Complaint Review: Bluehost - Burlington MA

GOOD NEWS UPDATE! Bluehost has finally recovered a backup of the forum from 5 days before the crash! So now we can finally restore the forum, losing only 5 days of posts! Hurray! See announcement here: http://www.happierabroad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?style=21&p=329538#p329538

So now that we have a backup from 5 days before the crash we will only lose 5 days of posts. Next what i have to do is install the restored backup on a test forum first to make sure it works and contains all the posts before sept 13.

Then ill have to ask my developer support forums about the best way to restore the database, like whether i should point the forum directly to it, or upload the backup into the current database and replace it. And how to do it. Etc. I also need to figure out how to export all the posts made after the crash (after September 18) offline so that i can insert them into the restored database so that the new posts after the crash will be merged into the forum.

So i gotta research that too. And also of course I need to ask my developer how to to back up and export all of rock's posts into a database or excel file that contains all his posts, so i can give them to rock for his safekeeping as he requested. And for others who may request the same. Those are my next tasks for now. For now be thankful to the universe and to God that our forum was restored. :)

1. First i never said i had no backups. My last manual backup was a year ago. I dont wanna use that and lose a whole year of posts. Thats a lot to lose. For me and my forum members.

- You are correct you never used the words that you didn't have any backups. Everything you wrote was meant to infer that you had lost the entire 12 years and the only way to get the all 12 years was on them. However, we now find out that you in fact do have a backup and only "lost" a year. So we now have to wonder what else you left out.

Keep in mind that I'm a travel writer and overseas now and am traveling so i dont have the time to make regular backups

- MORE excuses.  As I stated DB's are not "Set it and Forget it". If you are running a web site that you rely on for your business, it is YOUR responsbility to make sure that your site is up and running. You can either do that by paying someone to do that, or taking the time to do it yourself. You unfortunatly chose option 3..NEITHER.  

So there is no precedent for this happening. Ive seen hundreds of crashes and no data was ever lost. I always assumed that thats how it will always be.

.....So you see you made some false assumptions

- Actually the only false assumptions were yours. I really wonder what you consider a "crash", and with other comments and terms you are using you appear to be one of those people who know just enough to think they know it all, but actually know just enough to cause significant trouble.  But I am pretty sure you used Google to try and fix this.  I would bet what information you found, the most common "solution" was to use a backup copy...right?

Bluehost does not allow migration to higher VPS packages. Id have to close my account and open a new one. That will take hours and days to migrate my site like that and i simply dont have time for it now. Thats why i was stuck on such a small package that had no backup resources, which was a crummy deal and far worse than shared hosting which costs less.

- Again...as a Web Administrator it is YOUR responsibility to make sure your site has enough space and resources. The fact that it would take you a couple of days to do this is just another excuse.  In 1 year, and definatly in 12 years you could have scheduled a few days for your migration. If you say you don't have time then you must be so successful that YOU could easily have paid someone a couple of days labor to do this for you.

Do you see what i mean now?

- Yes...you failed to do what you needed to do and now you are paying the price.

I am very sorry because I know how much it sucks to lose data.  But again there is nothing you have stated that they did anything wrong.   But even if you had hundreds of "crashes" are you really saying you just stayed with them because you didn't want to take the time to move to a different provider?

Good Luck, but unless there is something you can do on your own, you may have to just cut your losses and restore the DB you have.  Perhaps this is a great time to also migrate your site to a site with higher resources, either with them or another company.

 To Robert: Thanks for your input above. However you seem to misunderstand me and hold false assumptions. Let me clarify a few things:

1. First i never said i had no backups. My last manual backup was a year ago. I dont wanna use that and lose a whole year of posts. Thats a lot to lose. For me and my forum members.

2. Second, the automated backup feature on my VPS server backs up my whole website. Not just the SQL databases. Theres no option to backup just the databases alone to the server on automation. This means that since my hosting space is 79 percent full, that such a backup would take up the rest of the empty space and perhaps more, causing my site to malfunction. Keep in mind that I'm a travel writer and overseas now and am traveling so i dont have the time to make regular backups. Plus in the past my forum has crashed hundreds of times and each time i repair the tables the posts are still there. So there is no precedent for this happening. Ive seen hundreds of crashes and no data was ever lost. I always assumed that thats how it will always be.

3. Its not true that i do no maintenance on the database. I optimize tables a lot and have fixed hundreds of crashes before by fixing the tables in phpmyadmin or in my WHM from my root server which i have access to. So you see you made some false assumptions.

Bluehost does not allow migration to higher VPS packages. Id have to close my account and open a new one. That will take hours and days to migrate my site like that and i simply dont have time for it now. Thats why i was stuck on such a small package that had no backup resources, which was a crummy deal and far worse than shared hosting which costs less.

Do you see what i mean now? Theres a logical explanation for everything and i am nowhere as stupid or incompetent as you imagine.

You come off as trying to be some top level DBA or System Administrator since you think you know so much about how Databases can be fixed. 

Sadly though you forgot the first rule of any IT Professional...BACKUP YOUR DATA.

There are many programs that recover deleted files, as we all know. Bluehost simply doesn't want to go through the expense or trouble.

- Yes there are but your files weren't deleted. Based on your assessement you have a database corruption.  By the way in your 12 years since you failed to get any sort of database backup, I would bet you failed to do any sort of maintenance or tuning.  As if you did, again a primary rule for that is before you do things such as that you get a backup.  DB's are not "Set it and Forget It".

It's human nature to blame others and not take responsibility.

- You are proof of that....

You had 12 years to get a backup. You talk about them having excuses, but your entire post is one excuse after another as to why you didn't do backups.

Just look at some of your excuses.

1) my VPS server had no space for backups, and they refused to allow me to upgrade to a higher VPS plan w/ more space or migrate my site to a higher VPS package,

- According to their website their smallest package is 30GB, your "claim" is that your DB was only 2GB. So if that was your package what took up the other 28GB of storage where you couldn't even get a single backup? If they didn't allow you to upgrade, why did you not find another company in this 12 years?

2) they didn't make backups for me like they do for shared hosting, which is cheaper, so I am paying more for less,

If the VPS Contract didn't require them to make backups, it doesn't matter what other services they provide backups for or how much they cost. Those aren't the services you signed up for.

3) their servers are defective and low quality, causing my site to crash constantly.

If their servers are defective and low quality and causing your site to crash "constantly", why did you stay with them?

If they were as bad as you say, I would have been out of there years ago.  I do have to admit though I do like your valuation on the "Priceless" data over a 12 year period..That isn't even $1000/year, and only about $0.20 a topic thread.  If you did have a claim a company would be jumping on your "offer" in a second. Which is even more proof to show why your claim is baseless.