Bad News about Dreamhost.

Insidious · Post by **Insidious** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 8:29 am

Houston, we have a problem.

Let me paste some emails to get you a sense of the problem:

DreamHost Registration Service <support> 		 hide details	 3:09 am (1 hour ago) 
	to		Dylan Morrison <insidious>	 
	date		Jul 1, 2007 3:09 AM	 
	subject		[insidious611 12415452] Domain "belsambar.net"'s Registration expires on 2007-07-04!	 
	mailed-by		dreamhost.com	 
"belsambar.net"'s Registration expires on 2007-07-04!

(Note: if you look at the whois data for this domain, you MAY
see an expiration date of one year later. This DOES NOT mean
the domain has been renewed! The registry "auto-renews" all
domains, but they are then deleted if not EXPLICITLY renewed.)

This domain will expire unless you explicitly renew it at the
Domain > Registration of our web panel at

 https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=domain.registration

** Even *if* your renewal is free, your hosting is not!

** If you renew a domain for free and then cancel your hosting,
you will then have to pay the $9.95 for the domain registration.

** Even if you let your registration expire, your *hosting* will
renew and you WILL BE CHARGED unless you close your account at:

 https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=billing.accounts

Also, you might want to change your renewal settings using the
Domain > Registration area...

      "Yes" : We will always make sure your domain gets renewed.
      "Ask" : Your current setting, we just send you these emails.
"Let Expire" : We will not bug you, nor will we renew your domain.

Remember, if your domain registration expires:

1.  Your web site at that domain will stop working.
2.  Your email at that domain will stop working.
3.  After about 30 days the domain will be available for anyone
   in the world to register again!

Thanks for choosing DreamHost!
The Happy DreamHost Domain Registration Team

Seems pretty banal and everyday, huh? Just need to renew my domain...

Well, I tried. However, their panel seems broken:

Code: Select all

	from		Insidious <insidious> 		 hide details	 4:08 am (20 minutes ago) 
	to		support@dreamhost.com	 
	date		Jul 1, 2007 4:08 AM	 
	subject		Panel not working, need to renew domain registration	 
	mailed-by		gmail.com	 
The panel (panel.dreamhost.com) is not currently working. To be specific, it merely reloads the login screen every time I try to log in. I figured I might have the password wrong, so I had it sent to me... I don't. I need to do some DNS changes and I need to renew the www.belsambar.net domain, and I can do neither if I can't log in.

... Very unfortunately, you seem to be unable to complain to them that their panel is broken if you can't generate a support ticket... which is done via the panel...:

Code: Select all

Mail Delivery Subsystem <noreply> 		 hide details	 4:08 am (21 minutes ago) 
	to		insidious@gmail.com	 
	date		Jul 1, 2007 4:08 AM	 
	subject		Your message was NOT received by support@dreamhost.com!	 
	mailed-by		kitty.sd.dreamhost.com	 
We're sorry.. your email was unable to be processed by our automatic
support system, and so is being returned to you.

Our system could not find the open support case you were replying to,
and so could not automatically tie your message into our system. If this
was a reply to an EXISTING issue, please be sure to keep the:

     [blah 123456]

in the subject line of your reply!

If this is regarding a NEW issue, we must ask that you submit it
through our web panel at:

      https://panel.dreamhost.com/?tree=support.msg

(You can log in with this email address and your panel password.. have
it emailed to you if you've forgotten it!)

All messages submitted through that form are guaranteed to be received!

Our apologies for the inconvenience,
--
The Happy DreamHost Support Team!

So we have a bit of a catch 22.

If I can't get this resolved (And I really don't see any way I can, unless dreamhost happens on this post, or that mailer didnt TOTALLY delete my 'unauthorized support ticket'), belsambar will go down in... three days time. Z2 along with it. I am going to try my best to make sure this doesn't happen.

If worst comes to worst, I will be able to give you current backups of both your FTP space and your SQL tables, as I can still access these even if the domain goes down.

Post by **Zenith Nadir** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:30 am

nnnnnnooooooooooo

don't they have an admin bulletin board or anything like that?

well, i found this... http://wiki.dreamhost.com/Main_Page

also this... http://discussion.dreamhost.com/

they may be of use...

Zaphod

Mister Lad · Post by **Mister Lad** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:48 am

Sabotager! Zaphod

Schroedingers Cat · Post by **Schroedingers Cat** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 6:56 pm

I don't wanna go to geocities :(

Commodore · Post by **Commodore** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 7:52 pm

backups anyone?

Insidious · Post by **Insidious** » Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:45 pm

Tried their discussion forums. Hopefully it rings some alarm bells in their admin circles. Wish me luck.

Post by **Quantum P.** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 12:28 am

The second reply (third post) on this page seems to be hopeful.

Also, is it the web hosting that's going to expire, or is it just the domain name? Just from reading those emails it sounds like a domain name problem, but your offer to give us backups makes it sound like everything is going down.

Insidious · Post by **Insidious** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 1:55 am

The second reply, quantum, is retarded. I can't CREATE a support ticket, as I can't get into the panel, where you create support tickets....

Quantum, think about it.

The domain is going down, yes
But can I switch this site to another domain?

No.

Why?

Because I can't get into the panel.

Do you see why I'm offering backups?

Everything is done via the panel. I can't create a support ticket because I can't get into the panel, I can't get the site back up if its domain goes down because I can't get into the panel (its vhosted, going to this sites actual IP would get you nowhere).

Insidious · Post by **Insidious** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:04 am

Alright, good news. Everything is going to be ok. I fixed the problem (Related to some bad scripting on their end and some bad cookies on mine) and am now able to get into the panel and renew our registration.

Thanks to some help from the guys on their forums, a crisis was averted.

Post by **Quantum P.** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:58 am

1. I apologize for blindly assuming the poster was talking about the same problem. I have no excuse here - just too eager for good news, I guess.
2. I didn't know the site would be completely inaccessible without a domain name. I just assumed this was going to be HOTU all over again, where the contents of the old site would be still be accessible by IP address.
3. I can't believe that's all the problem was. Someone should tell them to fix this problem, or at least to put up a notice to clear cookies/use a different browser.

Post by **Zenith Nadir** » Mon Jul 09, 2007 12:37 am

it's good to return to the internet after a week's absence and find that the apocalypse has not occurred

:fsfunky: