Does anyone else use a monitoring service on their VPS?

[Rebel007]

I'm curious as I use Mon.itor.us who have monitoring nodes throughout the US and Europe I only use their basic service as that is really all I need My VPS runs a single forum a few photo galleries for friends and family and tbh thats about all.

Having been extremely ill over the last 18 months or so (lets just say it would not be possible to be worse and still write this post) I have done nothing major on my forums or my galleries, in fact as a result the sites are seeing less traffic now than they have for 6 or 7 years long before I had ever heard of JPC.

The funny thing is although I recently had a memory upgrade I have now been told my reliability issues may be down to hitting Resource limits (strange as I am using less than ever) and support tell me " have checked your VPS and it is running fine for more than 90 days. Also apache service is running for more than 17 days." yet my users tell me the server is down, I am unable to access the server and Mon.itor.us have sent me numerous emails to say apache has failed and the icing on the cake is Cpanel has been sending me emails to say mysql has failed.

Who would you believe, support who say the VPS is fine, or my users, my control panel, my own experience and the reports from the monitoring service?

PS Up until now I have been a loyal client of JPC since March 2006 so well over 5 years and running my own sites since 2001 (although far less now than used to be the case)

[JPC-Sabrina]

Hello,
Our apologies for your complications. Do you currently have an open ticket for this issue? We have recently added some new staff to our technical team and we may be able to help you resolve this issue. We are here to help. If you can open a support ticket or post a ticket number then we can begin to help you with the details of your troubles.

[JPC-JamesG]

Hello,
I can only apologize for the experience you have had recently wtih your VPS. It could be a software problem wtih cPanel, it may hve experienced a fail in an update that is causing it to fall sometimes, or a memory issue within a script or PHP.

If you could open a ticket and maybe copy in come of the email alerts you have received from cPanel, monitor.us and any other stats you have for this, we can track it down and assist you fix this issue.

Please do let us know if we can be of any further assistance to you.

[Ron]

Rebel,
I'm so sorry you've been ill. I hope and pray that you are on the mend.

[Rebel007]

Thanks Ron, its very much appreciated. It seems I had 3 separate Aortic aneurisms of various sizes, the longest being some 13 cm in length and the smallest being some 7.5cm by 4.7 cm.

Two of those aneurisms ruptured whilst I was at home I lost some 4 1/2 litres of blood (as a small person the doctors suggested I only had a maximum of 6 litres of blood in the first place), so as you can appreciate I ended up with a heart trying to pump blood that wasnt there amongst other things.

Some time on a life support machine oll0owed by a stay in the intensiver care unit and then the high dependency unit beore being moved to a normal hospital ward kind of summedup 2010 for me.

I was lucky in the fact my wife had got home from work and was able to call the emergency services but unfortunately a fair amount of damage was done by the time they were able to commence surgery, and my Aorta was too badly damaged to repair so I have an artificial one now.

I was opened up from the top of my chest to well into my right thigh have multiple DVT's and to add insult to injury whilst the skin eventually recovered the abdominal wall did not and I have a rupture the whole length of my abdomen as I say it was a fairly serious incident.

All in all not a pleasant experience.

[Rebel007]

Hello,
I can only apologize for the experience you have had recently wtih your VPS. It could be a software problem wtih cPanel, it may hve experienced a fail in an update that is causing it to fall sometimes, or a memory issue within a script or PHP.

If you could open a ticket and maybe copy in come of the email alerts you have received from cPanel, monitor.us and any other stats you have for this, we can track it down and assist you fix this issue.

Please do let us know if we can be of any further assistance to you.

Here is a copy of some of the email alerts sent by Mon.itor.us

Service: HTTP
URL: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Name: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 9-18-2011 00:43:02 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US

Service: HTTP
URL: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Name: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 9-21-2011 22:13:02 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US

Service: HTTP
URL: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Name: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 9-27-2011 00:43:02 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US

Service: HTTP
URL: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Name: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 10-3-2011 00:43:02 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US

Service: HTTP
URL: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Name: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 10-4-2011 00:43:02 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US

Service: HTTP
URL: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Name: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 10-8-2011 04:39:10 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US


Service: HTTP
URL: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Name: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 10-13-2011 15:39:11 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US

Service: HTTP
URL: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Name: The Digital Darkroom - Digital photography Forums - Powered by vBulletin
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 10-17-2011 21:40:26 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US

There are quite a lot more but I feel sure these are enough to give you an idea o what I am talking about.

Additionally
mysql failed @ Tue Oct 4 01:29:29 2011. A restart was attempted automagically.
Service Check Method: [check command]
Number of Restart Attempts: 1
Cmd Service Check Raw Output: mysql is not running

mysql failed @ Tue Oct 11 01:59:01 2011. A restart was attempted automagically.
Service Check Method: [check command]
Number of Restart Attempts: 2
Cmd Service Check Raw Output: mysql is not running

mysql failed @ Sat Oct 15 10:42:44 2011. A restart was attempted automagically.
Service Check Method: [check command]
Number of Restart Attempts: 3
Cmd Service Check Raw Output: mysql is not running

mysql failed @ Mon Oct 17 05:58:43 2011. A restart was attempted automagically.
Service Check Method: [check command]
Number of Restart Attempts: 2
Cmd Service Check Raw Output: mysql is not running

There are a lot more of these as well but I'm sure this is sufficient to show that there have been some issues with my VPS and its not all in my imagination

Ticket number:-13445192

[Ron]

Good Lord man. What an ordeal.

Are you able to get around now? Will they be able to repair or support that muscle for you?

I'm happy you're around to have server issues.

[Rebel007]

I get around currently using a disabled scooter thing, don't know what they are called in the states, had some steroid injections today to try and help with the pain but so far not helping much.

They wont do anything about the abdomen as they say no matter what they do it never lasts and always reopens once it has gone as far as mine has, still its not life threatening although there are a couple of small hernia's that could strangulate and cause problems.

As for those I'm waiting for some scans (Ultrasound and CT)and then the surgeon and anaesthetist have to decide whether they think I am fit enough to undergo further surgery, one surgeon has already refused to operate on me claiming I am too high a risk.

Time will tell so they say

[JPC-Sabrina]

Rebel,I am of the same opinion as Ron. I know that if you are strong enough to make it through that medical nightmare than you are strong enough to endure a bit longer with us while we resolve your server issues. Jaguarpc does all the same express its' regrets that you are having issues with your health and your server. May all systems be functioning at a better level tomorrow, yours and ours. I will be checking in with you to make sure you are getting the best service possible. May you be showered with rapid health improvements in the very near future.

[gohighvoltage]

Rebel007,

God Bless you bud. I will keep you in my prayers.

[Rebel007]

Thanks for the good wishes all.

To be honest I don't usually talk about my health problems as initially it sounds like I am asking for sympathy (not the case) and also we all have our own problems, so the last thing anyone needs is to hear of someone else's personal difficulties on a forum like this.

The service JPC have given over the years I've been with them is second to none, whilst they have problems (I've been through a few of them) they are usually resolved in the end!

Greg Landis (Jag) has been a real gentleman and helped me on a few occasions over the years as I said earlier I had to get a message to JPC while I was in hospital as nobody else could get access to my accounts to pay the server bill, not a big thing in the greater scale of life but important to me as I had spent years building my forum, anyway Greg rearranged the due dates so I could get the server bill paid and took one worry off my shoulders simply by doing that, laying on your back with tubes coming out of every orifice including some that didn't previously exist as well, its surprising what prays on your mind lol!

If I'm honest I really didn't appreciate my life was about to change dramatically at that time, I guess I didn't realise how ill I really was Unfortunately it's meant my photography forum has gone from a thriving active and lively site to one that's just about ticking over with perhaps 25-30% of the activity it used to get simply because there hasn't been anyone driving it forward!

Remember guys your own sites are at risk if anything happens to you so its worth taking sensible precautions if they truly matter to you, my site doesn't make money, its a hobby site only but it means something to me.

[Ron]

Don't kick yourself too hard. Most forums are WAAAAAY down in participation. It's facebook.

[gohighvoltage]

I agree with Ron. I am forever having a problem generating new members or traffic.

[JPC-Sabrina]

It is competitive out there men. We are all working very hard to get our traffic numbers up on our hobby and business sites. Keep riding on the tail of social media sites as they are not going to diminish. Many, many methods exist for driving traffic but what are you using at the time that is actively working to increase traffic?

[Rebel007]

Unfortunately my vps is STILL having these issues and is down as I type this!

again this is not an isolated incident and I have updated my ticket but to give a further example:
PROBLEM Alert
Service: HTTP
URL: http://www.digi-darkroom.com
Name: www.digi-darkroom.com
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 10-25-2011 12:53:19 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US

mysql failed @ Tue Oct 25 13:41:55 2011. A restart was attempted automagically.
Service Check Method: [check command]
Number of Restart Attempts: 1
Cmd Service Check Raw Output: mysql is not running


PROBLEM Alert
Service: HTTP
URL: http://www.digi-darkroom.com
Name: www.digi-darkroom.com
Tag: Default
State: CRITICAL
Date/Time: 10-26-2011 10:28:43 GMT
Additional Information: Response failed on Receive.
Failures From: EU, US