iPowerWeb has suspended my account without telling me why, effectively shutting off the power to my magnificent kingdom. I'm completely shut out, website/email/ftp is down, and they can't even tell me why. I talk to technical support, and they send me to billing. I talk to billing, and they send me to the "abuse department", which can only be contacted by e-mail. So it's day three of the complete lockout with no explanation. At this point, I just want back into the house so I can grab some of my stuff (user mailing list and forum messages kept on a SQL server I no longer have access to). For me, it's the last straw in a long line of poor treatment from this company.

Sorry for ranting. I really hate these people, and believe it or not, I am an easygoing guy that doesn't like to make demands. So anyway...

Has anybody had experience hosting their site from Servermatrix? It is my first choice for a new location due to the large amount of bandwidth available and root-level shell control of the server. I would like to know about problems such as: not getting all of the features promised or troubles administering the servers.

-Erik

From several posts, most members are happy with ServerMatrix. The only complain I can think of is from Mike Boeh when his server got hacked (http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2272) that ServerMatrix didn't replied in a timely fashion.

Apart from that, no complains I know about.

Bruno

I use servermatrix. It's great when it works, but tech support is not consistent. Sometimes it's bad. However once I got my server set up I've had basically no down time at all.

For shared hosting I recommend www.pair.com although I haven't personally used them. Many ASP members have been with Pair for years, and I keep hearing good things about them. My wife switched her site to Pair over a year ago, and she's been very happy with them too. She says, "easy control panel, good interface, great support."

I'm also shopping around for a new dedicated server. I have a premium quality host right now (Rackspace), which I've been very happy with over the years, but increased competition has made them a poor value, and I know I'm overpaying. I negotiated them down to a lower rate twice, but it's still too high compared to their competition.

Servermatrix is one host I'm considering as well as www.ev1servers.net and www.1and1.com. Anyone have suggestions or experiences to share? Really good support is very important to me, and I'm willing to pay a bit extra for it, but not as much as Rackspace charges.

You should ask mike b. He switched after his server was hacked and he was unhappy with the support. He claims to be quite happy with the new company although I forget who they were.

I used pair for shared hosting before and it was good.

SM is a great solution if you don't require much hand-holding. Like svero said, their support is known to be very inconsistant. Be sure to make it clear to them that you won't accept a server that has blacklisted IPs. The server IPs we got originally were listed on SPEWS (who block entire IP ranges at a time) and it took some time to get that sorted. It shouldn't have happened and it delayed launching of our new hosting service (can't ethically run a service with blacklisted ips). That's my one big complaint.

Everything is fine now, and they occassionally give out free bonuses which is really nice (just make sure you keep a look out on WHT and their own forums).

I have experience with 1and1 and Burton Hosting.

On 1and1 I just have a lowly business level setup (9.99 a month). Its been pretty good, thats what vgsmart.com is on. I had one support e-mail and they answered it well enough. (wasnt a complicated one though).

Burton has not so good service, but decent pricing. DCS uses a dual xenon 2.4 ghz with 2000 gigs of BW from them. The service is prompt, but not always helpful. www.burtonhosting.com

oh yeah, and we are also considering changing to ev1... but burton hasn't done anything wrong enough to justify that yet.

Joe

We're servermatrix. It's pretty stable, only a couple days of intermittent problems over 6 months. You need to be able to handle administration yourself as their only partly managed. Their trouble ticket system is slow but the phone is always there in case of emergency. Plus kudos to their abuse dept which stood by us during some very bad problems.

theplanet.com side has a great deal that's competitive with their servermatrix deals. A dual 2.8 xeon with great config and 2000gb of bandwidth for $249.

What's not cool is bandwidth overage is charged at very high fee, but that's pretty standard like ev1 and others do. Some guys use multiple servers to get by that.

I use servermatrix, very pleased with them.

I crashed my server on XMas day playing with fire ( i had no clue what i was doing and i really crashed everything )
I called them at 3am for them, they answered at the 1st ring, and fixed my problem within a few hours.

pat.

Originally posted by svero
You should ask mike b. He switched after his server was hacked and he was unhappy with the support. He claims to be quite happy with the new company although I forget who they were.


He switched over to Cyberwurx. At the time, I was shopping around for a dedicated server, and ended up at Cyberwurx after some discussion to increase the bandwidth quota on a package. This was in January, and it's been great so far--fast network, flawless uptime, and the few times I've contacted support they've been very responsive (Virtools Canada was grabbing some files from us at a *very* slow speed; I had them look into routing issues). Their dedicated servers are all completely unmanaged, though, so you'll need to know your way around a *nix box. They didn't have any problems with fulfilling my request for FreeBSD instead of Red Hat, either.

Servermatrix has a higher bandwidth quota, but slightly higher monthly costs for comparable hardware. You can bring up Cyberwurx's older deals at http://www.webhostingtalk.com/ if you want to haggle them up (WHT is a great resource in general, too). Honestly, I think Servermatrix would've met our needs just fine. I have a lot of sysadmin experience, so our contact with support in any situation would've been very minimal. It's certainly another trusted option to consider--retro64.com is still hosted there as well, AFAIK.

Cyberwurx has been flawless. Zero downtime, screaming download speeds, 5 minute responses to service requests. If you're not proficient with cpanel or linux, they will do a fully managed server for 75$ extra.

I have been with ev1servers, servermatrix, and cyberwurx. I like cyberwurx the most of the three.

If your bandwidth needs aren't high, you might look into a vps from ServInt.net. When they launched their vps offering, I tried it out, but it was buggy. Now, it seems they have all the problems worked out. www.blitwise.com and www.hamumu.com host there.

I have been with Servermatrix for a while now. Except for once, my support issues have been dealt with promptly. That once was installing a firewall supporting kernel on a Debian box. If you go with them I'd recomend getting their standard RedHat deal as they are much more proficient keeping it running (my second server is a RedHat).

If I had to swap, I might go with someone else (Cyberwurx?) but it has worked smooth enough so I haven't bothered. I think their performance/price ratio is ok.

Many thanks to those who posted information about hosting companies. It's definitely affected how I'll go about finding a new server. LizardSoft, I never thought about getting a cursed IP address--I'll watch for that.

The bad news I learned today is that iPowerWeb decided I was spamming and permanently suspended my account. I've never sent an unsolicited e-mail in my life. My message board works (or used to work :( ) a lot like Dexterity's in that it would optionally e-mail notifications of new posts to forum users if they wanted them. This generated thousands of outgoing mail messages each day, and I think iPW may have decided that this was all spam. However, their system is complex and opaque to me, so who knows how they arrive at their decisions? After calls to their tech support and billing departments, it appears I can only speak to someone with access to relevant information through e-mail. And so far, there is a 2-day delay between the time I send an e-mail and a response is returned.

To Dexterity people:

It's going to take me at least two weeks to set up a new site. Meanwhile my users keep asking me what's going on and in general are fairly perturbed that they've been disconnected from each other. Is it okay if I tell my refugees to use Dexterity's "General Discussion" board as a place to hang out and talk until we get the new site up? What you can expect is 5 to 30 hardcore puzzle game players signing onto your forum and talking about, amongst other things, a game that you don't sell called "Deadly Rooms of Death". And some of them are likely to notice the Dexterity games too, so maybe it would be worth the temporary annoyance?

-Erik

I'm sorry to hear about the problems with your site, Erik. I setup a temporary forum for you in the Player Forums section of this site, so you can direct your visitors there if you'd like. When you no longer need it, let me know so I can delete it. And also let your visitors know that these messages won't be retained once they switch back to your site. You might also want to make the first post in that new forum now.

I set you up as the moderator of that forum, so you can at least edit and delete posts there if you need to. Most of the moderation features will appear in the lower-right corner of each page when applicable, and they should be self-explanatory, but feel free to PM me if you need help.

Good luck getting your site back up.

Thanks very much for your help!

-Erik

I have two possibilities for why the account was suspended, Erik:

1) people didn't realize that they could turn on/off the email notifications, and thought they were spam

2) my article sent hundreds of people to the website over the weekend, and iPowerWeb mistook that for spamming activity... draw your own conclusions on this one

Anyway, Erik, I use www.rivalpro.net, and the various packages available are really quite reasonable. I don't have any numbers handy, but it's also run by a friend of mine, so I might be able to put in a good word for you. I've had no downtime at all as far as I know, and I know the guy's reliable. He even has his own forum for discussions and such.

Originally posted by DiMono
I have two possibilities for why the account was suspended,
Who knows? I've heard other theories too. I'm not going to worry about setting iPowerWeb straight. It's not worth it.
Anyway, Erik, I use www.rivalpro.net, and the various packages available are really quite reasonable. I don't have any numbers handy, but it's also run by a friend of mine, so I might be able to put in a good word for you. I've had no downtime at all as far as I know, and I know the guy's reliable. He even has his own forum for discussions and such.
Thanks, DiMono. I've looked at quite a few companies and think I'll give 1and1 a try. I want a dedicated server with a lot of bandwidth and root shell access, and RivalPro doesn't seem to be offering that.

-Erik

Hey!

Use me as your affiliate ID!

http://www.1and1.com/?k_id=7219447

(that goes for anyone who decides to go with them).

I'll get $60 for it. Heh... come on!

Originally posted by Terin
Hey!

Use me as your affiliate ID!
Sure, why not? I'll look for this when I sign up.

EDIT: Actually, is the way it works that if I browse to the site using the above URL, it will automatically track that you sent me there? Or is there some field in a form, I'm sposed to use?

-Erik

Hem, I take the opportunity (topic about server troubles) for a question:

How much bandwitdth do an indie typically need? I know that this can vary a lot depending on the size and the success of the demo.. but it is just for having an orientation. We'll start in the Summer but we don't have idea of how much bandwidth ensure for the launch of the game..

Sorry for the beginner-question.. I know that noobs asks you, periodically, always the same stuff.. ^__^

A lot of it depends if you are going to offer your demo(s) for download on your site. If you are, then that's likely the main thing that will eat up your bandwidth. Since my game is open source, I was able to put all of its downloadables on SourceForge and link to the page. I believe you could do something similar hosting the file on Tucows or Simtel and linking to their download page (not the file itself). And many people want a paid listing on download.com for the exposure, but also they host the file there for you.

There's some other thread here on how many downloads per month people get. ( http://www.dexterity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1327 ) It seems to me that a 1000/month might be a good number to plan for if you are going to take pains to submit your game to all the sites. The last two releases of my game averaged about 1250 downloads a month, with many spikes and dips along the way. So multiply that times the size of your downloadable files to figure out what your file hosting needs may be.

Without the file hosting, probably 20-30gb of transfer is plenty. My game site was probably going to outgrow this after the next release later in the year, but it's been running for about 3 years and we had 500+ users on our forum. I also found that I needed to stagger my site submissions or the bandwidth for the month would get used up too quickly. Note that this is just from people coming in to look at screenshots and game info--not to download the game itself, which would make for larger spikes.

-Erik

Just follow that URL and make sure you are letting cookies be set :-)

Thats all... heh yay! You just paid for 6 months of my site or so.

Joe

Originally posted by erikh2000
It seems to me that a 1000/month might be a good number to plan for if you are going to take pains to submit your game to all the sites. The last two releases of my game averaged about 1250 downloads a month, with many spikes and dips along the way.
I think that's a bit on the low side(*), but you can always offload the demo download to a file hosting service if you see you won't have the necessary bandwidth. We never had to do it, but I'd be surprised if setting up the account on fileburst takes more than a couple of days.

(*) We had about 3k downloads of Caribbean Puzzle in the first month, and we certainly didn't do anything extraordinary to promote it.

I believe you could do something similar hosting the file on Tucows or Simtel and linking to their download page (not the file itself). And many people want a paid listing on download.com for the exposure, but also they host the file there for you. It's an idea, but I've fear that such "undirect download" could give an "unprofessional" feeling.. I suppose that with cnet, tucows & co. it's not possible to set up a direct download to their remote server in a completely invisible way for the users.. perhaps it could be good for emergency mirrors.. :confused:

I think that's a bit on the low side(*), but you can always offload the demo download to a file hosting service if you see you won't have the necessary bandwidth. The problem is that I don't know which is the necessary bandwidth for starting. I've fear that I could lose a lot of downloads for server's limits. :(

We never had to do it, but I'd be surprised if setting up the account on fileburst takes more than a couple of days Yes, perhaps I really would need to know some good file hosting services that I can activate in very fast times in case of emergency..

Snakesoft: bandwidth doesn't have to be a boolean "got enough, don't got enough" situation. Our hosting company (http://www.lizardnetwork.com) allows you to tell us how much over your bandwidth limit you wish to be allowed to go. This means that you could buy the package that you think suits your needs the most, but leave yourself the ability to go over your bandwidth allotment without having your account suspended. We only charge 50cents/gigabyte for bandwidth overage, and since you are setting how much over you wish to go, you never have to risk a bandwidth bill larger than you are willing to pay. If you do find that you are getting more traffic than you expected and exceeding your bandwidth limit, the next month you simply upgrade your account to something that fits your needs better.

Originally posted by Snakesoft
It's an idea, but I've fear that such "undirect download" could give an "unprofessional" feeling.. I suppose that with cnet, tucows & co. it's not possible to set up a direct download to their remote server in a completely invisible way for the users..
I agree that it seems more polished to host your own files, but with so many software sites using other companies to host downloads, I doubt it comes across as unprofessional to send a user to another download page. I mean as long as it's not some cornball site that tries to install Gator crap on the user's system. Maybe someone has experience to the contrary?

Regarding using Tucows, Simtel, or other free sites for direct downloads: I could be wrong, but I don't think you'll find any one place that meets all of these criteria:
1. provides free file hosting
2. allots significant bandwidth for downloading files
3. doesn't mind direct links to files on their servers. If they are providing free hosting, they want users to see their ads or other things they offer, and a direct link bypasses all that.
4. won't eventually close your account down or delete your files if you somehow manage to host the free files with direct linking against their wishes.

The problem is that I don't know which is the necessary bandwidth for starting. I've fear that I could lose a lot of downloads for server's limits. :(
You can set it up for an average case (the survey posted earlier had most people getting 1000 downloads a month) and have a plan to add extra filehosting if you need it. When you do site submissions, do them in smaller batches of maybe 20 or so at a time, and then wait a few weeks or until the start of next month when you get a new bandwidth quota before submitting more. Monitor your bandwidth usage and site speed to see how you are affected. Many site submissions, especially for larger sites, can take several weeks to go through, but usually you get a big spike in the week following site submissions and then it dies off a bit.

-Erik

I was wondering if your hosting packages includes registering a domain name like ipowerweb.com does, so I don't have to deal with another company? Also, can you still specify how many gigs you would like to be able to go over a month if you are paying my money order?

Mickey - we offer domain registration for $12.95/year, you own the domain and we take care of setting it up.

Good question about the money order. Yes, we can allow this. In the case of bandwidth overage, if it's a minor amount we would just accept a personal cheque to cover it, if it's a larger amount, you could always send another money order (or use any of our other payment methods) to cover it. We try to keep things as flexible as possible for the customer.

I'll keep this in mind.

Also, how long have you been in business if you don't mind me asking? ;)

Lizardsoft has been doing web development and software contract work for two years now. We started offering hosting services to local companies last June, and grew that into a serious venture in November. Plan is to keep expanding for a good long time :)

Originally posted by Lizardsoft
Snakesoft: bandwidth doesn't have to be a boolean "got enough, don't got enough" situation. Our hosting company (http://www.lizardnetwork.com) allows you to tell us how much over your bandwidth limit you wish to be allowed to go. This means that you could buy the package that you think suits your needs the most, but leave yourself the ability to go over your bandwidth allotment without having your account suspended. We only charge 50cents/gigabyte for bandwidth overage, and since you are setting how much over you wish to go, you never have to risk a bandwidth bill larger than you are willing to pay. If you do find that you are getting more traffic than you expected and exceeding your bandwidth limit, the next month you simply upgrade your account to something that fits your needs better. This makes me more relaxed! :)
How long does is taxes to set up an account with your company? We could need a quick alternative, in case of emergency.. :)

Accounts are always setup within a day (usually much faster). Takes about 48 hours before your domain resolves for everyone in the world. If you already have a domain and are hosting with another company, there are some DNS tricks that can speed up switching the domain to new account.