Website went down now can't access forums

[MustangGTorg]

I'm 99.9% sure that this entire problem has to do with my web hosting company, but I thought I'd throw this out here to see what your opinion is...

Over the weekend, our website kept running slower and slower and then finally went down all together. I could never get a straight answer out of them as to what exactly happened, but they said that the server had some major "technical issues". I checked the site via ftp sometime after it went down and there were absolutely no files in my directory. I'm thinking that they were in the process of resetting and reloading everything.

After about 12 hours, they had gotten everything reloaded and nearly everything seems to be back to normal except for our message board and the fact that I cannot access our "MySQL Admin" area from our website control panel (vDeck). When I try to go into both of these areas, I get a pop-up window asking for a username and password (which has never happened before). When I try to get in using any password that might work I then get the following error message - "You do not have permission to view this directory or page due to the access control list (ACL) that is configured for this resource on the Web server." (HTTP Error 401.3)

I finally spoke to a tech guy today that said it appears that some permissions weren't reset correctly when the website when down and that he would open a ticket on it (which I thought had been done two days ago).

Anyway, I was wondering if it sounds like they're now on the right track to getting this fixed and if anybody had anymore information on what exactly that error message means?

Thanks!!

Kathy
www.mustanggt.org

[Bob Isaac]

Are you on a shared web area or on a dedicated server? Sounds like the server crashed and they have put in a new HDD and reloaded the OS which is normal. The next step would be restore from the last backup. On a Unix server the restore is usually placed in /home/restored/ directory and data is then moved to its proper places. Resetting permission can be a small issue or a huge one, it varies.

We have a dedicated server and it crashed last March, things were never the same again, apart from the fact the backups were corrupt. In the end they offered a brand new server at a very low lease to avoid litigation.

Grab them by the throat and squeeze the truth out of them.

Bob

[MustangGTorg]

Are you on a shared web area or on a dedicated server? Sounds like the server crashed and they have put in a new HDD and reloaded the OS which is normal. The next step would be restore from the last backup. On a Unix server the restore is usually placed in /home/restored/ directory and data is then moved to its proper places. Resetting permission can be a small issue or a huge one, it varies.

Unfortunately it's on a shared web area... can't afford anything else. I agree that I think they had to replace the harddrive etc. and start from scratch. Luckily all the non-message board files restored from the backup seem to be OK and current, so I have my fingers crossed that the message board will be OK, too, if I can ever get the permissions reset so I can get to it.

Grab them by the throat and squeeze the truth out of them.

Oh man, I can't believe how frustrating it can be to have to deal with tech support on issues like this. I get sooooo tired of getting the run around. I'm about ready to wring someone's neck right now.

Thanks!

Kathy

[Bob Isaac]

Do you know if there was any scheduled maintenance on the server just before it went down? Turning a server off or a software upgrade can screw things up, and I have heard of some horror stories. In fact after I had configured our new server, the ISP technician switched it off and took it over to the data center, and it would not restart, they had to fit a new CPU.

They often don't like to say exactly what has happened in case they get hit with a claim, it took my ISP a week to tell me our backup were corrupt.

Best of luck.

Bob

[MustangGTorg]

Do you know if there was any scheduled maintenance on the server just before it went down?

Found out last night that they WERE doing some scheduled maintenance on the server before it crashed. They think something went haywire during the maintenance causing all the problems.

The latest on the story is that they can still not figure out how to fix the 401.3 error that is coming up whenever I try to access the message board or the MySQL Admin area. They have offered to move the entire website to a new server but the problem is I cannot get into the phpMyAdmin area to export / backup my database. I'm scared to death now they're going to screw up my database, too, trying to move everything.

What should I do or tell them to do??? Help!!!

Thanks!

Kathy

[Bob Isaac]

Do you have SSH access, you can backup your db's there. In fact get them to do it since they screwed the box up.

I think the best would be to let them move you to a new server, they should move the db also. If a box has been screwed and it shows problems after a rebuild then as a customer I think moving is the best way forward. They can get you up and running again in a short time.

Bob