——-Update for those who’ve read the article already———-
I have been contacted by several people saying this issue is my fault because my wp-config WordPress files are hard-coded with the MT database servers. When MT changes my DB settings, I have to change my config files. This is not true at all. I use the MT server variable which Media Temple controls. When they change this variable, it puts my sites back online.
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First, I apologize for Mister Nifty being down erratically the past three weeks. The issue has arisen with my web host, Media Temple. MN gets a fair amount of traffic, but nothing substantial in comparison to other major tech blogs. We get 5,000-7,000 unique hits per month. I have several other sites that get minimal traffic on my shared hosting plan as well. I really don’t need anything more than a shared hosting plan for the traffic and data storage I use. I’ve had several other web hosts in the past with the same configuration and I never had issues with keeping my sites in a shared environment.
The past three weeks have been an absolute nightmare for me. The Saturday before Easter the director of an orphanage that I host called me frantically that their site was down and this was the day of their big launch fundraiser. We had setup a Paypal donation solution for donors to give. This was rendered useless because their site was down. We had to copy/paste a Paypal button link every time someone wanted to donate. That evening I contacted support and they ‘fixed’ the issue.
They said my sites were bursting (unusually large traffic to the databases) and they moved me to a dedicated database environment so my account didn’t affect others in the shared pool. I totally understand and I really didn’t mind them doing this. The only thing I had issue with is all of my sites run on WordPress, a database-driven platform. Once they migrated me to the dedicated environment, they failed to hook all the databases back up again leaving every last one of my sites with horrid database connection errors. I was pleased that the sites were up again on Saturday evening.
On Easter Sunday, I was at church preparing for our service and I start getting a barrage of text messages from churches freaking out that their sites were down and they couldn’t pull up their embedded streaming players. Since I was at church, I couldn’t take care of this issue until after service. I contacted support after holding for over an hour, they fixed the same exact issue as the night before. Needless to say, every site I had was down on Easter Sunday. Hundreds of people who view webcasts didn’t get to see the services on Easter Sunday of all days. This was just insult to injury as the issue had been ‘fixed’ the night previous.
Over the next two-three weeks, I’ve experienced this same iteration no less than ten times with MediaTemple. I’ve spent about 6-7 hours talking to techs and emailing support. I’ve talked with their Twitter support, fielded calls from senior techs and the issue still remains. I woke up to another automated email this morning telling me that they moved my databases again. I visited MN only to find a database error as Media Temple did not hook the databases back up again after they migrated.
You can imagine how frustrating this has been as I have to stop what I’m doing and call Media Temple or wait for ticket support to get back with me. I will say that their Twitter support is very quick and responsive. I’m pretty upset that the MT techs keep pointing the finger at me for taking up too many database resources and won’t look at their own issue of hooking databases back up when migrating a customer. Every single tech except a senior tech named TJ has pointed the finger at me and inferred that this was my fault. This can’t be my fault that the DB’s aren’t hooked up properly when I had nothing to do with the migration. I asked to speak to an executive but was denied by one tech who said it was impossible to connect me to someone of the executive level. I’m hoping someone from MT reads this and kicks this up to a supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor’s supervisor’s executive supervisor.
Needless to say, I’ve lost trust with six people whose sites I host and they are finding other solutions because of MT’s persistent issues. It’s disheartening, but I have to move on. I’m switching hosts so that Mister Nifty can bring you all the goodness you enjoy on a consistent basis. I hope you will look elsewhere as Media Temple when shopping web hosting. If you have any good hosting suggestions for others, please post a comment below. Thanks for your patience and again I apologize for the downtime.
If you enjoy what you do, you never have to work a day in your life.
