Both my blogs were down for most of the day today (cue nervous eye twitch!)
One minute I was writing a highly intellectual post about Scooby-Doo and getting ready to take Miss C and a friend to see Ice Age 3 in 3D and the next minute I was closing down WordPress and Firefox when I realized both my blogs were down with some lovely BlueHost error saying my account had been suspended. Shortly thereafter the hubby called me telling me to check my e-mail as Blue Host had e-mailed him to say our account had been shut down due to “Performance Issues”...with ZERO advance warning.
Thanks so much BlueHost!
My WordPress guru Daisy Olsen (@DaisyOlsen on Twitter) was happy to help after I spoke briefly with BlueHost who told me it was a “database” error and gave me the corresponding error code. Daisy responded immediately to my pleas for help via e-mail but we couldn’t even access the dashboard. Finally after 5 today my husband was able to call BlueHost and speak with a customer service rep who was helpful and walked hubby through repairing and rebuilding the database(s). The rep then told him to call BlueHost back and check in with the Abuse department to get the account turned back on. Abuse?! The hubby checked in with BlueHost abuse. The customer service rep asked him if he had done as he was told, somewhat condescendingly, and and also if WordPress was the latest version. When he said he wasn’t sure about WordPress, as that had not been mentioned during the support call, she said she was “going to give him the benefit of the doubt since he hadn’t done all that was required of him.”
As my husband says, “WTH? WE PAY THEM, not the other way around!”
I would have been much more OK with all this had they put up a screen error message that said simply, “Blog/Site is down temporarily due to technical difficulties,” rather than”This Account Is Suspended” which has all kinds of negative nuances. This is the second time we’ve had a screw up with BlueHost and the last time I lost several posts because of human error on their part.
So who do you use to host your blog(s)? Are you happy with them?
I used to be with Blue Host but I was constantly getting that “suspended” notice. It drove me crazy! Now I’m with Media Temple and I couldn’t be happier.
I use hostgator and am very happy with them – excellent customer service. I’m afraid bluehost has a bit of a reputation for poor service – your crime was probably getting some traffic to your blog!
I use Blogger. I like them. I don’t know about hosting and all of that stuff.
Ugh. So much for a stress free summer. I have seen a lot of people having trouble with Blue Host recently.
I have stuck with Blogger because I don’t have anyone to help me on the technical end. When we had a recent blip because of domain forwarding issues, I just waited it out!
Thanks ya’ll for the comments and the feedback. It was really frustrating! Plus I was trying to “relax” on my day off.
Daisy Olsen (who also is behind BlissfullyDomestic.com) is great to work with on WordPress issues. I have to admit I know NOTHING about coding/html, etc. Thanfully my husband is also Mr. Techie as he owns MouseCalls Computer Services here in Nashville, too.
I’m definitely interested in changing when my contract is up early this fall.
I’ve had to move a few people off of BlueHost for the exact same problems you have experienced. It’s standard practice to require that sites that are using too much of a server’s resources to be suspended but I’ve heard again and again about BlueHost pulling the plug on sites running WordPress with easily fixed issues. The attitude that the site owners are up to some kind of bad behavior seems to be common from the support team at that host.
It’s really unfortunate that BlueHost is not taking better care of it’s WordPress customers. Especially since they are listed as the number one hosting service on http://wordpress.org/hosting/
My husband is a professional geek. He write code and uses all sorts of languages so I guess he knows a bit about this stuff. (I say that today because everything is working – don’t ask me on the day that I can’t get the printer to acknowledge my laptop exists.) For at least 6 years, we’ve used LFC hosting http://www.lfchosting.com/ I don’t know how or why he chose them but we’ve stuck with them (with the exception of a year when we hosted our own stuff but it wasn’t good for our marriage) forever and I don’t recall having a single problem that was caused by them rather than my hubby messing around with stuff. Good luck!
I went through a huge issue with BlueHost when The Spohrs suffered a great tragedy this spring. I tried to do anything I could to ensure that Heather did not lose any of her posts because her blog was – is – a tribute to Madeline. She would have been devastated to lose all that stuff from her pregnancy and Madeline’s life. I’ve written about BlueHost and the situation here: http://www.temporarilyme.com/.../how-bluehost-handles-delicate-situations-alternate-title-bluehostsucks/
I’ve used Dreamhost in the past for my personal sites, but now that I manage Heather and Mike’s blogs too I’ve moved everything to my own reseller server at Surpass Hosting. They’ve been very helpful, easy to contact and PROACTIVE. That’s something I’ve never seen from BlueHost. BlueHost has treated me with a condescending attitude, snarky remarks and never offer to rectify anything unless it’s an easy and simple solution. If there is trouble they will wash their hands of you as soon as possible.
Craftastrophe used to be hosted at BlueHost and we had problem after problem with their service which would have our site down for hours at a time. Since moving to Surpass there has been NO downtime. It’s fantastic!!
I hope you find something that works for you. There are many suitable options out there but when you use a shared server there is little to no way to ensure that someone else on the server is not going to be a resource hog.
Sorry for the blog post in your comments. LOL
What I mean is: Find new hosting. Someone that you feel comfortable with. Always have a backup of everything if you stay with BlueHost. They are notorious for deleting sites completely.
And! You don’t have to stay until your contract it up. BlueHost will reimburse the remainder of your contract. It says so in their Terms. I got back a large chunk for Heather and Mike.
Sam (Tempting Mama):
Thank you for the comments…nope they are not too long. If you ever meet me in real life you will find out that I am a talker.
I remember when Heather’s blog went down after Maddie died and some of the issues surrounding that but had forgotten that her blog was with BlueHost. That SUCKS!
Any way, thanks for the suggestion and also for the heads up that I can move before my contract is up. My situation is definitely pretty darn trivial compared to something like what happened with the Spohrs, but it sounds like a lot of people have not been satisfied with the customer service that BlueHost provides, or the lack thereof.
Thanks for stopping by.
Luckily your blog works well again. If you’re not sure your provider is the right for your blog, you should think about a change. Therefor your blog wouldn’t be shut down again.
I just wanted to say I was cruising around one the internet and got such a kick out of the title of your post—thank you for brightening up my day:)
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