Can you see this? GoDaddy must have finally restarted my server

2:28 pm 10/16/08. I receive notification from Observu that my ColdFusion server is not responding. Needs to be restarted.

I immediately call GoDaddy. The man on the phone "sent a request to restart it" and that it "will be restarted within the hour".

Update: 3:15pm, still down.

Update: 3:18pm, it has been restarted. Total down time: 50 minutes (at least).

Followup on crappy GoDaddy hosting

Jacob at GoDaddy, "Hosting Support Lead", responded to my complaint.

"We apologize for any misunderstanding or miscommunication you may have encountered at any point during your contact with us. Although we obviously can not provide specifics, please rest assured that we maintain regular monitoring of all of our servers, the services they run and the networks they rely on. As can be expected with any complex system, problems do arise from time to time and you can be sure that we do our best to address such problems as quickly and efficiently as possible. If at any time you feel that your website is unavailable due to such a problem, please don't hesitate to send us an email, submit a trouble ticket or give us a phone call. We appreciate your patience and understanding in this matter and if there is anything else you may have questions about, please let us know."

My followup:

In response to "please rest assured that we maintain regular monitoring of all of our servers, the services they run and the networks they rely on", Id like to inform you that at 7:20 this morning I started to receive alerts that ColdFusion was not running properly on my server AGAIN. I called GoDaddy support at 8:45am as it was still not restarted. I was told it "automatically restarts itself". Clearly not. I was then told they were doing "regular maintenance" and she could not give me an ETA. She was not happy to talk to me -- didnt even offer a survey at the end of the call. Her silence was clearly an indication the call was over. She never said thanks for calling, just cold silence. So that tells me GoDaddy views me as clearly a "problem customer" and I will be switching off your service soon.

**update: My CF hosting was reported down at 7:20AM and it came back up at 9:35AM. Over 2 hours.**

GoDaddy Web Hosting is becoming a joke

An open letter to GoDaddy Support...

This is a followup email to my support phone call placed at 12:30pm central time today, Oct 6. I called because my business website, hosted by GoDaddy on a shared ColdFusion server, was down. Specifically, the ColdFusion service was unresponsive and needed to be restarted. The "JRun Closed Connection" 500 error was the key. Im a ColdFusion Developer -- I know what it looks like when the service needs to be restarted.

So I call in because it was clear no one on GoDaddy's side was monitoring this server. The man on the phone took my call and asked me to give him 4-5 minutes to investigate. About 2 minutes after being placed back on hold, I refreshed my browser and saw that the ColdFusion service was indeed restarted and it was in the process of coming back up. Eventually, the website came back up and we were good to go. I waited for the rep to come back.

This guy comes back on the phone a few minutes later and tells me -- matter of factly -- that he couldnt find anything wrong with the server. I told me I know because you guys just restarted CF. He was insistent on telling me -- multiple times -- that no one "over here" had restarted it. OK. It must have been my shear will power wishing it would restart on its own that did it. I told him that I was a CF Developer and that I know what it looks like when someone restarts the service. He again said no one had restarted it.

So again, I told him that this is the second time in the past 4 weeks that Ive had to call GoDaddy to tell THEM that my ColdFusion server needed to be rebooted. I said #1 is that someone needs to be monitoring the server. He said -- and I was speechless -- I cant do anything about that. REALLY? You cant write a damn note in the system, submit an email, submit a ticket, anything? He suggested I submit a suggestion at godaddy.com. Oh.. and can I send you a survey about this call?

Here's a suggestion, Go Daddy. Apparently I get what I pay for with you guys. Do you damn job and offer better hosting for your clients. If you have any left. And dont respond to this feedback with the same old bullshit "we appreciate your feedback" crap. Respond with ACTION ITEMS as to how you will correct this problem and when. It really isnt all that hard.