My site has been down for hours. does it occur frecuently ?

[navapart]

I am completely new in this hosting company.

The server has been down for hours.

Is this very normal ?

Any additional problems of this hosting working with european countries ?

or is it occasional ?

Many thanks in advance

Manuel

[Early Out]

BH has over 700 servers, and once in a while, one of them has some problems. It's not normal - I've had a few periods in the last few days when my server has been down for a few minutes, but for months before that, it was never down (as far as I know).

You can check on http://serverstatus.bluehost.com to see if there's a known problem - enter your domain to find out about your specific server.

The only problem of working with BH from Europe is that it's an expensive phone call (there's no such thing as a toll-free call to the U.S. from Europe!). So, use Live Chat to contact BH about problems (big blue button on bluehost.com).

[siguie]

I had a lot of complaints today about my server being down or incredibly slow but it turns out that the extreme weather in the US was causing some router problems ... so it wasn't actually a problem at the bluehost end just the lines in between ... and there's nothing you can do about that :rolleyes:

[edjusted]

I've been having major problems today as well. My sites (on box 195) have been down for over 2 hrs. When I contacted them originally, the guy told me it was a *scheduled* *upgrade* and that it'd take about 30-45 mins. (Who the heck does a server upgrade in the middle of the day?!) Since then it's still been down, and now I can't get through to their tech support by phone or by chat. It's been frustrating.

[instantnet]

Yes but you can download some voip software like www.gizmoproject.com and make the call for free. (toll free calls are free on it no matter where you are)



BH has over 700 servers, and once in a while, one of them has some problems. It's not normal - I've had a few periods in the last few days when my server has been down for a few minutes, but for months before that, it was never down (as far as I know).

You can check on http://serverstatus.bluehost.com to see if there's a known problem - enter your domain to find out about your specific server.

The only problem of working with BH from Europe is that it's an expensive phone call (there's no such thing as a toll-free call to the U.S. from Europe!). So, use Live Chat to contact BH about problems (big blue button on bluehost.com).

[sXi]

Some boxes are presently undergoing Apache upgrades.

[soulstice99]

how would an apache upgrade affect our site's performance? i mean, will our sites run faster once the upgrade is complete?

just wondering...

[Shnacker]

New apache killed my site. NO javascript compressed files anymore, since they changed the apache. If you have .js.gz files included in your scripts ... YOU TOO MAY HAVE THIS ISSUE.

The error to look for is "illegal characters". Now to double check, if possible for you, include the file that was not locally gzipped. So include the .js file. All problem goes away. And NO NO it was not the process of gzip that causing error. It's the Apache upgrade that happend a few hour ago, and killed my site.

Telephone support was terrible. Insulting my intelligence. I actually debugged their problems ... and they still don't express gratitude.

Is there any way to make the new Apache work like the old? I suspect they are now (NEW WAY) forcing all output to be compressed by Apache. Therefore my browsers get the compressed compressed files and don't know what to do. That's root cause of "illegal character error".

Please help. I will now spend hours switching all my scripts to use uncompressed javascript include files.

[azajet]

I have in two of my sites from 18 hours ago a 500 int. server error. And nobody explain me nothing.
If BH emailed us, we dont waste our time try to repair it

[sXi]

I feel your pain.

Not being informed of the upgrades cost me 3hrs development time debugging (live) scripts that were perfectly fine and were only flaking due to the work being done to the server at the time.

Rant, rant, rant, etc. [more ranting here] /angry face

Quite annoying!

[soulstice99]

yeah dont repair your stuff. it's probably fine. just wait til they complete their upgrades.

[web2pro]

I feel your pain.

Not being informed of the upgrades cost me 3hrs development time debugging (live) scripts that were perfectly fine and were only flaking due to the work being done to the server at the time.

Rant, rant, rant, etc. [more ranting here] /angry face

Quite annoying!

I'm joining your rant rant more rant... as I have 2 of my 5 domains down, still as off 9am this morning Central European Time - Time now 00.01 and the two sites are still down, I don't know if I should sit and wait, or try and upload new .htaccess files, and try and force Joomla back to non compressing Java...

[sXi]

I have resorted to beer and have taken a whole new attitude toward the situation.

And I think I'm on to something...

http://mattheaton.com/?p=114

He bags RedHat.. yet admits Bluehost is using their FREE software because "Their “custom” enterprise kernel is buggy beyond belief and new features are too slow to be added".

Hrmm I wonder if there's a FREE version of my Bluehost account? The one I'm using at the moment is buggy beyond belief and new features, after being added, make everything slow. :D

[felgall]

If only some of the domains on the same hosting account are down or if your site has been down for more than two or three hours then you might try contacting support. The upgrades should take down an entire server but only for the 20-40 minutes that it takes to run the upgrades. At the very least you will want to check that the upgrade of your server is actually complete before you start looking at trying to fix any problems that the upgrade may have caused.

[web2pro]

If only some of the domains on the same hosting account are down or if your site has been down for more than two or three hours then you might try contacting support. The upgrades should take down an entire server but only for the 20-40 minutes that it takes to run the upgrades. At the very least you will want to check that the upgrade of your server is actually complete before you start looking at trying to fix any problems that the upgrade may have caused.

Stephen,

In one of these threads I posted the online help chat I had with support.. The support Techie (Who was very honest ) mentioned that there was some issues and it would be back in a few hours.. Like I said, if they communicate in the 1st place, then we know what to expect.. I have had many years in the IT industry, but never before have I experienced a supplier that makes MAJOR changes, to two features .. I.E Apache and PHP5 at the same time, without prior notice to it's clients / customers.. I notice there isn't anyone from Bluehost on this forum answering questions, or helping out...

I'm no spring chicken, and remember IBM PC XT's, when they were about, which was around the same time as this little funny...

http://www.santabanta.com/jokes.asp?catid=3052

[felgall]

BlueHost could have done a better job of notifying people that they were going to upgrade Apache and a better job of notifying when they were going to upgrade PHP. That they were going to upgrade PHP some time between November and February has been fairly obvious ever since the end of support for PHP4 at the end of 2007 was first announced.

BlueHost staff have told some people that everyone was notified by email that the changes would be taking place and there are some people who have posted to the forums here that they did in fact receive such an email. I know that there are at least some people who didn't receive such an email (I know I didn't receive one and my server was upgraded yesterday).

BlueHost's biggest failing appears to be in letting people know in advance what is happening so that we can know what to expect. I suppose if they have to be less than perfect then that is a better failing to have than most of the alternatives.

[web2pro]

YES... Biggest falling is communication...

I have now fixed my two domains that have problems, by turning off the following feature..

PHP5 (FastCGI)
All files with the extension .php will be handled by PHP5 FastCGI processes.
FastCGI for PHP makes all your PHP applications run through mod_fastcgi instead of mod_suphp. This eliminates the overhead of loading the PHP interpretor on every hit. Since it is always in memory ready for the next hit, the responses will be generated faster.

[Rob McKaughan]

I was getting the internal server error on all domains. I noticed that bluehost had added a SetEnvIfNoCase to my root .htaccess that has a syntax error in the regex (only one parenthesis).

I commented out the line & my sites all came back up.