VidaHost

[freshJet]

Anyone here used VidaHost? They have excellent value for money and support is unbeatable, email responses received within a matter of minutes usually.

However, I've had a rough past month. I moved to them from my old host where I was paying more for a bigger package which wasn't really necessary. They offer free migration so I took advantage of that and in less than 24 hours I received an email saying it was done, fantastic. I checked the site, everything was fine - this was before the DNS had been updated however. After the DNS was updated things went wrong. I could not access my site, I was getting blank pages on certain pages that used PHP. Static pages displayed fine. I checked my error log and it produced strict standards errors for all my modules. I told them this and the response was that it was unrelated. For over a week we went forwards and backwards with emails where they said they could see the site fine, I couldn't. Clear your DNS cache, they said, so I did, for the tenth time. Still nothing happened. I persistently told them that I thought it was a PHP issue, not the DNS.

After a week I went digging for clues. I had a look around the site, checked my local.config.php and voila - they had added the setting for disabling PHP errors without telling me. There was a change in PHP version which had produced the strict standard errors, and the _FILES error and so on which have become popular here. Once the setting was removed the errors appeared and I fixed the issues with the solutions on here. I emailed them back to inform them of their wrong doing and I was kindly offered an extra 6 months free hosting on top of my current package to compensate.

Then, however, I went back to the first issue I discovered after the migration - I only had one database, and it had a different name. Before, I had five databases. The good thing was that they had changed the local.config.php etc to reflect the change in name. When I asked them what happened to the others, they said it was possible that they had been removed because they 'weren't being used'. The one I had remaining was my phpVMS one, which is good. The others were purely used for development purposes but one was for my phpVMS development site, my second phpVMS setup.

As of now my main site is fully functional and I am awaiting a reply from support to find out what they have to say. Luckily, I have backups, but I'll be very disappointed if I have to use them.

[servetas]

Personally, as i am offering web hosting services too, i do not believe that this is correct. You are paying for something and you have the right to use all of the resources of your plan. I would suggest you to check their Policy as they are required to state in it any kind of actions taken and why (like deleting files or databases). Last but not least, i would suggest you to check for reviews over the internet. This is something i am doing too whenever i want to rent a new server etc.

[joeri]

iff this was my host i would have instanly stopted the service as here yo uhave 14 days to think over anny purchase you do.

and personaly most host move to the new php versions and then its not suitable for phpvms thats why i now run my own server managed by the hosting thats verry easy and i can run all i want

[servetas]

Alternatively, there are a lot of members of the phpVMS forum who offer web hosting services such as me, simpilot or nabeel. Our servers are optimized to work with phpVMS or you are able to select the appropriate php version from your CPanel. Also, we are able to offer support with problems which have to do with phpVMS and the server as we know how phpVMS works.

Also, i do fully agree with joeri although running your own server can be more expensive.

[StartVM]

I don't know what the skillset and profession is of the people that offer web hosting on these forums, but does anyone actually have a degree or high knowledge in web server management? I like my web host to be able to quickly solve more lucrative issues.

[Shepred]

I can't say that I've heard of VidaHost, I can however only recommend these guys:

Meebox, a danish hosting company. Never had any issues, downtime is extremely rare and always announced well ahead. Support is excellent, and pretty much available 24/7. They're cheap as chips as well, in case you grow tired of problems.. These guys are definitely the way to go.

[servetas]

I like my web host to be able to quickly solve more lucrative issues.

So far, i have not heard anyone who had any problem. Of course we do not take into consideration those who just want to make some money and leave in the middle of the night whatever the cost of their clients.