Web Africa woahs - AGAIN!

[DominionZA]

.. Retracting the story for now. Seems WA are actually trying to help now.
Will bad mouth them later if no resolve.

 

[Alan]

woahs

Not woes?

 

[deweyzeph]

Try Greenbowl Hosting, they allow full trust. http://greenbowl.co.za

 

[DominionZA]

Turns out the WA guys modified my original site and not the server permissions. Bonus, but no notification. It just started working.

Going to modify the config for the second site this afternoon. If it is a 3rd party that requires the Full Trust then I am stuffed. Will check out Greenbowl. Not heard of them before though. Backup service good?

 

[DominionZA]

woahs

Not woes?

Ya - that. My bad.

 

[DominionZA]

Try Greenbowl Hosting, they allow full trust. http://greenbowl.co.za

I had a look at Greenbowl. Looks pretty kewl. Pricey though compared to WA.
My package at WA is R79 for unlimited domains, emails, SQL DB's and traffic. Pretty hard to beat. If their support was up to scratch I think they could be a clear winner in this area. It is the support that is making my hair grey.

 

[Webafrica Helper]

Sorry to have to post about this, but I am not having joy with Web Africa support - again! Seems the only way to get any kind of decent support is to air your issues publicly.

So here is the story...

I discovered a month or two back that my hosting package I was currently on with WA was being charged more than twice the amount compared to their newer packages - and the newer packages offered more.
I was advised to move my domains from the old server to the new server (package migration?) as they could not alter the prices or allowances on my existing package on the existing server.

After some banter back and forth, I decided to do this. Over the last 2 weeks or so I have been migrating the code, emails and updating name servers. All was good until I hit my first site that required Full Trust permissions on the server. Their new server does not allow anything above Medium Trust level. So what do I get... A BROKEN SITE.

NOTE: These sites all worked perfectly on the old package implying I had Full Trust permissions on my old package.

When the first site popped up late last week with this problem I seemed to have gotten a helpdesk dude that had a bit of a clue. At first he told me to alter my site to run on medium trust and sent me links to aid me. I explained that my sites use a few 3rd party dependencies and that these dependencies require Full Trust. Not a problem on my old package. I also told him I don't have time to go hunting down alternative solutions that will work on Medium Trust (I work day and night currently), there is a time and cost implication to this, and to top it off I was advised by WA to move to the new server so they should assist. No problem he reckons - will forward to the engineers. This weekend this particular site started functioning. Awesome. They gave it Full Trust.

So yesterday I migrated another site. Bang. Also requires Full Trust. So off goes yet another ticket.
I explained the same thing that I explained to the other guy last week. This time around I am getting textbook responses pointing me to their policies and what I should do about it. Oh FFS! Really!! Do I have to do this over and over and over again. Creating delay after delay getting my stuff moved.
It seems some of the helpdesk guys do not read the history of a ticket. They read latest response, look in their textbook to see what the default response is, and send it.

My sites have been running for years on the old server. Never a problem given on their servers. What is the problem with allowing these same sites to have Full Trust on the new server?

After my rant, I will summarise...

1. WA advised me to move my sites to the new server. Unable to give me same pricing and options on old server.
2. Some of the sites have been live for a good number of years now and running fine on the old server with Full Trust permissions.
3. WA have a Medium Trust only policy on the new server - which breaks some of my sites.
4. My sites have 3rd party dependencies that require Full Trust. Even if these dependencies have been upgraded over the years to run on Medium Trust, it still requires a few hours (per site) out of my time to do the upgrade. With time having marched on, this will also mean a cost to me to get the upgraded dependencies. And if these dependencies don't have Medium Trust versions I have to find an alternative which means even more of my time and possibly yet another cost.

My point being... WA advised me to move, so I did, and now my sites won't work under new server permissions. WTF! Just give me same permissions I had on old server.

I even told this textbook response helpdesk dude that I would like Full Trust on my account and when I get time I will work on the sites to get them functioning under medium trust. They cannot FORCE me to do the work now. This equates to loss of income. Seems helpdesk cannot understand this. Just throw the textbook back at me again and again and again.

Really... I have had enough. Not a good way to start my Monday!

Hi Mike,

We unfortunately do not know your website code off by hand, so at the initial request about the new packages I or anyone else was in no position to advise on which trust levels your sites have been coded for or need. Also you complained about the current price you paying for the Hosting package and that you not getting value. So myself and one our Sales agents advised you about the new packages and its prices, that's all. We never 'forced' you to migrate over but merely tried to assist you in lowering the monthly charges you were paying which required you to move over to the new servers/packages if you wanted to pay less. Therefore the decision was entirely yours to migrate your domains because you wanted to have a cheaper package.

All our new servers run on medium trust and this cannot be changed due to security reasons as full trust will allow your code to do anything it wants to or needs to which can negatively impact other customers' websites as it is hosted on shared servers. Some of our older servers runs on full trust which is why your websites are working fine on the other servers.

If you are not able to run your sites on medium trust then you will need to leave the websites on the old servers and if you no longer want the new package we can cancel it with a full refund/credit.

Please let me know what you would like to do so I can facilitate the changes.