HostDoc vs ReliableSite - LA Shutdown Imminent

K4Y5

This is as bad as an announcement can get, but we are here now and it looks like there is no resolution on the horizon.

ReliableSite, our service provider for our LA server have done the unthinkable and we will soon no longer be able to offer a service out of LA via ReliableSite.

ReliableSite was recently contacted by ourselves. The purpose for making contact was to see the possibility of acquiring their Ryzen 3900X as a replacement for the current i9 and moving our subnet over.
The subnet in question is ours and leased directly from another provider, yet, RS wanted to charge us $2/IP for the move.! This began a dispute.
They refused to read the tickets fully and kept offering canned responses until they totally stopped responding at all.

Further contact was attempted via discord and Skype. They blocked both.

We now have reason to believe the relationship with RS will not be a long lasting one as it has been with all of our previous providers and as such, a shutdown of the LA service seems imminent if a replacement cannot be found in a short time from an alternative provider.

We have been taking backups all day and this may have been noticed from the undesirable high load for most of the day while also combating an unseen amount of abuse on the server.

As of now, a full refund is being offered to all LA clients because it is inevitable there will be a disruption to the service.
Please note, we did everything in our power to avoid this and for taking reactive precautions, RS said we were ranting and blocked all communication channels.

We shall continue trying to source an immediate similar or better replacement for LA, however, our v4 and v6 subnets still have to be moved and re-announced and this may take a few days.
We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience this has so far caused and will further cause to our clients.
Emergency placement in any of our other available locations is available if needed if there are adequate resources available. Dallas and Singapore are not an option unfortunately.

Once again, a full refund is offered for all clients from November.
Clients who have had a service since November will be entitled to a full refund of their entire payments.
Clients whose services started before November and have annual plans will get a pro-rata refund from November.

This announcement serves as a notice to immediately take your own backups also.
We are taking backups but cannot guarantee all will be available in time. We cannot backup Windows instances.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused and we aim to rectify this asap.
HostDoc Hosting Team

uptime

tl;dr - as per @HostDoc: if you're on their LA node, be sure to make a copy elsewhere of any data you care about ASAP ...

(Hope for the best but plan for the worst)

terrorgen

poor doctor

vimalware

Who do we root for?

• The underdog!

When do we do it?

• All the days!

cybertech

Garrett Popcorn anyone?

SSDBlaze

Interesting story, waiting to here a statement from RS

Francisco

ReliableSite ryzen' their prices.

I'll be here all week.

Francisco

poisson

I hope it will be a professional discussion. At least here, if not on the other site. Can't see any fault with how @HostDoc is handling this for the moment.

InceptionHosting

@HostDoc if you need any help, even just a bit of short term extra man power on different time zones answering tickets feel free to reach out, obviously free.

Lee

poisson said: Can't see any fault with how @HostDoc is handling this for the moment.

You must be kidding? The way he is handling it is shocking for anything but LET standards.

PureVoltage

Interesting, always like to hear both sides.

lgsin

To whomever hasn't seen it on LET, parts of both sides' story are there.

uptime

lgsin said: seen it on LET

I'm hopeful that most of us here can be satisfied to just leave it at that for now.

I do enjoy pointless drama, but ... it could be nice to see a slightly more helpful mode of discussion here, if that's at all possible. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe will be even a bit more interesting to see if a way to a more amicable resolution could eventually be arrived at somehow - while it might seem like a stupidly slim chance at the moment, maybe after some time passes, who knows ...

poisson

@Lee said:

poisson said: Can't see any fault with how @HostDoc is handling this for the moment.

You must be kidding? The way he is handling it is shocking for anything but LET standards.

I am not sure what you mean. Not very PR-ish for sure but certainly trying to minimise damage in a responsible manner.

debaser

uptime said: Maybe will be even a bit more interesting to see if a way to a more amicable resolution could eventually be arrived at somehow - while it might seem like a stupidly slim chance at the moment, maybe after some time passes, who knows ...

I hope so. Both sides are too emotional at the moment IMHO.

seriesn

From what I read,
2 providers behaved like humans with emotion instead of business with consideration.

There is no winner or loser. Radic is a stand up guy and @HostDoc runs a tight ship. Shit happens. It is what it is.

No drama folks. Nothing to keep LE world entertained this weekend.

Nyr

I don't want to take sides because nobody knows the full picture, but the email was not very professional, to say the least.

It's also difficult to believe that they can't do one of the following:

• Keep the RS server online until they can migrate.
• Get a new server up and running in a reasonable timeframe, in Los Angeles of all places.

Maybe they don't have a contract? Is the situation so dire to suspect that the server can be disconnected at any moment? From the outside, it looks like an unreasonable escalation in a situation where a silent and more professional exit would've been possible.

tgl

@Nyr said:
I don't want to take sides because nobody knows the full picture, but the email was not very professional, to say the least.

It's also difficult to believe that they can't do one of the following:

• Keep the RS server online until they can migrate.
• Get a new server up and running in a reasonable timeframe, in Los Angeles of all places.

Maybe they don't have a contract? Is the situation so dire to suspect that the server can be disconnected at any moment? From the outside, it looks like an unreasonable escalation in a situation where a silent and more professional exit would've been possible.

@Nyr said:
I don't want to take sides because nobody knows the full picture, but the email was not very professional, to say the least.

It's also difficult to believe that they can't do one of the following:

• Keep the RS server online until they can migrate.
• Get a new server up and running in a reasonable timeframe, in Los Angeles of all places.

Maybe they don't have a contract? Is the situation so dire to suspect that the server can be disconnected at any moment? From the outside, it looks like an unreasonable escalation in a situation where a silent and more professional exit would've been possible.

i think he sent the e-mail because he freaked out when he got blocked on skype and discord and thought Mr Radic is going to stop the servers soon, in truth, I think it was not very good what happened, and the situation could have been handled in a better way, even if RS demanded $2/ip/migration, I still dont understand why they asked that, maybe @HostDoc thought it was a shakedown, without the full picture we cannot know or take sides, anyway, he handed it in a bad way, the customers became concerned, even if his wish was to warn them about some potential issue

next time, take a chill pill, thats my advice, even if you are right, some times its not enough

i would not rely too much on contracts, if you close your business because of such an incident it does not matter if you get some money after a long trial from some guy, because it wont cover it

about RS: if he blocks his annoying customers on chats and stops answering tickets, thank you, i will never try or buy, its very unprofessional

Lee

Nyr said: where a silent and more professional exit would've been possible.

This exactly, no customer should ever need to be a part of a dispute between the host and their service providers. It really comes across as the provider trying to save face by blaming someone else for a service interruption their clients are about to face.

All the client needs to know is how this is going to affect them, what the host is doing as a result and what if anything the customer has to do. Fine to say they have had to take the decision to find a new provider as a result of a disagreement over service provision, but leave it at that.

poisson

@Lee said:

Nyr said: where a silent and more professional exit would've been possible.

This exactly, no customer should ever need to be a part of a dispute between the host and their service providers. It really comes across as the provider trying to save face by blaming someone else for a service interruption their clients are about to face.

All the client needs to know is how this is going to affect them, what the host is doing as a result and what if anything the customer has to do. Fine to say they have had to take the decision to find a new provider as a result of a disagreement over service provision, but leave it at that.

Ok, I see where you are going. Not sure if he deliberately intended to lay the blame on someone else or he just panicked, but both sides could have handled this much better for sure.

Lee

poisson said: but both sides could have handled this much better for sure.

And there lies the issue with public displays of emotion intended to cause drama, yes, that is what HostDoc clearly did. He knew that the announcement would get posted on LET. We don't know the full story so will never know whether RS was unreasonable in whatever occurred. We do know HostDoc could have handled it better though.

seriesn

I agree. This could have been a simple we are exiting la or we are migrating dc email due to conflicts with our existing DC vs an essay , that looks like it was sent out of frustration and kinda create negative PR for the other party.

Sometime ms, too much detail is bad. For everyone.

vpsgeek

The situation could've been handled better. From what I have observed HostDoc owner (Chike) really loses his cool when a client posts something on any forum which could be deemed negative. He is of course good at managing technical aspects of his business but from what I have seen I will advise him not to do PR, marketing & social interaction regarding his business.

ReliableSite also need better in-house support or things like this will keep occuring

One thing that no one noticed is mtwiscool (I hope some people remember his past) coming out of hiatus after years only to post in that discusssion & asking both sides to make more drama is very suspicious.

Lee

vpsgeek said: One thing that no one noticed is mtwiscool (I hope some people remember his past) coming out of hiatus after years only to post in that discusssion & asking both sides to make more drama is very suspicious.

I saw him, only makes me think he is a HostDoc client that has made him crawl out to comment.

lazyt

He has popped up before with similar comments in non Hostdoc threads.

vpsgeek

@lazyt said:
He has popped up before with similar comments in non Hostdoc threads.

His last comment before today was back in July 2016

vpsgeek

If I recall correctly he was on a permban. So if I am not wrong he getting ban revoked & appearing suddenly in that thread to ask for more drama is very suspicious

InceptionHosting

@lazyt said:
He has popped up before with similar comments in non Hostdoc threads.

It is probably now a CC sock puppet account, they actively encourage drama as it drives up forum page views which justifies advertising revenue.

tgl

it could also be he was released from the psychiatric facility

Lee

vpsgeek said: If I recall correctly he was on a permban.

As were quite a few, but they were all unsuspended a while ago along with people like Robert Clarke who still posts every now and then who should never, ever have been allowed back after what he did.

vpsgeek

@Lee said:

vpsgeek said: If I recall correctly he was on a permban.

As were quite a few, but they were all unsuspended a while ago along with people like Robert Clarke who still posts every now and then who should never, ever have been allowed back after what he did.

Than those bans removed makes it easy for owners of that forum to reuse those accounts for personal gains without anyone suspecting a thing. Chris Fapoozi has been involved in it before.

Robert Clarke was involved in hack & DDoS episodes or something else?

This mtwiscool guy is the same person who ran 32mb.club & other such highly laughable projects.
From what I remember of his behavior it could never be real mtwiscool. I also suspect what @AnthonySmith mentioned in his last comment above

InceptionHosting

The real mtwiscool could not string a sentence together, he had genuine issues which it is known he was receiving care for, it was a travesty that he was given unsupervised access to a computer, it would be very obvious if it was him.

Lee

vpsgeek said: Robert Clarke was involved in hack & DDoS episodes or something else?

He used a Solus exploit to delete a large number of VM's from Ramnodes servers and possibly others.

vpsgeek said: From what I remember of his behavior it could never be real mtwiscool.

It's him, he has been talking about it on chat elsewhere.

uptime

wow, the more you know ....

so now I have an guilt-free excuse to keep my account active there, for proactive shitposting so as to fend off @Chris_Fugazi's nefarious usurpers?

dahartigan

@AnthonySmith said:
@HostDoc if you need any help, even just a bit of short term extra man power on different time zones answering tickets feel free to reach out, obviously free.

That's a generous offer Anthony I've had to recently step down quite a bit from being able to donate my time to helping man the chat and answer tickets, due to other commitments, so perhaps @HostDoc might take you up on that offer.

seriesn

@Lee said:

vpsgeek said: Robert Clarke was involved in hack & DDoS episodes or something else?

He used a Solus exploit to delete a large number of VM's from Ramnodes servers and possibly others.

vpsgeek said: From what I remember of his behavior it could never be real mtwiscool.

It's him, he has been talking about it on chat elsewhere.

Y’all remember sonwebhost?

cybertech

@AnthonySmith said:
@HostDoc if you need any help, even just a bit of short term extra man power on different time zones answering tickets feel free to reach out, obviously free.

R E S P E T C

Time to consolidate VPSes around few good anchor hosts, inception being one of them.

uptime

@cybertech said:

@AnthonySmith said:
@HostDoc if you need any help, even just a bit of short term extra man power on different time zones answering tickets feel free to reach out, obviously free.

R E S P E T C

Time to consolidate VPSes around few good anchor hosts, inception being one of them.

for InceptionHosting - solid and stable service to be sure

I'm expecting a good possibility that with whatever lessons learned along the way, we'll be saying much the same for @HostDoc a few years down the road.

Shit happens. (And this was definitely not the good shit, unfortunately.) One can wallow in it and maybe even fling copious amounts of poo until the cows come home ... It's rare to see people able to just square their shoulders and shake it off, then do the work required to shovel all that bullshit into some more fertile ground - and grow with it.

In this situation, all things considered - I'm inclined to believe that there's more than a sufficient amount of superior potassium in the mix for a punter like me to bet on that better option coming to fruition before too long.

tl;dr: Be strong on plough @HostDoc!

vyas

@uptime said:

Shit happens. (And this was definitely not the good shit, unfortunately.) _ One can wallow in it and maybe even fling copious amounts of poo_ until the cows come home ... It's rare to see people able to just square their shoulders and shake it off, then do the work required to shovel all that bullshit into some more fertile ground - and grow with it.

I know situation may not be ideal for some but your wordsmithing would bring a smile to even those worst affected.

deank

Is there the other side of story to read about?

uptime

@vyas - thanks, it does tend to get dangerously close to a bunch of pompous blather more often than not

@deank - which other side ...?

okay yeah - I think you might see a bit more of that on the old forum (with a post from MrRadic) - if you can wade through a lot of drama-baiting and gratuitous commentary there (to which I've now added just a weeeee bit, for great justice )

It seems pretty clear to me at least that this current stress-fest is/was what one might charitably call a learning experience and generally a regretable situation for both @HostDoc and the customers who were enjoying that sweet i-9900 deal in Los Angeles ... while it lasted. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I do have a vested interest in seeing some more of that fine fine superfine potassium start flowing through the doc's pipeline down to my idle hands ... and have been through enough of these kinds of "wtf did I really say that?" situations in my own life to have a more sympathetic (and ultimately optimistic) perspective - so that's just my own two cents, for whatever it's worth.

InceptionHosting

Oh I am far from perfect, I have had some choice words with upstream hosts in the past that have not resulted in the best outcome, but regardless I know that feeling in the pit of your soul when a situation no matter the cause like this arises, if you care, it sucks that is the reason I offered some time.

Sometimes things are said in anger for the right reasons but with to much emotion injected and the outcome is not great.

The fact is that the big guy no longer needs to deal with the little guy once the fle bites get too annoying the same thing happens in reverse, inject a little bit of emotion and the result is a dead fle.

tl;dr it will blow over in time.

tgl

yeah, its been solved now by @HostDoc, seems LA is not going down afterall so you can stop the backups

anyway, i am happy this was sorted out there's not that many good providers out there and @HostDoc I think is one of them

HostDoc

@dahartigan has just alerted me to this thread. Now I understand @Lee comment on LET.

To clarify things, I felt as though there was nowhere to turn when all communication channels were cut off. This rightfully put me in a panick as to what may possibly happen going forward.

Yes, I totally agree, the announcement was as unprofessional as one can get. I had not slept in over a day, my mind was not in the correct frame to be making announcements but the situation seemed dire enough that some form of announcement had to be made in case of the worst.

My job is to ensure I keep clients online. Without knowing I could do that, I needed to make an announcement.

We send out many maintenance emails, newsletters, etc announcements when it is evident work needs to be carried out. Not once has any of those been reposted to LET so I honestly did not think the announcement would make it way to LET.

Yes, MrRadic blocked me but reading back, I do not blame this.
There is nobody but myself to blame in all of this.

@AnthonySmith We have not always seen eye to eye but your gesture really warmed my heart. You are a great guy and I thank you for never deviating from being yourself. Thanks for the offer.

InceptionHosting

HostDoc said: @AnthonySmith We have not always seen eye to eye but your gesture really warmed my heart. You are a great guy and I thank you for never deviating from being yourself. Thanks for the offer.

No worries, if we have not seen eye to eye in the past I genuinely don't even remember, I am a blunt instrument, I lack finesse when dealing with people at times, its rarely if ever personal.

andrej

@HostDoc said:
@dahartigan has just alerted me to this thread. Now I understand @Lee comment on LET.

To clarify things, I felt as though there was nowhere to turn when all communication channels were cut off. This rightfully put me in a panick as to what may possibly happen going forward.

Yes, I totally agree, the announcement was as unprofessional as one can get. I had not slept in over a day, my mind was not in the correct frame to be making announcements but the situation seemed dire enough that some form of announcement had to be made in case of the worst.

My job is to ensure I keep clients online. Without knowing I could do that, I needed to make an announcement.

We send out many maintenance emails, newsletters, etc announcements when it is evident work needs to be carried out. Not once has any of those been reposted to LET so I honestly did not think the announcement would make it way to LET.

Yes, MrRadic blocked me but reading back, I do not blame this.
There is nobody but myself to blame in all of this.

@AnthonySmith We have not always seen eye to eye but your gesture really warmed my heart. You are a great guy and I thank you for never deviating from being yourself. Thanks for the offer.

Learn something from this. Consolidate and start building your own deployment. I had same issues and i did exactly the same thing what you will do now, but i took step forward and builded my own thing in Dallas in a year. And now everything is 10x better.

Lee

HostDoc said: Now I understand @Lee comment on LET.

As I said in follow up on LET, credit where credit is due, you thought about it, dealt with it and came back to admit you were in the wrong. It has been dealt with and that is what matters from a client perspective.

dahartigan

@AnthonySmith said:

HostDoc said: @AnthonySmith We have not always seen eye to eye but your gesture really warmed my heart. You are a great guy and I thank you for never deviating from being yourself. Thanks for the offer.

No worries, if we have not seen eye to eye in the past I genuinely don't even remember, I am a blunt instrument, I lack finesse when dealing with people at times, its rarely if ever personal.

Can confirm Anthony has had his cranky bastard moments

Just yankin ya doodle Ant

someshzade

Damn!

Ympker

Glad to see this is all solved now. I'm sure it'll benefit @HostDoc experience wise one way, or another

deank

There are indeed some who regularly have PMS.

I can name two regulars off top of my head. And there is one guy who seems to be in permanent PMS.