I Haven't Been Suspended Since I Was Seventeen

I checked PROJECT: Lucidity last night before I went to bed. After patiently waiting the prerequisite 4-5 hours for Tech Support to "fix" whatever problem was on the server, I anticipated the site to pop up just fine.

Wrong. Still 403 Error, and no access.

Ok, I though, maybe it's just taking them longer to fix the server than I (and their estimators) thought. No one would log into PROJECT: Lucidity during the middle of the night, so I decided to wait until this morning.

Got up this morning and checked the site. Still down. Arg. Now I'm getting ticked off.

First thing I did when I got to work (after checking for any urgent/immediate work-related issues) was to give iPowerWeb a call. Screw the web chat, I want to speak with someone who will tell me what's going on.

After being on hold for 25 minutes, I finally connected with Mark. Looks like there wasn't a technical problem with the server, after all. Nooo... looks as though someone has hijacked the site, and has hundreds of connections going out simultaneously. It's basically crashed the server, so they had to suspend my account.

Of course, no one told me the other TWO times I contacted iPowerWeb. Nor did they call, nor did they e-mail.

Bastards.

Hopefully I still have the back-end access through Vdeck. If I do, then I'm backing everything up (I'll need to find some way of backing up the database), and probably start shopping for another server host. Sure, transferring won't solve the problem of who might have hijacked my site, but the fact that iPowerWeb just suspended an account without notifying the paying customer is just foolish. I mean, what if this was a revenue-generating site?

Anyway, I sent off my terse e-mail to their Abuse Team to see if they can resolve the problem. In the meantime, I'll post what I normally would at P:L over at TPMCafe (username is "Eric Stepp").

Downtime Riles Me Up

This is getting to be a wee bit frustrating.

PROJECT: Lucidity is kind of down right now, at least for most of the day. I keep getting a 403 Error when trying to access the front end, and the CMS administration login. However, I can access the server back-end through the Vdeck (kind of like Cpanel).

I suppose I could try to figure out how to post through the database, but that's just too much work. Plus, no one would be able to log in anyway.

Just got off the live chat with tech support, and after being "on hold" for 20 minutes, they say... Yup. There's a problem with the server. Please be patient while the techs fix it.

"How long, do you figure?" I asked. "It's been down pretty much all day."

Check back in 4-5 hours.

Bwah? I could probably build a new server in that amount of time. Then again, that's probably what they're doing.