32 Hour Startlogic Outage

After getting back onto the Startlogic support chat and speaking with Ivan Davis, my website is to an extent back in operation. Moving forward, I don't have a lot of confidence in Startlogic now.

My website was brought back online at 11:30pm tonight. The server st03.startlogic.com had not been correctly serving customers websites since 3pm yesterday. If I do the math correctly this has resulted in a total website outage time of 32 hours!

After my website came back online I noticed that directory security permissions had all been modified (presumably reset, more restrictive). I informed Ivan of this and he told me to fix the permissions myself. Rather unacceptable I say given what they have put me through.

After Ivan realized that my website was back up and that I could access it he quickly terminated the chat session without giving me a chance to say anything. This is presumably because I am bound to find other problems down the track.

Technical Difficulties With DNS (Startlogic System Notice)

This is a Startlogic system Notice which has been posted to StartLogic customers. I am unaware whether this is related to the current problems I am experiencing with my domain on st03.startlogic.com.

Technical Difficulties With DNS Update: 8:56PM EST

With the repair process taking as long as it has, we've got multiple options going. We're hopeful that one will finish over night, which will allow us to re-enable the process of adding DNS for new domains and any effected domains.

Once again, we apologize for any inconvenience.

Update: 4:52PM EST

Unfortunately, the repair process to the damaged DNS information is taking longer than expected to restore. We are continuing to work on this process, and are expecting it should be complete in the next eight hours.
We apologize for the troubles, and appreciate your patience.
____________________________

Please be advised that we are currently experiencing technical issues with one of our DNS servers.
As a result, if you've purchased, renewed, or registered a domain name after 12:00AM EST, you may experience difficulty in accessing your domain name, e-mail services, or FTP.

We are currently working on the server in question, and hope to have it resolved shortly. Once the server has been repaired, we will begin fixing DNS for all affected domains, in the order in which they were setup on our system.

This restoration process should take a few hours to complete, once the server has been repaired.
More information will be posted, as it becomes available. Thank you for your patience.

Startlogic Compensates me for Outage!

After a recent complete outage of Startlogic's st03.startlogic.com web server (Which is ongoing as I write this), I received the following email from Shalet Fernandez (Billing Specialist) providing me with one months credit to the sum of $6.95!

Below is the email that I received:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: nztechie / Inquiry Regarding Credit [xxxxxx433000000000]
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:59:13 -0500
From: support@startlogic-inc.com
To: hayxxxx@xxx.nz

Hello Hayden,

This e-mail is being sent in response to your inquiry regarding credit request for your account 'nztechie' (ticket # 4475433). Per your request, I have given one month credit $6.95 to your account ‘nztechie’ which will be used for the future purchase/renewal of your hosting account.

If you have any further questions, you can email us seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

Sincerely,

Shalet Fernandez
Billing Specialist

Startlogic Outage for st03.startlogic.com

Prior to 3:00pm (New Zealand Standard Time) the Startlogic shared web server st03.startlogic.com suffered a complete outage. All customers with websites hosted on st03.startlogic.com are inaccessible.

www.nztechie.com is hosted with Startlogic and has also been effected by this fault. Our blogs are hosted on Google blogger and have been unaffected, barring any hosted files pointing to the Startlogic Server.

Below you will find snippets of several conversations I had with Startlogic via their Live chat facility, trying to find out what is going on.

--- Initial Conversation with Startlogic (Chiristopher Kiplin) --- [Finished around 4pm]

info: You are now chatting with 'Christopher Kiplin'
Hayden Tennent: Hello
Christopher Kiplin: Hi Hayden. I apologize for the wait time. My name is Christopher Kiplin, how are you today?
Hayden Tennent: I am a very angry customer
Hayden Tennent: But its not your're fault, so maybe you can help me.
Hayden Tennent: Why is my website at www.nztechie.com down?
Hayden Tennent: [Security Question Answer]
Christopher Kiplin: To protect your account from unauthorized changes, can you please verify for me the answer to the Security Question:
Christopher Kiplin: [Security Question]
Christopher Kiplin: Thank you for the authentication.
Christopher Kiplin: Could you please hold for 2 to 3 minutes, while I review your account?
Hayden Tennent: Thank you
Christopher Kiplin: Thank you for your patience.
Christopher Kiplin: I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Christopher Kiplin: We are aware of the issue that some of our customers are unable to access their Web sites. Unfortunately, we have a network outage which caused this issue. Our engineers are working in it to resolve this issue so we would like to ask for your patience until this is resolved.
Christopher Kiplin: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Hayden Tennent: What is the ETA to fix? Is the fault on the web server or is it DNS-related? how many customers are effected?
Hayden Tennent: How long has this issue been occuring for?
Christopher Kiplin: Since the host st03.startlogic.com is down, your Web site is not loading and we will fix it as soon as possible. Also, it just come to know us and our engineers start working on it and I do not have exact number of the customer who are hosted on this server.
Hayden Tennent: Am I hosted on an unreliable server? When am I going to be moved to this new platform your site talks about?
Christopher Kiplin: No, there might some maintenance going the host st03.startlogic.com and this might be effected. No need worry about this and we will fix it as soon as possible. Also, our engineers a;ready started to move your account to the new platform and they will complete it soon so we would like to ask for your patience until complete it.
-----

--- Second Conversation with Startlogic (Ivan Davis) --- [Finished around 5pm]

info: You are now chatting with 'Ivan Davis'
Ivan Davis: Hi Hayden, I apologize for the wait time. My name is Ivan Davis, how are you today?
Hayden Tennent: Hi
Hayden Tennent: im okay
Hayden Tennent: Im looking for a progress report of the fault on st03.startlogic.com
Ivan Davis: How can I help you today?
Ivan Davis: To protect your account from unauthorized changes, can you please verify for me the answer to the Security Question:
Ivan Davis: [Security Question]
Hayden Tennent: [Security Answer]
Ivan Davis: Thank you for the authentication.
Ivan Davis: Hayden, what exactly you wish to do?
Hayden Tennent: I would like you to provide me with a status update on the resolution of the fault on st03.startlogic.com. How are the engineers going?
Ivan Davis: Hayden, the st103 is down. Our engineers are restoring it.
Ivan Davis: The server will be up and running soon. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.
Hayden Tennent: How do you normally compensate your customers when this happens?
Ivan Davis: Hayden, the issue is resulted due to the load on the server. Once you are upgraded to the new platform, you will not experience any issues.
Hayden Tennent: Do you guarantee that?
Ivan Davis: Yes, Hayden.
Ivan Davis: Could you please let us know, if you have contacted us earlier via e-mail with regards to the same issue?
Hayden Tennent: Is there any capability to mirror my site between a number of your servers to avoid this issue?
Ivan Davis: Hayden, it is not possible to mirror the Web site in the present platform.
Ivan Davis: We will be using this technology on the new platform and down time will not be noticeable to the users.
Hayden Tennent: Getting back to my other question, How do you normally compensate your customers for outages like this?
Ivan Davis: Hayden, normally we provide one week of credit for downtime experienced by the customer.
Hayden Tennent: Could you please organise this for me.
Ivan Davis: Okay.
Ivan Davis: I will be forwarding your inquiry to our Billing department. They will look in to the issue and provide the compensation accordingly.
Ivan Davis: Could you please provide me your e-mail address so that we can contact you as soon as the issue is resolved?
Hayden Tennent: Thats all for now. Thank you for answering my questions. You're doing a great job.
Hayden Tennent: hayxxxxx@xxxxx.nz
Ivan Davis: Could you please let us know, if you have contacted us earlier via e-mail with regards to the same issue?
Hayden Tennent: So i will receive a notification when im back up then?
Ivan Davis: Yes, Hayden.
Hayden Tennent: Ok, thanks, and good bye.
Ivan Davis: Thank you for chatting with us. Please feel free to contact us at any time. We are available 24x7.
-----

It is currently 8:16pm and my site is still not accessible.

Update: At around 9:00pm requests to my domain are now going to the "Default page for vDeck Hosting Server". This is also tricked my website monitoring service into thinking my website is back up and running. It isn't.

Below are more snippets of my further conversations with the Startlogic Helpdesk

--- Third Conversation with Startlogic (Melanie Evans) --- [Finished around 9pm]

info: You are now chatting with 'Melanie Evans'
Melanie Evans: Hi Hayden , I apologize for the wait time. My name is Melanie, how are you today?
Hayden Tennent: Im good, how are you?
Melanie Evans: I'm great, thank you. How can I help you today?
Melanie Evans: Yes.
Hayden Tennent: Can I have a follow-up on the progress of repairing the fault on st03.startlogic.com
Melanie Evans: To protect your account from unauthorized changes, can you please verify for me the answer to the Security Question:
Hayden Tennent: [Security Answer]
Melanie Evans: Thank you for the authentication.
Melanie Evans: One of our Billing Specialist is working on your issue and I assure that it will be fixed soon.
Hayden Tennent: I am talking about the fault on st03.startlogic.com, not my compensation for it. The fault still exists and www.nztechie.com is still down.
Melanie Evans: Could you please hold for 2 to 3 minutes, while I check this for you?
Melanie Evans: We are aware of the issue.
Melanie Evans: One of our engineer is working on this issue and I assure that it will be fixed soon.
Hayden Tennent: My website has been down for 4 hours, I was told it would be fixed soon hours ago. Can you please tell me what the cause of the fault is? Your engineers have had 4 hours to at least determine that.
Melanie Evans: I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Melanie Evans: I cannot provide the exact cause of the issue.
Melanie Evans: I assure that it will be fixed soon.
Hayden Tennent: Can you please ask the engineer what the cause of the fault is.
Melanie Evans: Due to technical glitch on our server st03.startlogic.com, you are unable to access the Web site.
Hayden Tennent: Is the problem just effecting st03.startlogic.com? or is it effecting other servers? What are your engineers doing to resolve the fault?
Melanie Evans: I cannot provide exact cause of the issue.
Melanie Evans: It is effecting the st03.startlogic.com.
Hayden Tennent: Is st03.startlogic.com overloaded?
Melanie Evans: Yes.
Melanie Evans: The restoring process is taking place.
Hayden Tennent: What is the estimated time of repair? when can i expect to be back in business again?
Melanie Evans: It will work fine soon.
Hayden Tennent: Can you please define 'soon'. Is it 1 hour, 5 hours?, 24 hours?
Melanie Evans: It will work fine with in couple of hours.
Hayden Tennent: The analyst I spoke with last advised me a couple of hours, and that was 4 hours ago.
Hayden Tennent: Can you please ask your engineer how long he expects the restore to take.
Hayden Tennent: Where do you display your system status information on the Startlogic site? I can not find any reference to this outage.
Melanie Evans: It will work fine within 6 hours.
Hayden Tennent: Will I experience any data loss?
Melanie Evans: No.
Hayden Tennent: Back to my other question, where does Startlogic keep its outage notices? I can not find any. It is an industry standard to do so.
Melanie Evans: We have not sent any outage notices.
Hayden Tennent: Why not?
Melanie Evans: I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Hayden Tennent: Ok, you have done your best to help and angry customer and I appreciate it, staying cool under pressure. Thanks for your help. I'll check back in 6 hours.
Melanie Evans: Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
Hayden Tennent: No thanks
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