The pain of giving birth

[AMH]

This has been a trying week getting hosting done and running. I host a number of websites. They are big but don't chew through the CPU as they are still growing.

I tried JaguarPC mainly because of the large community that it has. It is the first thing that tells you the company must be doing something right to keep so many people going. It speaks louder than any advert you could place anywhere. May I suggest a few things that might make life a bit easier.

1. How about tech support not using 'geek speak'. By this I mean try and keep the level of English with the user. Talking about PHP4, PHP5 or asking about shell access means nothing to me. Its a learning curve and not everyone is a Linux guru.

2. If you don't migrate peoples websites at least point to a service that does move websites. It has taken me 2 days to download and upload the largest of the sites thus far on an internet connection running 24/7. Internet connections in Asia are a crap shoot.

When I moved off Godaddy hosting to Hostgator all they wanted was my login details for the control panel on Godaddy Hosting and they moved everything seamlessly. That was 2 years ago. Now that I had outgrow their hosting plans I needed a semi dedicated plan which they did not offer. I was stupidly thinking that the level of service would be the same - give us your login details and we will move it for you. JaguarPC wanted shell access which I would assume is SSH. That I don't have as it is not offered on a shared account.

I think it is safe to say that over the last 48 hours I have opened the same amount of tickets and given replies asking questions here than what I did at Hostgator for the entire last year. Does it not make more sense to move people onto your network hence cutting down on them asking 101 questions when having to do it themselves? Is it not more cost effective?

Now, after all of this who ha, the software does not run on the version of PHP running on the SDX account. That is where I just threw in the towel as this is just becoming a waste of time for all concerned. Kindly see the sales Q asking for a refund after 3 days of living in the dark.


Username: newsafri

[Spathiphyllum]

...1. How about tech support not using 'geek speak'. By this I mean try and keep the level of English with the user. Talking about PHP4, PHP5 or asking about shell access means nothing to me. Its a learning curve and not everyone is a Linux guru.

PHP4, PHP5, and SSH are very basic terms. I'm not sure how they could dumb it down any further in any support communications. I'm not trying to be a snot, but some effort on your part to become conversant is required. The staff will help you if you repeat your request and mention that their answer is too complex. Most people don't want to know the technical aspects on why something is wrong... they just want it fixed. NOW! Support obliges to the best of their ability most of the time. You, however, do not fall into the category of ignorance is bliss, which is helpful longterm, but requires more work on your part to ensure that resources on all sides of the business transaction are equitable. As a VPS/multi-site operator, you'll need to depend more on your own abilities than on Jaguar staff's to run your server and explain all nuances. Honestly, it's the only way to keep the product competitively priced. Of course, that requires more risk on your part and more responsibility, IMO.

. If you don't migrate peoples websites at least point to a service that does move websites. It has taken me 2 days to download and upload the largest of the sites thus far on an internet connection running 24/7. Internet connections in Asia are a crap shoot.

I thought Jaguar did assist in moving if requested. I suspect you could have worked something out with the company to serve your needs even if it required an extra surcharge for their efforts. Moving is always the worst part of hosting for everyone involved. The trick is to move to a decent host and stay despite the mandatory hiccups it induces - and Jaguar is undeniably a decent host. That's really where Jaguar shines, so if you can survive a transition, then the worst is over.

I wish you well wherever you move. Hopefully the accounts you hold will integrate readily with whatever serving platform your new host supports.

JaguarPC wanted shell access which I would assume is SSH. That I don't have as it is not offered on a shared account.

Do you mean that you don't have SSH access on your current host so Jaguar was unable to do the move for you? Jaguar provides SSH to its clients. I'm not sure what they could do about transitioning you automagically without "root" access to your current remote data.

[Vin DSL]

I'm starting to smell a rat...

Is it just me?

[Vin DSL]

I thought Jaguar did assist in moving if requested...

How do you move sites without shell access? FTP?

This doesn't make any sense!

[Vin DSL]

I'm totally lost in this discussion...

Please disregard the above!

[AMH]

PHP4, PHP5, and SSH are very basic terms. I'm not sure how they could dumb it down any further in any support communications. I'm not trying to be a snot, but some effort on your part to become conversant is required.

PHP4/PHP5 - I don't know the differences between the two versions or what may be needed. In any event if I hire an attorney I don't think he would expect me to know basic legal terms. Support is good and fast - but that is not the point.

As a VPS/multi-site operator, you'll need to depend more on your own abilities than on Jaguar staff's to run your server and explain all nuances. Honestly, it's the only way to keep the product competitively priced. Of course, that requires more risk on your part and more responsibility, IMO.

This is a SDX hosting account. I would give VPS a miss until I can find someone who could piece it together for me.

I thought Jaguar did assist in moving if requested. I suspect you could have worked something out with the company to serve your needs even if it required an extra surcharge for their efforts.

The account was too large for a zip file to be unzipped so they needed SSH.

Moving is always the worst part of hosting for everyone involved. The trick is to move to a decent host and stay despite the mandatory hiccups

You right it is like moving homes. You get used to a certain neighborhood then when you move, you have to adjust to a new one.

Do you mean that you don't have SSH access on your current host so Jaguar was unable to do the move for you?

SSH on the shared account of the old host was needed as I understood it.

[AMH]

I'm starting to smell a rat...

Is it just me?

Thats because you are standing to close. Its my undies. So much stress moving and I have soiled them.

[Frank Broughton]

Yikes..... If you are simply a web dev man then you should get someone else to handle your hosting.

php4 soon obsolete... php5 current rendering.

[jason]

Like everyone else here, I am just an observer and I don't know any specifics. I don't know what support asked you or how they asked it. That said, I'll still comment on your PHP comment:

PHP is a server-side programming language. It is pretty popular on budget web hosting because it can run on just about any OS and server combination and doesn't require a huge memory footprint like other platforms (such as Java, for example). For that reason a lot of the prepackaged web applications (blogs, message boards, wikis, etc.) have been developed using PHP.

Like all things computer-related the PHP language is ever evolving and is often adapted to meet the current needs of web developers. For the past 10 years or so PHP4 (major version 4) has been quite popular. Three years ago PHP 5 was introduced. PHP 5 has many improved features but with some of these come backwards incompatibilities that sometimes render script written for PHP 4 useless when run with PHP 5. So the question of version is very important.

Because of the popularity of the PHP 4 language and the number of incompatibilities that PHP 5 causes to PHP 4 scripts the adoption rate of PHP 5 has been very slow. Support for PHP 4 was discontinued at the beginning of the year. While JPC continues to run PHP 4 (alongside PHP 5) on most of their servers, I believe they have started building newer servers that only have PHP 5.

I suspect you are running applications that were written for PHP 4 and that you were placed on a server that only has PHP 5. While should really look to update your code base, I'm sure that if you asked about it support cold put you on a server that has both PHP versions. I suspect that may have been the discussion that prompted your comments here.

Here's how to figure out what version of PHP you are running. On both of your servers create a file called info.php and add the following code to it:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Save the file to a web-accessible location and then call it from your browser. You'll get a very long page with lots of information about the configuration of your server, but at the very top you will see a blue box with the text "PHP Version" and the version number.

Hope this helps. I am sure that support is not trying to alienate you with "geek speak," but at the same time there are certain questions that can't be asked in a non-technical way. If you don't understand them simply ask for clairification or ask how you can find the information that is requested. I'm sure the techs will be happy to propvide a more detailed answer.

--Jason

[JPC-Masood]

If I'm not mistaken the OP has old php4 code which was working fine on old servers on previous host, while our newest servers are using latest php5 and mysql5 by default. Here is a blog entry that sheds some light on the issue

Why my site does not work on new host?

[Vin DSL]

Thats because you are standing to close. Its my undies. So much stress moving and I have soiled them.

LoL!

Good one!

Hang in there...

[kandukury]

I didnot get any help while moving my site from Yahoo to JPC.

The overall service is quite o.k and very responsive to any T.T issued.

I am quite happy, but make me angry always when i hear, no help to move the site to JPC.

It's a nightmare to move a site.

Satya

[Gwaihir]

Do you mean that you don't have SSH access on your current host so Jaguar was unable to do the move for you? Jaguar provides SSH to its clients. I'm not sure what they could do about transitioning you automagically without "root" access to your current remote data.

Sadly, many (if not most) of the cheaper shared hosting services do not offer SSH. So surely JagPC has other means of transfer for those cases. FTP, anyone?


As for dumbing down PHP4/PHP5: PHP4 is obsolete. Within several months from now everyone still requiring it will have to adapt their software (or have it adapted) or find themselves forced to take their site off the internet. So, AMH, if you find JPC or another host still willing to run that old code for you for now, know that you'll be back to this problem by the end of the summer.

These guys offer webhosting. They don't maintain your site for you, nor the software your run. As others have said, if you are unable to take care of that yourself, you need to find someone to do it for you and present him / her with the tech issues. To fit this into your attorney analogy: if he finds you don't understand him well enough to provide him with the details and pieces of evidence he needs for the case, he may advise you to hire someone to sort out your paperwork and straighten out your administrative process first.

[Mark_Amy]

I'm not very knowledgeable about all these terms either, but running a website I feel it's my responsibility to learn as much as I can so that if any problems crop up, at least I won't be totally in the dark.

That said, I moved from my old host to JPC and everything was transferred smoothly via the control panel. Had a few problems, self induced and now fixed, and now my site runs so amazingly fast, without any hitches and I couldn't be happier with the server I'm on and the service from JPC.

Reading this thread though, I'm a bit worried about PHP4 becoming obsolete in a few months. I didn't realize how old PHP4 was. Will all the servers switch over to PHP5? Will there be a grace period for sites still using PHP4+ versions? Will there be warnings?

Mark

[Mark_Amy]

**UPDATE**

OK, I've read a bit more about it now. Is there a list of servers that have been upgraded to PHP5 ? There's a sticky post that refers to "a list of servers below", but there's no list below.

It seems like all I have to do is edit my .htaccess file:

"2. To use php5 for all *.php files as default in your entire account, you need to edit ~/public_html/.htaccess file and add this directive:

# Use PHP5 as default
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .php .php4 .php3 .phtml"

I'm on Tyranus, has that server been upgraded to PHP5?

Thanks,
Mark