I’ve always thought 1and1 weren’t actually all that bad, and, I recently recommended them to two friends. Their service is good, and as stable as I’d like for the most part, but their customer service just haven’t got the faintest clue on exactly that… “customer service”. No-one wants to help you. They only read from a script and don’t have a clue if you ask them about something mildly technical. Level 2 support seems to be slightly better, but I’ve only ever managed to get them on email, and not on the phone.
The out-look is bleak.
Here is my probably small tale of woe….
28th February – I get a bit of a frantic email from a client stating that their database is down. I look into it, in the process telephoning 1and1 for comment. They stated that I must have deleted the database through my admin control panel (simply not true). As the database is for an e-commerce website, I asked them to restore the database – which they stated they would do within 48 hours. I was a little annoyed that it should take this long, but admitted defeat as they weren’t going to do it any quicker. I went about restoring the previous night’s backup into a new database so that the site could get back up and running; minus a few orders in the db of course.
This seemed to get things going again, so I sat back slightly more than I normally would with a soft Indian voice in my head stating “it’ll be restored within 48 hours sir”.
Fast forward to 7th March. I received an email from “abuse-team@1and1.com” stating that the database (which had been closed for 9 days at that point) was pulling down the database server, and I was getting warned that if I didn’t do anything about it, they would. All well and good I thought…if I’d received it 9 days ago, before they closed my account. Why send me an email 9 days after? They surely can’t be saying that it is in use now could they?
Dear Douglas Radburn, (Customer ID: xxxxxxx)
It has come to our attention that your account database;
dbxxxxxxxxx
has been flagged up by the administrators for taking up too many
resources on the database server. Please note that being on a shared
hosting platform the database server resources are shared amongst other
users. There has been a performance drop on the server due to the
resources that are been taken up by your database.
rdb209:~# zgrep dbo158400782 /var/log/anna.log*
/var/log/anna.log:*** dbo158400782@infong315: 1124432 Queries: 1120026
Selects, 306 Ins, 3648 Upd, 452 Del, 19563 Connects
/var/log/anna.log.0:*** dbo158400782@infong315: 45996 Queries: 45526
Selects, 153 Ins, 89 Upd, 228 Del, 571 Connects
/var/log/anna.log.1.gz:*** dbo158400782@infong315: 83619 Queries: 82516
Selects, 368 Ins, 187 Upd, 548 Del, 731 Connects
/var/log/anna.log.2.gz:dbo158400782@infong315: 22404 Queries: 22181
Selects, 77 Ins, 40 Upd, 106 Del, 314 Connects
/var/log/anna.log.3.gz:*** dbo158400782@infong315: 27631 Queries: 27251
Selects, 128 Ins, 94 Upd, 158 Del, 192 Connects
/var/log/anna.log.4.gz:*** dbo158400782@infong315: 29709 Queries: 29243
Selects, 159 Ins, 95 Upd, 212 Del, 249 Connects
/var/log/anna.log.5.gz:dbo158400782@infong315: 20319 Queries: 19991
Selects, 109 Ins, 85 Upd, 134 Del, 245 Connects
/var/log/anna.log.6.gz:dbo158400782@infong315: 13260 Queries: 13061
Selects, 68 Ins, 50 Upd, 81 Del, 86 Connects
rdb209:~# myanalyser.sh dbo158400782
Analysefile /var/log/tmp/dbo158400782.log wird erstellt
Logfilezeilen: 25985
Connects: 208
Queries: 25153
Inits: 208
subjektive Belastung: 26746
Prognose auf volle Stunde:
Logfilezeilen: 97443
Connects: 780
Queries: 94323
subjektive Belastung (ab 25.000 wird es heftig): 100297
Please review the database scripts and make them more efficient.
Another possibility made available is to migrate the WebSpace to a
managed or dedicated server. You would have full resources of the
machine and would not effect other users.
We would also like to bring your attention to the T&C's that are in
place:
T&C's
--------
Hosting resources are limited due to the shared hosting nature. Our
terms and conditions(http://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/TcGeneral)
clearly state the following :
6.2
The Customer shall NOT:-
6.2.6
Arrange its home page(s) in a way that leads to a risk of or causes an
excessive load on the server provided by the Company in connection with
the Services;
11.1
The Company shall be entitled to suspend such access to the Services as
it deems necessary by the Customer or any third party to all or any
party of the Services if the Customer is in breach of any of Clauses: 5,
6.1.4, 6.1.5, 6.1.7, 6.1.9, 6.2.2, 6.2.3, 6.2.4, 6.2.5, 6.2.6 and 12.
This Clause shall not be construed in any way as limiting the
termination rights of the Company as provided by Clause 8.
Please note that the only solution on our services that is capable of
accepting such a load is one of our dedicated solutions, Please see the
link below:
http://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/ServerManaged;
--
Sincerely,
Michael Lazin
Customer Compliance Operative
1&1 Internet Inc.
I ignored the email, but forwarded it on to the website team behind the site, suggesting that this was the cause of the problem and that they look into refining some of their scripts.
Now fast forward to today. I phoned 1and1, it has been almost 2 weeks, and still no database has been restored. After ranting on the phone to them for the best part of 10 minutes, I got no-where. Apparently, the database had been blocked by the abuse team (funny that she only mentioned this after I mentioned receiving an email from them), and only they could restore the database. I’m sat here, frustrated, after nearly 2 weeks and still no database has been restored. I’m also sick of speaking to foreign people who barely understand what I say, whilst fully expecting me to understand their broken English replies.
I’d still recommend 1and1 to anyone who doesn’t actually want a website supported, they maybe just want to sit there and watch money trickle out their account whilst getting absolutely no help when the company they are paying, quite frankly, fucks up. I wouldn’t however recommend 1and1 to anyone who thinks that they might actually make USE of the server they are paying for.
