1and1 cgi problems - 500 internal error on all cgi calls

[Paul Bulpit]

I have put a message on our homepage about the problem and inviting customers to ring us with their contact details so that we can let them know when it is fixed. Unfortunately not many people seem to go on our site via the homepage. All our Google Adwords take them directly to specific product pages.

Sarah, go to Site Options | General - Header Text.

Put your message in there and it will appear on every page, and you can use !!< >!! to format it in large red print!

[saucysal]

Switched off Google

As I was typing my last posting and mentioning Google, it suddenly made me think. I have now switched off Google Adwords and should have thought of that sooner - a waste of about £300 so far today in clicks that go cannot produce a sale. I just have to remember to activate it again when it is fixed, as most of our customers, including regular repeat ones, click on Google Adwords.

Sarah

[saucysal]

Thanks Paul

Thanks Paul. That's brilliant. Didn't think of that.

Sarah

[saunderson]

1and1 Sux

I got through to 1and1 dedicated server support guy called Mark this morning. He said he needed to restart our server. He tried to restart it but it didn't come back up so now all our sites are totally down.

Interestingly 1and1's Customer login page is now also giving a 500 Internal Server Error....

[saucysal]

Yes, I got 500 error on 1&amp;1 site

1&1 must be fully-aware of the problem as their own website has it!

I am surprised that it is taking so long to fix it. But perhaps, come to think of it, I am not surprised. It is 1&1.

Interesting that it makes no difference whether you have a dedicated server or a shared server.

Sarah

[Paul Bulpit]

1and1's Customer login page is now also giving a 500 Internal Server Error....

Perhaps that's to stop people raising support tickets!

[Darren B]

for those that might want a quick fix try nublue its set up real quick and actinic runs well. http://www.nublue.co.uk/

the only thinkgpaypal call backs will fail on the shared hosting as it does not have all the modules installed, the vps solution can have the extra modules installed if you need them.

Excellent support with uk call centre

[Sean Williams]

Sorry to hear you guys are having such a torrid morning - 1and1's customer service sounds pretty poor.
I get the impression from our host UKFast that if anything like that were to happen there, those responsible would be marched into the middle of a misty field at dawn and dealt with appropriately

[saucysal]

Hmmm . . Thinking . . .

When something like this happens it makes one think about changing host. However, firstly this will take a while, as my experience of transferring domains is slow and painful. Secondly, on thinking about it, my personal experience with 1&1 over the past 8 years of using them is generally good. The website has been down rarely, I have been able to speak to somebody at any time of the day or night on those rare occasions, and they have fixed it usually within 30 minutes to a hour. The present problem is unique with them in my 8 years of experience with them. It is possible that such a problem, whatever the problem is, could happen with other hosts as well. I therefore will not be rushing to change.

Sarah

[johnshackleton]

on thinking about it, my personal experience with 1&1 over the past 8 years of using them is generally good.

Sarah

I agree. They've messed up big time here but this is the first problem I have experienced with 3 different sites over the past 5 years.

[NormanRouxel]

Looks like it's everyone on 1&1. All my demo sites there (Business / Linux) fail on the cgi-bin pages. PHP and HTML pages continue to work. Not a biggie for me as they're just demo pages but this must affect a huge number of critical sites due to 1&1's size.

[guccij]

All our Google Adwords take them directly to specific product pages.

I've suspended our Ads. No point in paying to send people to us if they can't order.

[TraceyHand]

We'd been with 1and1 for several years before we changed hosts last month (there but for the grace of God etc!)
I was happy to work with them on sorting the issues we were having with our new (non-Actinic) site but the feeling didn't appear to be mutual.
1and1's support was SHOCKING. It was truly horrendous and I ended up with numerous emails that were just churned out from a script and related in no way to the problems I was experiencing.

I'd be 10 emails down through a query and then someone else would respond with the same response/reply/suggestions that I'd already had way back at the start of the ticket!

I'd have been happy to stay with them but they showed to me (fortunately, back in December/January) that their support was a joke. And I have NO qualms in stating that!

We moved to an alternative host who have been excellent every step of the way. Every ticket I've submitted has been answered quickly (usually within a couple of hours, even within 10 minutes by phone on a Friday evening!) and their service has been faultless (this is NuBlue but I appreciate that their shared hosting, as Darren B has already mentioned, is not really suitable for Actinic sites)

Poor support was the nail in the coffin for me/them. If the current problems aren't the nail(s) in the coffin for you guys, perhaps an experience of their (lack of) support might do it.

I sympathise greatly. Hopefully some of you guys will be able to benefit from Actinic's emergency hosting??

[guccij]

Agree with views above: this is the first big outage in many years with 1and1. All hosts have issues from time to time and the effort involved in moving is too daunting for me right now.
Hopefully this cock up is soooo big that 1and1 will tread very carefully once it's fixed.

[Joanna14]

I agree too, I have had no problems with one and one over the last 8 years and have always got straight through. Even at lunchtime today I was speaking to someone within 5 minutes and they could only say what we already know, "that they are working on it as fast as they can". He did also say we can e:mail complaints and ask if there's any form of compensation. Which is maybe worth a try.

Tracy, I called Actinic cover to take up the emergency hosting and it's not applicable to this sort of thing as you would have to set up a whole new domain and register everything new. This is annoying and a bit misleading in the advertising.

So the only thing we can do is wait.... and fingers crossed it will be sorted soon.

ps. I too have turned off Google Adwords, thanks Sarah for this tip!