Using my new web hosting now, after my disastrous experiences with LunarPages.com. The server has been reliable, but the tech support leaves much to be desired.
Case 1: I want to be able to check my spam box, which is where BlueHost’s Spam Assasin is supposed to put your spam. I was told by two of Bluehost.com’s “experts” via chat (you can’t talk to anyone and the responses take five minutes each time you type a reply) that I could do this. It didn’t work. I finally discovered after searching the (self)help pages that it is disabled by default and you have to make a special request to have it enabled. You’d think they could clue their tech support people in on this so they don’t waste customers’ time looking for non-existent spam folders.
To add insult to injury, the help page states that you should email them to get the spam box enabled. So I did. Ten minutes later I got an email saying,”You can no longer create a new ticket through email, only through our Help Center.”
These people must think I have time to burn.
Case 2: I set up a mailing list through CPanel. (One nice thing – Lunarpages.com only gave you one mailing list. Bluehost.com seems to give you several.) It didn’t seem to be working so the chat support person told me to open a trouble ticket. That was on a Sunday night. Supposedly they have a 24-hour response time. Assuming they read my ticket Monday morning, I should have hear something by Tuesday morning. In fact that was the the due date/time their system “stamped” on the ticket. By Tuesday evening I had figured out the problem myself and I replied to the ticket complaining about the delay and informing them I’d fixed the problem. I checked back the next day and they had closed the ticket as resolved, which is fine, but an apology for the delay would have been nice.
Well, at least I’m up and running and none of my databases have been deleted, which is more than I was able to say for LunarPages.com.
Okay, what do I expect for $7 a month? I would pay more for better service, but my research seems to indicate that more money doesn’t get you better service, just more bandwidth or a dedicated server. I don’t need those things. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.
I was with LunarPages for 5 years and left them for the same reasons you did. Like you, what could I expect for $7.00 per month. But also like you, there does not seem to be ANY hosting company that is much better unless you go dedicated, and then you are talking at least $100 per month and then you have 0 technical support and have to be a Linux maverick to get it all set up.
I recently tried a Virtual Private Server for $35.95 per month and it has been yet another disaster. Their tech support is obviously outsourced to people who NEVER read the actual question, so none of my problems have been solved. Now I am looking again. How can this be so hard??? Isn’t there a Google of hosting that has this stuff figured out?
If you or anyone has any suggestions for a host that offers Java Servlet and JSP options, please post them and let us know.
Yeah good job with leaving blue host, I have had nothing with problems from them.
What I ended up doing was switching to Dream Host, and i’ve been really happy with them.
I found this promo code which gives me $30 off a year, which means it takes the price down to pretty much bluehost level too, but infinitely more reliable.
I know you already are with another host now but thought you might find it handy:
promocode: JILLERS
I just looked at Dream Host’s web site. The thing that concerns me is that the only way to reach customer support is through email. And first they expect you to troll through their wiki. In other words, let our customers pay to help each other! Not impressed. Other feedback on Dream Host?