Dotster.com VPS Managed Web Hosting
UPDATE: We gave up, best of luck dealing with the company.
Back in October we decided to take a chance with Dotster on a Virtual Private Server (VPS). We had a look at the $600 a year price range and decided to go for it. What a regretful mistake it turned out to be. It’s so unfortunate since this could have been a promising provider if they had only taken the time to get it right in the first place. Basically, their DNS was never properly configured which caused the errors and no matter how much you beg, they won’t fix it (who knows why?).
After six months in a leaky server we finally had to give up on trying to get the issues resolved. There was no end to the server error messages, and have gotten so used to restarting the server that we could do it in our sleep. Hilarious waste of time and effort. Already the new managed VPS host provider I’m currently using is such a world of difference. I can go back to forgetting all about this server and let it do its job by itself.
Tags: doster.com, VPS, managed-hosting
Popularity: 29%
Filed under: Bones, User Experience
Did you take a look over their support documentation at all? http://www.dotster.com/support/vpssupport if you haven’t. Has some “Getting Started” guides on it.
Bad Dog! RTFM!
Hi Yeti,
Yes, the documentation seems pretty good, but I got lost somewhere down the path, no doubt I’ll eventually fix the problem.
Currently, my problem has to do with setting up the DNS server. Never had to bother before. I’m used to just pointing to a new DNS and it having that managed by the web host. I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually and the answer must be in one of those documents somewhere. If you know anyone that would like to make a few bucks helping me set it up, please let me know.
Try using opendns.com - works great - nice for laptops where you end up plugging into wireless networks all over the place, with less than reliable dns entries…
Hey Rich, thanks for the tip, had a look and found that equally confusing. Sounds like a service I’d use for my intranet. At any rate, turns out the DNS is now up and running, I must have clicked on the right options after all.
I signed up for Dotster VPS Linux cPanel, struggled for a week with the confusing instructions about DNS, tried to get support from Dotster, and finally canceled the service and got a full refund.
I’m no DNS expert, but I knew I had to get a domain nameserver running before anything else would work properly. Tried to follow the tutorials, but the cPanel buttons it said to click were not present in the (later version of) cPanel Dotster provided to me.
Dotster support explained that it’s an unmanaged VPS and they can support me on a pay-per-incident basis *only.* That includes any explanation or hints about how to navigate their dual interfaces and set up the nameserver.
BTW, “unmanaged” means *you* are responsible for patching security vulnerabilities, fixing bugs, installing OS and software updates, etc., including e-mail.
Good luck!
Dear GaveUp,
Yeah, my mistake was to do things out of order. In the end it all worked, but it took way too much effort. I don’t blame you for looking elsewhere. Please let me know if you find a decent host.
18 HOURS DOWN - NO ACCESS TO SERVER - DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE USE ANOTHER COMPANY
I have had 3 VPS with dotster for a few months running smoothly. I was at lunch last week and on the way home I got a call that said my server was down. I quickly got back to the office to find it was and that I had no access to it. I called support and waited and waited and then got to someone for VPS support who told me I had to wait for someone else who was on the phone and that they would need to call me back (after 45 min waiting on phone). I waited for this mysterious person to call me back for an hour. Now being over 2 hours down I called again and got transfered to this tech guy, who then told me that he could do nothing and that he would open a ticket to someone else to try to get the server up otherwise it would not be to the next day.
So I tried calling back at night to no surprise, nothing could be done and I would need to wait until the morning. So I called first thing when they open (6am PST - note they are not truly 24/7/365) to find out that the head of tech support could not do anything until he got an approval from the operation department at 8am PST (2 more hours of waiting).
I was told not to call back at 8am as they dont like to be rush that I would be just annoying them and slowing them down (note now it has been 14 hours of downtime).
So I called at 9am, giving them 1 hour to look at my server to let me know an eta. At this point I got a hold of yet another tech support who im the head tech support guy that I had talked to 3 hours before. At this point they were starting to investigate server. He told the tech guy I was on the phone with that it would be 2-3 more hours.
I asked to call me with an update asap. As feeling helpless I waited as and my accounts were unreachable on this server I could not do anything. Within 5 min of hanging up my server was magically put back online and re added to my account tab in their control panel.
18 hours down at this point.
Another hour goes by and now I get a call saying that my server is back online and that is it. I asked to talk to manager and although he was nice he could not do anything to help compensate for the 18 hours lost nor could he help me examine why they shut down the server. He told me that the VPS are unmanaged and are sole responsibility of the customer. Yet when they shut them down, u are now at their mercy.
Good Luck to you if you are trying to find a good host, they are harder to find the honest used car salesmen.
In the end, it was easier and cheaper to get a better service from a more reliable web host provider. Man, what a waste of time! Luckily, it only took a couple of hours to make the switch to this new server. Now I can go back to forgetting about the need to restart my VPS to receive email.
This is a neat hosting service, I have used it before and would suggest that other people check out this hosting company.
Thanks for the ‘annonymous’ suggestion for your hosting services. Surely you could be no worse than Doltster.
Currently we’re using inmotion hosting and they’re far exceeding our expectations. Wonderful, friendly 24/7 support!