Sorry your browser is not supported!

Day One - Saturday:
Checked the site today, it was down. Figured it was maintenance and made a note to check again.

Day Two:
Still down, called the tech guy but he's not about - it is Sunday afterall.

Day Three:
Bank Holiday. Still no site, but now have a message asking me to contact technical support. Called the tech guy, got an answerphone. It is a bank holiday afterall.

Day Four:
First thing called the tech guy, the sister company has been sold and the server had to be moved to another room. The IP# range has changed, all the DNS' where updated except mine of course, because I keep my DNS registration at another company. Something I decided to do after the last host caused me grief (easy to just point somewhere else then).

Tried to log into the DNS management, password isn't working - tried all my current and previous password but no luck. Click the button for the auto-responder to send me my password.

No reply. It said wait up to 24 hours, relluctantly I did, but not before repeating the auto-responder link.

Day Five:
Still nothing. Did the auto-responder again then contacted technical support for the DNS management. No phone support, so used email.

Tried the autoresponder again in the evening. Late in the day finaly got a reply, "have sent you your password.". Checked and hadn't, did the autoresponder AGAIN, replied to the email saying it wasn't there and filled out a new technical support email queery.

Day Six:
Had a reply this morning, "have sent you your password again". Checked, nothing. Sent a reply back to them.

Still waiting.



DNS Provider: www.active-domain.com
Sister Company of DNS Provider: www.active-venture.com

As things stand I am at the brink of launching a denial of service attack on them to see how they like it! I cannot believe how a serious, supposedly professional, internet hosting company have failed to write their autoresponder form, and struggle in bemusement to believe that they have twice had somebody sit down and reply to my emails but fail to send the password.

Thankfully the DNS registration ends on the 25th of this month, as things are going I will not be suprised if the Banshee site stays down until that time when I can then go and register elsewhere.

I used to be with Netweaver, until they had 3 major intrusions, and no restoration data. My site was up and down like a Yo-Yo.

I now have a site with Supanames. They are far more reliable, but customer support ignore any "Site Down" questions.

If you want somewhere to stick your website, I should have enough room (and could always sub my domain name)...

www.myqth.co.uk are still damn good. They never update their site, and it's a bag of poo, but our site is only down around 3 or 4 days a year, I always get the full download speed from my own site (around 130kb/s on my 1mbit line), the control panel makes everything easy to set up, they're always sending you email to alert you whats going on.

500mb
20gb/month bandwidth
mySQL/php support
Linux servers

£38/year.

Alas i'd use that bandwidth up in a day or two but the hosting isn't really a problem. The site is still up but on a new IP#, it is my DNS registrar who is committing the denial of service action by their complete inability to program an auto-responder, and the total inneptitude of their support staff.

I'm thinking about making a game out of live content from their web site - a few hundred thousand users soaking up their bandwidth should soon achieve the same result in reverse

Well, if you need to keep a web presence whilst you sort out the DNS problem, the offers still open.

Day Seven:
Have not heard a thing from www.active-domain.com despite several public postings that the deadline was midnight. Will write denial of service application over the weekend, two can play their game, and I can do it better. Will decide whether to launch this app, or to take the legal route, based upon an assessement of their financial ability to pay restitution.

Day Eight:
Received email from DNS registrar technical support saying that I must send email from the registered email account - which is an inbound only email account - ok this might need some explaining so here goes:

Back when I started out on the internet in the 90's my ISP gave me the email address thane@globalnet.co.uk which I used for many years, however my ISP was a modem only operator and when I moved to broadband and set up the bansheestudios.com web site I changed my email over.

I kept the registration for the bansheestudios.com address pointing to thane@globalnet.co.uk because if I ever needed to contact technical support and bansheestudios.com was down then obviously I would need an alternative email address.

My modem ISP allows me to collect my emails using broadband, but like most ISP's of this nature, I can only send an email if I dial in to them.

I would do this, if I had a modem. I don't - I use broadband. I removed all modems from the network after being hit for £300 by trojan dialer. None of my computers have the technical ability to send an email via the globalnet account.

This isn't a problem because I can still READ the emails on that account. Infact, I had 67 emails this morning on that very account most of which where asking where my site is. Plenty more on the main @bansheestudios.com address which most people now use.

I am more than happy to send emails from @bansheestudios.com and have them replied to on the old thane@globalnet.co.uk address.

I am MORE THAN WILLING for the stupid DNS registrar to do what they have said they have done - but haven't - on numerous ocassions, that is SEND THE PASSWORD to the thane@globalnet.co.uk address.

Today I shall write a new piece of software for my users and ask for their help and support in getting active-domain to send the email password or to fix their autoresponder. The program shall compose up to 1000 emails (users choice) and place them in the outbox ready to be sent.

If I dont have the password very soon then I will be asking as many of my users as I can make contact with for their full support in launching a campaign against active-venture to fullfill their contracted requirements with me, or to cancel the contract early as it ends on the 25th of this month anyway.

As I have told active-venture, I too can deny them of their internet site, the difference between us is that whilst active-venture do so out of ineptitude and stupidity, I do so with the full support of a user base numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

DNS attacks are illegal, the banshee method achieves the same thing but legally, a campaign of petition - for which there is no law against.

Active-Venture are breaking the law, but by legal meens Banshee Studios shall achieve the same thing in reverse and do so completely legally. We shall then, if that fails, be launching legal proceedings for a denial of service attack by active-domain against Banshee Studios.

Alternatively, they could just send the email: thane@globalnet.co.uk

I've been with them for ages. I've got their Premier Account, and i get about every hour "not found" errors; with the site working again a few seconds later. This is their official response:



I asked if other companies have to do it as I've never come up against it before, no answer to that question.

I might email them saying I need to have something available 24/7 anbd whether this can be guaranteed; and if they can recommend another host who don't have these restarts

It may seem naysaying but apart from that they're actually quote good.

VICTORY!

The domain is now back under my control, DNS servers around the world should now start pointing to the correct location over the next few days .

Yay Glad it's back up.

The Banshee Studios web site will be coming down on the 25th of May for an extended period. I'm not sure yet whether this will be a few days, a week, or a month.

This is because the DNS registration expires and it is my intention to move to a different provider and I am expecting active-domain to be incompetent over handling their side of the move.

Good idea. I couldn't imagine sticking with a provider after all that.

http://www.pair.com/ <-- pair Networks is a really good professional host if you have any problems with hosting. I think TGC is hosted by them... they also host NaNoWriMo very reliably, and that site gets monumentally busy around October.

I use active-domain for my domain registration but my site is hosted elsewhere (at a friend's datacenter)

our site is up, and I can log into the management console.

Sorry you had those problems

Maybe they just give good service to cowboys "cattlerustler" *snicker*. This is the second major outage i've had because of them, I will never forget that October...

yeah, threatening them with a cattle prod prior to joining their service must have done the trick