DO NOT USE DINIX OR WEBHOSTPLUS!!!!!

registered · Theme Guru Joined: Nov 01, 2003 Posts: 1006

Hello, I just want to take a moment to inform you all of a couple of companies to stay away from. I will include a very large thread on the most respected hosting site around to confirm my statements. It may take a while for you to read but the reading is an eye opener.

I would start out saying that I have had my hosting company with [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ] for over a year. They were listed amoung the top hosting companies on all the forums I researched. They had excellent tech and customer support, fantastic uptime and speed. We were very happy!

Then about 6 months ago they merged with another company. I was worried about the transition but assured that things would move smoothly. They actually did. We did notice a change however in the support and speeds as well as a few times that they encountered "networking" errors and we were offilne for a short time. I was becoming less enchanted at that time but decided to stick with them.

On 2-16-2005 DINIX sent out an email notice that said

Code:

Hello Dinix Clients,





Today we have the pleasure of announcing that DINIX -and Web Host Plus, Inc. have merged!





Web Host Plus, Inc. is a leader in the hosting industry, having specialized in Dedicated and Co-located hosting for over seven years. We feel that this merger is beneficial to everyone in many, many ways as we grow together into the future. A few things you can expect as a result of this merger are:


. Improved technical support through an upgraded and enhanced support system;


. Faster upgrade cycles from VPS to Dedicated services for clients whom are interested; and 


. Extended services beyond web hosting that will include data storage and private labeling of all internal software.





During the coming weeks there will be several major events which will demonstrate the advantages of this merger:





First, we will be adding new free services exclusively for DINIX clients which will enable you to run a more successful web-based business. We will also be adding new service features and functionality to Dedicated and VPS packages.





Second, we are pleased to offer our brand new state-of-the-art data center in New Jersey, USA, which features four Tier1 redundant providers (MCI, Verizon, Level3 and AboveNET). Clients will also have ability to choose between providers in the near future. 





Third, your prices will remain in effect and will not be raised! Any existing special pricing and contracts will continue to be honored with no changes, and the integrity of DINIX will stay the same.





In anticipation of your questions, here are a few details we do know at this time:


. Yes, there will be a data and server migration. For many clients, migration will be nearly invisible as it will require only a few minutes' downtime. Web Host Plus has been involved in many mergers and migrations and accordingly are well experienced in moving clients efficiently.


. Both Dedicated and VPS clients will have ability to upgrade to a newer machine if they choose to. With typical turnaround time of 24 - 48 hours for clients to upgrade existing clients will be able to take advantage of newer servers from day one.  


. We will put our highest priority on continuing to communicate with you as each step of our merger and continued growth comes to fruition. Each step, activity and event will be communicated to you directly in the coming days, weeks and months, by our staff and by Web Host Plus. 





The kind of quality you should expect from Web Host Plus is very similar to the quality you have come to expect from DINIX! WHP only uses latest brand name servers and parts like SuperMicro, DELL, HP/Compaq, IBM and SUN, as well as full range of control panels (cPanel, Plesk, CP+, Hosting controller, Helm Hosting, and even Customization/Rollout of H-Sphere 2.5). 





To thank you for your business and loyalty through this new transition, DINIX customers will receive new benefits once the merger is complete, including:


- Free account on Power2Mobile [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ] with 100 megs of space and 12 months of 100% FREE service


- We will offer 10% discount for any clients who decide to upgrade to any other service with Web Host Plus. 





Please bear with us over the next month as we shake out the details and get this ball rolling. Our staff is here to work with you through the transition and as our business grows, please come to us with any questions, comments or concerns. Our team can be reached at [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ]. We, along with the help of Web Host Plus will respond as quickly as possible.





Thank you for your loyalty and support, which has made this possible! It has been a pleasure continuing to serve your hosting needs, and we look forward to the opportunities which extend before us all.





Sincerely,


Alex Brecher CEO


DINIX
 [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ] 
 [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ] - 877-HOSTPLUS (467-8758)

now that is all well and good but it was all a LIE. We as the clients of DINIX and WHP have been given the shaft in the worst way. Yesterday, without any notice ( to me) our box was unplugged! I immediatly called DINIX and was transfered to someone from WHP. The woman on the phone had this to say to me.
" I do not know why your server is down. I will contact a representative of DIINX and have them call you" She politlly took my phone number and brushed me off. What kind of company doesn't even know that they HAVe unplugged thousands of servers accross the world!!!!!

I then immediatly went to [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ] which is the most amazing web hosting site. I typed DINIX into the seach and there it was. The most horrible thing that I could have seen. An 11 page, at that time, forum about what DINIX and WHP have done. It seems that they gave "some" clients an email notice that they were going to shut them down only 2 days before hand. Here is what that lovely notice said to them.

Code:

Dear Valued Clients,





We are excited to inform you of the migration between Dinix and Webhostplus will commence this Friday, March 25 towards the evening time. Please refrain from making any updates or changes during this time as the servers will not be active till migration has completed. Do keep in mind that Dinix and Web Host Plus will do everything possible to keep downtime to a minimum. Some data will be migrated through our networks and some will be moved physically. We will be available by phone and live chat 24x7 during this time for any questions you might have. You will be notified immediately by email once migration has completed and would like your feedback on any outstanding issues or concerns you might have. Feel free to contact us toll free at (877)-467-8758. Thank you for your patience and support during this time. We are proud to have you join the Web Host Plus family, thank you and have a pleasant day!

This is not enough time to backup and move hundreds of sites!!!! We never even got such an email!!! All of a sudden in the middle of working on a project for a client the box went offline. This is unacceptable to me and countless others.

To make things EVEN worse, the dinix site, who had offered to have a forum and live chat, and help available offered nothing. They offered no support features at all. Countless people have asked for an update, expected downtime, and more. The response from WHP and DINIX is to be ignored!!!!

Here is the thead that I spoke of
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=387709&perpage=15&highlight=dinix&pagenumber=1

We as clients with a business to run supporting many other businesses find this to be apauling behavior. We have since found a new datacenter to get our server from. This however doesn't help us as we cannot transfer anything until this server that was supposed to have "minimal if any" downtime has been down for me since 5 yesterday. There was a rumer that they may be back up today sometime but I have no faith in them at all anymore. They are an untrustworthly company that chose to force a move on a holiday weekend with virtually no notice at all. They have lied to us plainly and avoided our questions. This is no way for a reputable company to behave!!! We as clients deserved better then this. Countless clients will be leaving DINIX and WHP after the servers come up whenever that may be. Some people it appears have been offline(including all of their hosting clients) for 2 days now!! How are they expected not to lose their customers???????????? We are all in jeapordy of losing our client base!!!

I will stronly urge you not to use these companies. It is clear that when a company is willing to do this to thousands of their dedicated customes they do not care about customer support and have no integrity! I can only at this point wait for the my new datacenter to process and prepare my new dedicated server and for DINIX / WHP to get my server back online!!!!!!!

Useless Joined: Aug 23, 2002 Posts: 213 Location: Chicago

This is a very normal thing when a big company buys a small company. I used to host on a small company which was just wonderful, hosted there for about one year and then JaguarPC bought it. I was promised all the same stuff as you did and one day out of blue my account was unplugged. I e-mail them asking what happened and all I get is one line "We don't have your record as our client". Thankfully I had a lawyer friend who took some time to send them a letter and I was able to get my files and data.

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 5:53 pm

If this was just my site it would be one thing but it is my entire hosting company as well. I am losing clients and money. It has been over 24 hours now without a single word,... truely unacceptable behavior!

Sells PC To Pay For Divorce Joined: Posts: 5661

Well i did some looking around and i couldnt find anything dirty about Dinix but WebhostPlus is another story.

WebhostPlus has a bad reputation (also at spamcop) for hosting the wrong people.
But a lot of american hosting companies cannot be trusted.
2 old members of mine had their site deleted.
And believe it or not but he tried contacting them as to "why" they did it but never got a straight answer.
Instead they asked if he was interested in upgrading his account.

This truly happend.
This will never happen in the netherlands

Site Admin/Owner Joined: Aug 27, 2002 Posts: 17088

Hitwalker,

Let's be realistic, please. You're statement that "But a lot of american hosting companies cannot be trusted" followed by "This will never happen in the netherlands" is totally without merit and is not supportable. By what authority do you make these statements? Are you a government representative or a lawmaker? To make a statement like this would require that you personally know every hosting company in both countries and had the statistics to verify what you just said. I try to stay out of most of these things, seriously. But statements like these are unwarranted, untrue, and are flame bait. Any/every country has both good and bad.

Client Joined: Jan 29, 2004 Posts: 624

I really empathize, jaded, and I'm p.o.ed at dingaling dinix along with you. Don't worry about the project if that specific one was mine. I think you should contact the FBI to see if any federal laws were broken and then the FTC to file a complaint against dinix and whp, if they can afford to buy web hosting companies they can afford to pay damages to thousands of customers.

Hiya Raven, I agree and actually most of the sc ript kidd ies I've seen came from Amsterdam not the US and most webhosts know what their servers are doing... I'll lay 10 to 1 odds madman came from Amsterdam lol

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 7:51 pm

Thank you for understanding southern. Yes, your project was one that I was working on. There were many others. Our hosting clients are my major concern. We would like to get them up as they are losing money with the outage. I have no answers for them and that is the most frustrating part. At this point I would not blame them if they decided to leave us. I do hope that wont happen but one never knows. At this point the company WHP, is saying that the truck that was holding our servers was in an " accident " that I truely believe is yet one more lie in a long line of lies!

as a point of fact, dinix was a fantastic company... until this happend. Now, they are a disreputable company along with WHP in my book!

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 8:34 pm

I very much doubt I'll ever have this problem with my webhost... unless he sells to whp which I very much doubt lol Anyway you have the dev page I set up to refer to later when you have the time, I can surely wait. Smile

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2005 8:38 pm

Looking up the number now ............

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:10 pm

It is not a common practice for american hosts to do this, thus the outrage tens of thousands of us have been expressing in many countries around the globe. There are always good and bad hosts. DINIX was a fantastic host with a fantastic reputation until they sold to WHP. We are now back online since this am. We are however VERY slow which is making it hard to backup the sites and move them. I do hope that none of you ever have to deal with something like this. It is truely an impossible situation. We were down about 39 hours others have been down for 80+ and counting. Tahnks

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 3:20 pm

well jaded,

maybe you are not in the right position or you live to far away but if this happens to i would get in my car and pay my host a visit....leaving him absolutely no choice...
but this will never happen cause im my own host now...so ill hope il never do this to myself.... Laughing

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:25 pm

I had the same experience with a host many years ago and finally settled with a new UK hosting company who treated me well and answered support tickets within the hour (at the latest).
After three years with them I decided that I didnt want to risk losing such good service and was in the fortunate financial position of being able to enter into a partnership with them.
Obviously, not many will be in such a position but I do empathise with anyone who's host lets them down badly like this one has as it can be a real nightmare.

My thoughts are with you Jaded, I do hope you get back to normal soon and you do not lose out financially because of somene elses incompetence.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:40 pm

Quote:

Confucious say: "Man who go to sleep with itchy butt, wake with smelly fingers..."

This thread needed something like this to lighten everyone's mood. *LOL*

I feel for you Jaded... I know EXACTLY how frustrating you situation is.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:34 pm

Phew... where's my scented hankie? Really, Curtis, how does that Confucianism go with your signature? lol

I think it'd be a great idea for webhosts to back up their client's data on individual CDs that could then be mailed to a client who requested it.

Site Admin Joined: Jun 04, 2004 Posts: 6433

My first LAMP host a few years back offered a great deal - too good to believe. With little experience and a single reference, I signed up...

A week later, after paying for a year in advance and no active account, I sent several emails to the company. Finally, the account was set up. I should've asked for my money back, though it was unlikely I would've received a refund. Fortunately, the host "disappeared" after the data center pulled the plug for non-payment and I cancelled the credit card charge (even with a non-US host!).

One of the, if not the ONLY, poor support employees convinced the data center to turn it back on long enough for us to move our sites. He took the initiative to notify us and recommended a new host I've been happy with since.

Lessons learned (that can be applied to things other than hosting!), with apologies in advance for the clichés:
- if sounds too good to be true, it probably is...too good to be true
- "sounds good" corollary: you get what you pay for
- get at least 3 references
- have a backup plan (or 2 or 3)
- some changes aren't for the better

If you're looking for a new host, RavensScripts

Speaking from experience, I doubt you will find a better host. Raven ALWAYS lets us know what's going on, even though it's rare that we have issues. I happily bring my clients here. And, I'm sure if you look, you can easily find 2 more references...

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 10:22 pm

It isnt that i need a host to run my site. I have my own hosting company and a dedicated server. That is what got unplugged. If I was not my own host I would of course choose Raven as his a God!

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 10:42 pm

Gotcha. Except for using Raven, however, the same suggestions apply, maybe even more so, to a hosting company.

Not that this would've prevented this problem, but have you looked into Virtual Private Server (VPS) offerings? In theory, it might offer better stability / reliability at a lower cost as compared to a dedicated server. One of my partners is looking at this, and I would appreciate any thoughts / comments / suggestions if you have experience with it.

UPDATE: Saw an interesting post at WHT where a poster did a thorough comparison of VPS plans. The DINIX issue seemed to start the discussion...

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 10:54 pm

The sad and frightening reality of this fiasco is that I don't believe anything could prevent the company I lease my dedicated servers from, from happening to me/us. Or any of us, really. If they were to sell out they certainly wouldn't ask for our approval. "Stuff" happens and I could be right smack where Jaded is. It's very scary, for sure. I encourage everyone, especially after this, to backup, backup, backup! I provide nightly backups at no cost. Make it a habit to d/l the backups.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 11:06 pm

I used to do that too, make the nightly backups. At this point several sites that I host are above 7 gb including mine. To backup those and the others we host is just not possible. It takes too long for the server to back them up and can lag them out terribly. That is why I began to do this once a month at the end of each month. At any rate, there are thousands still down from Dinix/WHP and most are the VPS clients. I suppose they are less valuable then we dedicated customers were. That is actaully quite frightening since they showed no value in us! We are in the process of switching to the server I just bought at the new datacenter. It just takes time to stress test a server and get it ready. There is an end in site though, for me at least.

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 11:23 pm

That's good news. Not to badger you (you know I wouldn't) but I have several very large sites also but I still backup every night. It's worth it. You might try using several scripts and starting them at different times. Or even possibly some kind of a RAID setup. I can't imagine losing 1 day or a week, much less if the db crashed the day before the month backup was to commense. That would be such a disaster.

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 6:45 am

We are DOWN again now!!!!! there is no way that my company can survive this. I dont get any reply ont he phone
i get no email support
they wont speak to any clients about being down
they are DESTROYING my business!!!!
this is totally unbelievable to me.
We were up most of yesterday. I went to bed around 1 am. I got up today to find the server gone again!!!

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 12:22 pm

Due to this and other issues, these days i track down a hosting provider before i go with them.
This means lookup ip's to find where they are located, if they are reseller, etc.
I try to go as deep as the rabbit hole to find all info.

Eventualy you will end up who the datacenter is and how everything works.
This will give you a stronger position although you're not allowed to access the datacenter etc. it does give you more info about the connections, firewalls, service, etc.

If the company you go with is located in New York and the datacenter in Los Angeles then you know that if something is wrong it will take a lot longer.

My hosting company nicely informed me 4 weeks before they moved to a new datacenter and was offline for 2 days which their email nicely said as well.
They even informed which rack was moved when.

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:43 pm

This company chose not to do any of that. some people are on the 7th day being down. this is rediculous. We just lost another client today due to this. When we chose DINIX as a datacenter it was wonderful. They did own all of their own equipment. Everything went smoothly and they were top noch in customer care and support. The servers were always up and fast.
Then when they sold.. not merged .... with webhostplus WHP they destroyed it all. It is a horrible situation that I pray none of you ever have to deal with.

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2005 4:43 pm

Most of us have been effected by similar it happens all to often. Whether you are a reseller or a consumer it can be devastating when as often as not we are really marketing our selves and our reputations.

You can't really blame a consumer for leaving over an extensive outage like this without warning. I know myself I'd try to ride it out but... there are limits thats for sure. One of the first hosts I was with went offline for 3 weeks then it was announced via email it was back and would be back to normal.

In fact it was and better then ever since so many of us had left lol! The server was running faster then ever before. It lasted for about 36hrs then the plug was pulled again and it never came back again trustywebhosting I believe was the name they ran under. Which it wasn't in the end.

New Member Joined: Jan 21, 2006 Posts: 2

WebHostPLus SUCKS!

I have 2 servers there since DINIX.
When they merged it was hell, I remembered, but that was nothing compered to what they're doing to me.

My servers are down for more than 5 days. The support people blame a power something and they're rude when I send another trouble ticket!

Well, my servers are still down! No PHONES, No LIVE CHATS, the support just sucks!

THEY WILL CONTACT ME WHEN IT's BACK UP!

What should I do? Go to the beach and wait? Go in a Cruise?

I'll be out of business in a couple of days.

STAY AWAY from WebHostPlus!
They SUCK, They don't care AND DON'T CONTACT THEM, They'll contact you once it's back up (eventually)

THAT COMPANY IS A JOKE!

But don't take my word.
Search Google for "WebHostPlus Problems".

THOUSANDS of UPSET customers!

I'm just sharing my experience and I totally support this post:
DO NOT USE DINIX OR WEBHOSTPLUS!!!!!

A