Hosting company issues - I hope this is the right place to post ....

[Dorian]

Hi all,

I’m stuck in a hosting nightmare and would appreciate some help!

I was hosting with Lemonstorm who at New Years were bought out by Pathfinder Hosting. The first I heard about this was when I couldn’t download the orders because of some cgi script issue (I have the error message if that helps).

Unfortunately there is no phone number for Pathfinder (http://pathfinderhosting.co.uk/, but even this page now looks different than it did just last week) and after one email from them I have heard nothing (and have emailed dozens of times).

Actinic has offered me their emergency hosting but unfortunately we can’t move over to this as without being able to get into my original hosting account to change some settings – this is from Actinic:

You must ask them either to provide the login details so that you can adjust your DNS records, or they must point the 'A-records' for 'itmustbegreen.co.uk' to: 81.29.88.81

I’ve now been a month without being able to take any orders and just have no idea what I can do to fix this. I have even written to Pathfinder by snail-mail – but with no reply.

Has anyone got any ideas what I can do to get out of this mess? Without being able to get in touch with Pathfinder I can’t get into my control panel – and Lemonstorm have stopped being contactable as well!

Exasperated and desperate!
Dorian.
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[Mike Hughes]

Get on to nominet. You can change the registrar that manages your domain via them.

See: http://www.nic.uk/registrants/maintain/changeregistrar/

From now on, keep your domain seperate from your host. Use someone like 123-reg for the domain name and then you can move hosts easily if there's a problem.

Mike

[Dorian]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for this. Coincidentally, I do have my domain at 123-REG and my hosting at Pathfinder. However, I gave me log on details to Actinic Support and they were still unable to fix this issue - they said I still needed to get into my control panel at the hosting company.

Dorian.

[Mike Hughes]

Nah.

You can change your A records from within 123-reg.

http://www.123-reg.co.uk/support/ans...-settings-279/

Mike

[orcahouse]

Hi Dorian,

It might seem obvious but have you tried creating a fresh client account with Pathfinder and then seeing if you can access your webspace from that. They also have a live chat button on their support page so might be worth checking that every so often to see if it becomes active. From Google, the owner seems to have fingers in lots of pies, including working for the local council, so he may not be around until the evenings. Let us know if you are successful.

[Dorian]

Hi,

I've tried the live chat button (and creating a new account and creating s support query) but there is never anyone there to get back to me!

I had GW from Actinic look around my 123-reg account to see if he could re-direct the A-records, but he had no luck (I enclose the screenshot of the relevant page). That's frustrating if indeed you can do it from here. I will follow the instructions and try it myself - so thanks for the page link, that really helps.

[pinbrook]

As long as your nameservers are with 123-reg you can change A records.

I did the very same thing just yesterday on the 123 CP.

You will probably want to change MX to - otherwise you won't get mail.

[Dorian]

Hi - I'm trying to do this now but getting the enclsoed error. Am I right in assuming that having changed the nameservers to 123 I may have to wait for up to 48 hours BEFORE I can point the A records to the address Actinic gave me? or have I got my host name down incorrectly? itmustbegreen.co.uk
(you can see this on the bottom line of the enclsoed). There seem to be a lot of A records - must I delete the rest or just add this new one in?

[pinbrook]

When I looked earlier on your nameservers were with ukfast they are now at 123-reg so maybe try again

If unsuccessful let us know what you are doing or ask actinic support to try again

[Dorian]

I've asked Actinic support to take another look - maybe I'm getting my Hostname wrong, but I don't know what this is or where I find out! Will let you know what I hear back. It looks like the nameservers have been changed.

[Dorian]

Well - what a chore - we still don't have email working properly, but at least I have the website running correctly now. With the email I can send from the old account and receive from the new one (that Actinic set up) but not the other way around, so I'm having to keep both - not very practical.

As I only have 60 days emergency hosting and I'm now half way through that - I'm looking to choose another hosting company. I have a large'ish site (200 mb) but I don't use much bandwidth - does anyone have any suggestions or favourites that aren't too pricey?

[Duncan Rounding]

Actinic for service and Actinic knowledge, otherwise 1and1 which is my host of choice.

[wesleythorne]

stay clear of 4surehosting / host-it
very poor customer service, after several years we had to leave them.
Plus they would not refund us for the remainder of our 1 year hosting deal when we had to move due to server issue. Shame, once a good company, now you cant even get a phone call out of them.

[Jan]

We host with Actinic as well and are happy, very few problems and responsive support when we need to change something.

Regards,

[malbro]

1and1 Servers

otherwise 1and1 which is my host of choice.

Potential users of 1and1 should be aware that they have changed their offerings recently and the new offerings whilst cheaper are not as good as the old ones.

I switched a site from the old Professional to the new Business package and whilst it runs Actinic fine you can no longer add domains that are registered elsewhere, they insist that 1and1 must be the registrar.

The new dedicated server options do not run Actinic. There appears to be a major problem with the location of the cgi-bin folder that prevents Actinic from operating. I am trying to resolve this with 1and1 support but have spent the morning relocating several Actinic sites due to the lack of a response.