By trojan99 on

this is the email i just sent to support. i post it here in the hopes that none of you will make the same mistake i did when choosing them as a host. 1and1 is my main host and i should have never tried anything else. but you know how it is, grass is greener and all that. thank god i just tried one new domain and didnt xfer anything.

please either cancel my account and refund my money or get your hosting to work.

phpmyadmin is crippled and wont import. this is interesting because it is the best sql admin app out there with the exception of navicat. how could you possibly make it not work? the application you suggest to replace it [mysql-front] has been out of development for 2 years and wasnt really any good 2 years ago. remote access is a joke on me. i wasted a week trying to get your hosting to work.

ftp-ing to your host results in broken connections, slow speeds, and corrupted files. i have tried with 3 diff ftp apps. flashfxp works for my other host perfectly, but i tried wiseftp and the firefox ftp add on and no luck. because of this, it is impossible to add themes or add ons to the default joomla install. 

htaccess is limited to 5 or 6 variables? i suggest you rethink this. or not. after spending a week with your broken control panel and various other misteps im really beyond caring if you rethink your approach, i just want out.[filemanager gives me a forbidden error and your tech support sent me an email containing your faq's. was that your coveted tech support? your file manager doesnt work so you send me an email telling me to clean my cache?] even if i removed the 'offending' lines from my htaccess, what is to say that 3 or 6 months from now i wont need a more comprehensive htaccess. 

joomla is 8 months out of date and doesnt install properly. version 1.0.0.10 doesnt support some of the newer modules.

installing joomla [proper current release], drupal, or php-nuke is impossible. joomla 1.0.0.12 will not upgrade your existing install, nor will the full version install properly. the common problem is your sql and more specifically, my access to it.

your speed is horrible. it just took 7.263 seconds to load my default joomla page. that is with no themes or modules or any configuration at all. 

perhaps it is just my account that is the most awful hosting i have ever experienced. if that is the case, by all means, fix it. you guys have won all sorts of awards and i can only assume that 1 or more of those awards are legitimate.  if not, refund my money and cancel my account because i am not going to invest my time building a site only to find more problems in the future including having to switch hosts, inability to adminster advanced functions, and fighting with databases.

in all fairness to netfirms, the possibility exists that i got some sort of retarded red headed stepchild account. i do hope that is the case. if it is not, then all those awards they have received will make me trust the issuers even less. the wall street journal giving out hosting awards? please stick to finance!

yes, i read all the netfirms posts here in the forum, but look, 1and1, i hate to say it cz theres sum haters out there , but i upload anything i want and it works. no questions, no delay, limited configuration. configuration of a base cms install should be limited to 2 things. base url and db address. maybe chmods if your feeling frisky. now why should we have to fight with a host when there are others out there that allow easier user interaction?

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

Z2222’s picture

Z2222 commented

My experience with 1and1 is that Drupal runs slowly. Also, I find that their "tech support" is too-often incompetent. I am still waiting on a reply to a support question that I emailed to them last week (the "24 to 48 hour response" did not happen).

I've had a great experience with Site5.com hosting except for one problem during the summer. After that was finally resolved there have been no further problems with Site5.com. I haven't found a perfect cheap hosting company, but I think that the people at Site5 care about what they are doing. Their control panel is by far the best that I've seen (multi-site).

awilson’s picture

awilson commented

Well my administrator almost lost his mind with similar problems last week. Couldn't figure out what was going on. Then one morning I woke up and the problem was fixed, uploads worked fine, no time out, no corrupted files. Hope it keeps working like that until my 1 yr contract runs out (only 10 months left)

trojan99’s picture

trojan99 commented

prompted by the otehr great hosting topic in this subforum, where the host actually responded, i thought id give you a chance to see what they had to say about my bitching. not only was i surprised at the response time, but surprised my issue was addressed at all. i will give this caveat prior to pasting the reply however. they walk the walk, lets see what happens. i can count on 1 hand the companies that i have had good customer service experiences with. i remember them fondly and support them when i can.

i do hope netfirms makes me eat crow. i will b more than happy to post a happy ending. i will owe them an apology for my harsh and unkind words. and perhaps i should have been more circumspect with my allegations. they dont really address drupal issues, but i hope with the promise of a db upgrade, my install issues will be behind me and i can get on to building a nice 5.1 based portal.

Thank you for contacting Netfirms.
 
We would like to acknowledge the fact that you are experiencing some issues with performance for your site hosted with Netfirms and we'd like to take this time to address each problem.
 
Your Joomla site is PHP based and we are aware that your site is loading at a very slow rate with intermittent MySQL connection errors.  We are currently looking to move your site to one of our newer database and web servers to ensure your site loads at optimal speed without any errors.  We appreciate your patience and assure you that once we move your site, these problems will cease.
 
To address your issue with our one-click installations being out-of-date:  We currently have plans to upgrade all existing versions of one-click-installations but stress that once a user installs an application on their account, it is their responsibility to perform any upgrades or patches in order to keep up with the times.  We do not place any limitations on clients who wish to download applications and install them on their own as this is fully supported at Netfirms, however we try to offer the hottest applications to make it easier for some of the clients who are not so net savvy.
 
In regard to Joomla 1.0.12 not working on the Netfirms platform, we would like to direct you to visit http://nftest.info/joomla1012 which has a working copy of Joomla 1.0.12 compiled with Virtuemart component as an E-Commerce website.  This copy is fully functional as are all installed modules and components.
 
Our htaccess is not limited to only 5 or 6 variables though.  We are curious as to what you are trying to accomplish in htaccess that is not working?  We are aware that SEF URLs for OpenSEF and ArtioSEF (Joomla SEF components) do not work right now but are currently working to resolve this issue.  We do have a functioning copy of the .htaccess file that will work with Joomla's CORE SEF.
 
After reviewing all of the issues you mentioned it appears to us that they are all related to your site being on an older web server and database server.  We believe that once we move your sites to the new servers you will not experience: slow FTP transfer, sql errors, slow loading pages, prompts to download PHP, etc...
 
We have plans for the near future to upgrade our version of phpMyAdmin but we confirm that Navicat does work and can connect to our database servers without problems.  We do support remote MySQL connections so if you are experiencing problems connecting please provide us with a screenshot of your Navicat settings along with the error you are receiving so we can assist with troubleshooting.
 
We will follow-up via e-mail  once the move to the new servers is complete.  If you require further assistance in the meantime then when speaking with technical support please reference Interaction xxxxxxxxxx
 
Tutorials, demos, and answers to over 90% of your questions may also be found immediately at our Self-Help Support Centre: http://support.netfirms.com
 
Regards,
 
Dan
Netfirms Inc.
www.netfirms.com

granted, im on a promo from maxpc. wouldnt you think promo's should get the best this company has to offer in terms of performance so that i would be enticed to pay the higher than usual normal hosting costs when my promotion ends?

dan obviously took the time to read my full gripe, but he missed my point about mysql. phpmyadmin is what i use, what i like and what i want. i would want dan to address why phpmyadmin is crippled, not suggest i use a desktop app to make connections. i guess he did with the promise of upgrading it, but the existing version should b fully functional as is.

Hara Kim’s picture

Hara Kim commented

I have have a hosting community and heard many bad stories about them I even did a test with them and a hosting account... There support is just non existent... I stopped promoting there affiliate program even though they paid well simply because they are a horrible host.

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halfer’s picture

halfer commented

"Harsh and unkind" indeed. I am impressed that the reply you received was thoughtful and restrained, especially given that your criticism bordered on the abusive and that you were too lazy to sentence-case your text. If I were a host, I'd assume the sender was a script kiddie whose work would drain server resources disproportionately anyway, and so wouldn't be too precious about keeping them as a customer (though I am sure that doesn't apply to you).

He is entirely right about the auto-installer too: Fantastico (which I have posted about elsewhere here recently) doesn't do upgrades, AFAIK; this is the responsibility of the user, who of course, if they are maintaining a serious site, should have the skills to perform installations and upgrades manually.

madjr’s picture

madjr commented

i too got drawn in by their cheap domains n hosting offers.

i got burned too, glad i left that stupid company. Should be named Netidiots

iceman42’s picture

iceman42 commented

I have been doing web development for 13 years I have worked for many large companies in Sr level developer positions and I have worked with Apache since its infancy. I was doing a SIMPLE mod_rewrite and because of Netfirms funky mod_rewrite implementation I asked them why my simple set of rules were not working on their setup when on every other Apache server I had access to worked perfectly. Their answer was a cold and smug "We're not responsible for supporting your application". What a joke!

mittalpatel’s picture

mittalpatel commented

Thank God, I am not using their hosting services. I had bought 2 domains from netfirms, but I am using GoDaddy as my hosting so just changed the NS and got the site on. After that I never bothered about logging into their control panel. GoDaddy is quite good. I didn't face any problem till now. How about hostmonster? Has anyone had try it?

- Mitsss
http://www.MittalPatel.co.in
http://www.share-ebooks.com

- Mittal Patel
http://www.MittalPatel.co.in
http://www.TriCoreITSolutions.com

Z2222’s picture

Z2222 commented

In my experience Godaddy is not good for Drupal for these reasons:

* no SSH access
* they will ban your IP if you make "too many FTP connections", which means having two files open at the same time -- a normal Web development task
* servers can be very slow when running Drupal
* No IMAP email
* and other problems...

I highly recommend avoiding GoDaddy hosting...

dpalfan’s picture

dpalfan commented

'remote access is a joke on me..."

* I just got their remote Mysql access working and I'm thrilled to have it as an option.

* Their customer service is above average, and uptime is usually excellent.

They are not perfect, but I've seen much worse.

Daniel King’s picture

Daniel King commented

We have used Netfirms for a number of years. I have the Enterprise 1 package and we have had various issues in the past that are usually resolved within 24hrs. Recently we started seeing major problems with our main site. It started with slow performance, then CGI concurrency limit messages and now the site is more or less offline completely. We reported the problem three days ago and it’s still not resolved. Netfirms initially indentified some issues but have never provided any detailed information on the issue and how it was going to be fixed.

Customer service is an oxymoron to Netfirms. I started to email their support organisation to request a status and ETA on a fix with no success. When I telephoned them to enquire about the status of the problem, they initially refused to acknowledge any issue. When I finally convinced the engineer to review my account in more detail he found a case open on our issues. He then simply mentioned the problem was being worked on but there is no indication on the issue would be fixed. We operate a charity music competition and festival and the problems are occurred during our yearly festival week. This means people cannot check schedules, book tickets, or find out general information. In essence, it’s a catastrophic event for us.

We have tried emailing their customer support manager Pamela Harding, their CEO Thomas Savundra and various other billing and sales divisions with no success. I would suggest to anyone thinking of opening an account with Netfirms to seriously consider an alternative. They may have competitive rates but if you experience technical issues you may find them lacking in the service department.