! *soon* ah, ok. So when we find vBulletin.com unreachable, we can assume this could be the reason. After the move, we ofcourse want to get the server & network specifications!

[Steve Machol]

The final straw for me was actually the attitude of a particular tech, who shall remain nameless. I think I know who this is. I did have one or two unpleasant experiences with one of their Techs. For me, however, this was the exception, not the norm.

[redbox]

It was my experience that every technical support staff member had that kind of condescending attitude.

As Jim Caple says "They screen for ignorant and hostile applicants. Then they hire them."

-jim

My experiences with the rest of the techs were very pleasant and I always felt that they were working in my best interest. It was just that one tech that caused problems for me and others (and is still there, from what I can tell)

Also, the VPS was over-rated and I had a lot of private conversations with others that were frustrated with them. However, the dedicated servers were good products and I still recommend them to those that can afford them, and the extra RAM fees (they never include enough by default)

VO had excellent uptime while I was there, I have to give them that. I have a dedicated server elsewhere now, with more resources than what I had at VO, for just a fraction of the price. However, we seem to have network trouble a few times a month! At VO, I don't think I had that many in a year.

[Steve Machol]

As they say, eventually, even a blind squirrel will find a nut.
-jimVery clever! I guess there'as a lot of us 'blind' squirrels then. ;)

In all honesty I can only comment on my experiences with VO, which have been almost uniformly good. Sorry this troubles you so much.

Frankly I'm a very difficult customer myself and have been known to get rather indignant and intolerant when on the receiving end of shoddy service and support. Thankfully those times have been rare with VO. Believe me if I had the experiences you've had, I'd be doing the same thing. (Although I propably wouldn't post my complaints publicly as a Mod for vB.)

[Martin]

I never had a problem with VO while I was there until about a year and a half ago. Of course it was largely through mine and other vB peoples efforts that they grew so fast. I don't think I ever got so much as a thank you from them, but oh well.

My account was supposed to be automatically paid through a special bank account I had set up for that express purpose. Every month the money would go there from other accounts and VO was supposed to pull it electronically. Well, it worked great at first but then they switched something on their system and all of a sudden it stopped happening. I never paid attention to it, so I wasn't aware that they weren't taking their money. After about 4 months I'm on a business trip to LA and all of a sudden my server just goes down. They shut it off for non-payment, never looking to see that it was their system screwing it up.
I will give them this, though. I called John Burns and he did turn the server back on immediately and apologized profusely for the screw-up and said that he had no problem with waiting until I returned to Hawai'i to get his payment.
That whole ordeal rather soured the deal for me, not to mention the lack of thanks for helping them in the beginning, so I moved on, too.

Overall, I would have to rate them as a good host, though their prices have definitely gone up since the beginning. If I guaged them against my first dedicated host (Interhell), I would rate them as excellent.

Since then I have moved over with one of te founders of VO who split off on his own and am very happy there. I won't advertise for him publicly here, but if anyone wants to know, they can PM me.

note: When I say "lack of thanks" I wasn't referring to remuneration, just a simple, "Hey, thanks!" yanno?

[JimF]

Sorry this troubles you so much. Steve,

It doesn't trouble me at all. For your sake, I'm very glad that you haven't had a problem with them. I wish that nothing except for that experience continues with them.

Martin,

I must give John Burns props. He was the one level-headed person I ever dealt with there. A good guy, and sensible business man. I would be remiss if I left that out.

-jim

[eva2000]

hey Jim looooooooooong loong time no see fellow geek :)

sorry to hear about your troubles.. i remember a while back cpanel.net released an accidently buggy easyapache update script which messed up alot of whm/cpanel servers including mine causing apache to restart or crash every 5-10 mins.. rebuilding apache from a fixed /scripts/easyapache build solved the problem

[mjames]

I'm sorry to hear about your problems, Jim. But I am a VO customer with their top-of-the-line virtual server plan (not quite big enough for anything bigger yet) and my experiences have been quite positive. My site hasn't been down in months and speeds are very good. When I contacted support last week, I got a very quick and knowledgeable response, as well. I guess your mileage will vary.

[walter]

The same here: no problems with support so far except one case in the last years! Usually fast and knowledgeable.

[jw791]

I switched to VO based on the feedback here.

I have a new and growing site (360 members), vitural shared hosting, but so far my experience has been positive.

I can't comment on the tech support because in the short month I've been there I have had no downtime and no server issues. Since registration, its just been a couple of emails and I was up and running.

Agreed, my opinion might change if I do encounter problems and get rude tech support, but so far no worries.

[express]

Well was not going to jump in here but I will anyway.

About 3 months ago we decided to seek out a outside company that we could put our main site off network in the event we lost our data center or the server our main account was on.
We decided based on all the feedback to go with VO,
Worst mistake we ever made. We went through the entire process of uploading the account setting up databases and transferring our secure certificate over. This was accomplished and the loads on the server were over 40, 2/3 of the emails we sent out or received were lost in I guess the dreaded blackhole.

We worked with their tech support and they seemed to try to help. Their support for us was not the problem but the hardware and the network was really quite bad. We left after 3 days and do not intend to ever go back.

[walter]

Their support for us was not the problem but the hardware and the network was really quite bad.

I don't want to question your experience but as far as I learned VO uses only good hardware on their shared servers (RAID, dual CPU, 3.6 GB RAM), see http://www.venturesonline.com/support/server-info.html
And I have a server on their network, the network isn't bad at all...

[express]

Great for you Walter it is good to here you have had good luck with them. I was only talking about the time we had tried them briefly and during that time they had hardware and network problems at least on the machine we had. Probably was the only machine that was having problems those 3 or 4 days. Probably just a fluke thing! Happens every now and then. But we learned a lesson from it. Learning lessons are good for people. Don't You Agree?

[adrianchew]

I don't want to question your experience but as far as I learned VO uses only good hardware on their shared servers (RAID, dual CPU, 3.6 GB RAM), see http://www.venturesonline.com/support/server-info.html
And I have a server on their network, the network isn't bad at all...

Specs are one thing - but you have to realize they're basically DIY pizza boxes. They had some motherboard problems with some of their virtual server boxes in the past too... and it took a bit of time before they secured replacement boards to swap (not like a next business day thing).

Their network SLA is 99.5% which is ok, but nothing to shout about. Compare that to a provider like Rackspace with 99.999% network uptime on their SLA, and you can write off VO if you need a truly reliable network. In addition, Rackspace for example offers a 2 hour guarantee for replacement of hardware, upon problem identification.

[walter]

I know Rackspace but I also know Rackspace prices - you can't compare the two!

[chrispadfield]

And what is the use of an SLA that is really strict when the only give you peanuts back if they break it? For example I could offer you a 100% SLA and then say for every minute of down time I will give you 0.001% of your monthly fee back. For example at rackspace, your server needs to be down for 10 hours to get your monthly fee back. Sounds like a nice SLA but 10 hours to get your monthly fee back? That crazy. If however you had your monthly fee refuned the moment they hit that limit of 99.999% (46 minutes i believe) they maybe i could accept their SLA, but even then just not charging you your monthly fee is hardly that much of a refund. SLAs are all well and good but they are not worth the paper they are written on if the provider does not have to make large refunds if they break them.

[marcjd]

So who would be a excellent dedicated server provider? I am looking in the range of $80-$130 per month, but wouldn't mine cheaper. I was looking at VPS, but they don't come with much disk space. If you try and get the better VPS packages it seems it would be much cheaper to just get a dedicated server...at least that was my impression from looking at VO's site.

I am currently with Powweb...I don't believe I just admitted that. ;) So anything would be an upgrade. I don't have much traffic now, but do plan on some major changes to drive in more traffic and definitely want a good provider.

Thanks for your help...as always.

Regards,

Marc

[marcjd]

Thought I would add, Rackspace looks much more expensive than VO.

[Marc Smith]

I know Rackspace but I also know Rackspace prices - you can't compare the two!
Please explain. I'm looking for a dedicated and I'm considering VO. What's the scoop on the differences?

[SaintDog]

Visit www.RackSpace.com then visit www.VenturesOnline.com and compare the pricing, I think you will see the difference yourself :). RackSpace is VERY reliable from what I have been told and I feel that if they were not somewhat reliable, TechTV would not advertise for them. I have heard only good things about RackSpace, but for the pricing, the bandwidth and specs are just too low.

RackSpace is more for mission critical hosting (i.e. businesses, hosting (in some cases), and so forth). I don't know many that could just jump to RackSpace in a day :)

[walter]

Please explain. I'm looking for a dedicated and I'm considering VO. What's the scoop on the differences?
I agree to what SaintDog said about Rackspace - they have a good reputation but are in a price range most of us can't afford :)
VO is a compromise, not too expensive but rather good quality

[marcjd]

Are there companies similar to VO with comparable pricing?

I really wouldn't mind bulding my own server and having someone else take care of it. I assume you can do that as well. Any cheap reliable places that do that?

I apologize if that last question was a bit off topic from this thread, just thought I would ask while I am it. :)

[walter]

Are there companies similar to VO with comparable pricing?

Of course, many. But I haven't found one in such a price range with a similar quality of support and network.


I really wouldn't mind bulding my own server and having someone else take care of it. I assume you can do that as well. Any cheap reliable places that do that?

Colocation is completely different, you not only build your own server but you are responsible for support, spare sparts and so on. Of course every colo provider will help you, but expect to pay for every minute and every part. VO does colo, too.

[Inland Mike]

expect to pay for every minute and every part.

Yeap tech fees on a unmanaged colo'd box can get costly for on-site maintance. Also if a part goes out, replacements are really high and your only choice is either pay the facility $75 for a new $10 net card or be down 1 - 2 days waiting to get your replacement you bought shipped by Fed Ex. If you are going to the colo'd route I recommend looking for a place local so you can go there and work on your box and replace any parts yourself.

[Hooper]

I had been with VO for a couple years as well. Left once and came back. Years ago VO had a better service. As when I left this time I had a friggen helpdesk war with them. Got plain tired of them cramming a gazzillion accounts on a server and my pages hardly ever came up on their shared environment. I recommend sitting on your hands before going to VO as of the time I left . Honestly blaming apache and memory leaks don't cut it. They at one time had a great service though as mentioned. As of the latter, I cannot count the helpdesk tickets for crawling web pages.

As for VO deds...... no experience. Once upon a time though, VO had my highest host rating from my experiences with virtual accounts and the support they provided.....Others have had great service with the dedicated. Like Steve for example.

Honestly the best host you can have is yourself. Learn unix, linux, or freebsd, get a pipe and host your own pages. Then if anything goes haywire.... send yourself a helpdesk ticket... ;)

[leagleaze]

I'm about at the end of my rope with them myself. The last week has been awful, problem after problem. Excuse after excuse.

I'm seriously considering starting to look for a new host if they don't shape up like yesterday.

[feldon23]

I think their tech support people are very good.

But the VPS is a fortune for what you get, and it seriously lacks RAM.

I have to do manual garbage collection (I wrote a script eventually) every 2 weeks or the 3GB partition (1.5GB is OS, .5GB is data, 1GB free) fills with cPanel junk.

I am going to either go with a smaller host (ViperHost didn't get back to me after I sent them my Webalizer stats, maybe they balked!) or end up with some kind of dedicated host. It just doesn't seem like ~50 simultaneous forum users should strain a VPS or even a shared host.

I'm getting seriously fed up paying $90/month for something that feels like a compromise.

/me looks at RackShack.net (nee EV1.net). $109/mo for dedicated. hmm!


It's also true that cPanel/WHM often sends you a new version which ends up screwing up something important, but I don't know enough (at least I don't think I do) to do this without cPanel.

[Marc Smith]

I'm getting seriously fed up paying $90/month for something that feels like a compromise. The thing is, I'd be perfectly happy to go in half-and-half with someone on a dedicated host. I mean right now for $90/month I get 128MB of RAM and 3GB of disk space. What the hell? A dedicated host is $130 a month for 1GB of RAM and 40GB hard drive. So why can't I split a dedicated host with someone, $65/mo for 512MB RAM and 20GB?. I have a server at server beach - whom I'm not particularly happy with. TOP typically shows 99% CPU free. See http://Elsmar.com/Forums/

I plan on doing a change in 2 to 3 weeks to their new 80x80 servers, and I may be interested in sharing. It's dedicated and I don't have that many simultaneous users in my forums. Nor do I resell, so it's just me.

If interested, e-mail me at http://Elsmar.com/Forums/sendmessage.php