tech support exists?

[Ddr]

Boy, I hate to sound like a complainer or start off on the wrong foot with Powweb, but now, 14 hours after finding that my site was not accessible, I am still sitting holding an autoresponse from techsupport as my only help.

On the promos for the site.... the ones that helped me decide to use this service, these lines were posted:

"Technical Support-Our Technical Support Department is ready to answer your questions. E-mail us at: support@powweb.com and our knowledgeable technicians will respond immediately and resolve any problems or questions that you may have. "

Now I am not blaming Powweb for the site not being accessible, but I have an inkling it is a problem with the virtual domain host. No one was able to post a helpful response in this forum yet, and no one from that perportedly helpful tech support section has done anything helpful that I am aware of, so you all can imagine my frustration.

My question then, is there anyone out there with positive things to say about this service OTHER than cheap price? I see good things here. While watching for hours for a response to my original string, had the time to read a great deal of what is here in the forum and see a very helpful community. I like that. I am looking for reasons to stay here at this point.

I am curious to see of the mods will edit out any of this .

Dale

[fcsnc]

They have a phone number.

Keep in mind that Powweb is PST and phone is only answered during their business day Monday through Friday.

Most of my e-mails to support@powweb.com have been answered within 24 hours. That "immediately" there is a new advertisement, and I'm not sure they actually meant to put that on there. If they did, shame on them. I have yet to see a host with "immediate" e-mail response. If you find one, let me know.

I've only been with Powweb a short time, but I have never caught my sites down. That speaks volumes in this day and age. You CERTAINLY get your money's worth here. If there is a server problem, they will notice it and straighten it out.

- Tom

[Ddr]

Thanks Tom

I see many benefits here, that is why I signed up. I am only happy that I am not depending on this site for my livelihood, though I would like to think that it is being managed as if I did.

I have read a number of your helpful posts to others in this forum and respect your learned opinion greatly.

Thanks

Dale

[fcsnc]

Your site has 4 authoritative DNS servers (a little unusual), but it comes up fine from here.

If you have recently updated your DNS delegation, it sometimes takes a week or so to get the change propagated around the world. I should know, because I'm usually one of the last to get propagated ;-

Anyhow, if your ISP hasn't got the new info, that may be why you are experiencing a problem, if you still are.

Try doing a traceroute from somewhere else (visualware.com) and seeing where it takes you.

- Tom

[Ddr]

Hi again Tom

Once again, thanks for your efforts. I am more befuddled, since I can't access my site with either IE or Netscape, yet you say it opens for you. I will do as you suggested.

Many thanks for your patience with another newbie.

Dale

[Ddr]

I want to thank Tom again, for being so gracious and patient with his help, and for setting Me on a path to learn things I needed to understand here, too.

This Forum is a wonderful thing when people like Tom are here. I hope to be able to contribute to someone else in trouble as a way of repaying the kindess.

As for the aforementioned ever-present and helpful tech dept, well it is now 32 hours past my inquiry for help and I STILL have not been acknowledged except for the autoresponder's letter. Sure makes me feel like a valued customer. I have been in the service business for the past 24 years, and know I would never have survived the first year treating my clients this way. But its a new world,,,,,,,,,

I am going to hang in because what I have heard from the other users makes me think that the service is a handicap that can be worked around in most cases by using these Forums. I guess that should be considered "fair warning" *chuckle* Too bad that same warning was not included in the ads that helped get me here in the first place.

Dale

[Jeff321]

PowWeb is a good host, you won't find anybody else with so many features at this price. I had a domain problem too when I first signed up, but I sticked with PowWeb and they fixed it. I have been pleased ever since. Just give them a day or two to fix it.

[Ddr]

Thanks Jeff

I am going to do just that. I know now that the technical difficulty was not at Powweb at all. With or without the tech sections help, because of these forums I was onto finding a fix for the problem within a day. I am grateful for the help I got in the Forum.

Thanks for the "thumbs up" on the Host, I am happy to hear that.

Dale

BTW...I finally did hear from Tech Support.

[xclicks]

Ddr,

I understand your frustration with technical support. However, I must agree with Tom. Powweb offers excellent service at a great price. If they had 24 hr phone support I am sure the price would have to be much higher.

I have been frustrated with technical support lately also. But I am patient and still very pleased with what they offer. I am guessing that maybe they are a little busy now with many members. You may want to see my post concerning tech support in this forum.

http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=911

I also agree with you, It is nice to have people like Tom around. I have browsed these forums and noticed that Tom has taken the time to help many. His replies are very helpful and he seems to be very knowledgable on the subjects. So thanks alot to people like Tom. I know I could learn much just from reading his post.

Sincerely,

Ken

[Ddr]

Hi Ken

Nice to meet you.
I appreciate another positive testimonial. I did read your threads and have taken further note of what is, and is not to be expected. I am planning to stay, and have more accounts to bring in behind me soon. Hopefully these forums will continue to be as great as they apparently have been. Oh, and thanks for posting.

Dale

[xclicks]

Dale,

Welcome aboard! Nice to meet you also,I am sure you will be very pleased with Powweb.

Ken

[mbarnard]

Frankly, I'm disgusted with Powweb at this point. Cheap is fine so long as everything is working. Last Friday (1/11) I discovered that my form results (FrontPage created) weren't working, and spent the weekend trying to find out what was wrong. Meanwhile, I had great difficulty accessing my site for editing.

The phone support is nonexistent. Contrary to what the moderator says, the voicemail on their phone system says nothing about the hours being limited to Monday through Friday--only that the hours are 9-5. Meanwhile, 3 phone calls and 3 emails since Friday went unanswered.

I finally discovered today through the forum that some major work had been done on the server, which trashed some FP extensions. Tech Support finally got back to me via email, and said to uninstall, then reinstall the extensions. Three hours later, I'm stilled queued in the "5-minute" wait for the extensions to be installed.

OK, so my other option is use their CGI script as my form handler. The instructions are so vague as to be useless, unless you are very familiar with HTML.

I'm looking for another host.

[SBGlasby]

Yes Tech Support should probably inform... "ahead of time"... of any server upgrades.... SO people will be aware... ahead of time.... and will know possible ramifications of their upgrades....

I believe.. "I may be wrong".... but they were upgrading FP extensions... because they had so many request to....... support FP2002.....

As long as they can confirm they have done everything possible on their end... to make sure their servers are up... and running.... they have done their job....

There are a lot of issues.... beyond their control.... ie: Local ISP URL Caching, DNS issues... outside of their own..... they cannot control these thing.... but they do affect your service... and your ability to see and maintain your sites....

I have found... when I contact them... on average... unless I send them an e-mail at 3:00 in the morning I get a response back in 4-5 hours.... I actually did send them an e-mail once at 3:00 in the morning... and got a resopnse " not the Auto responder"... by 9:00 the next morning....

And although their FP ext. upgrades do not affect me in anyway... I've seen a lot of post regaring having to re-install.....

So maybe... just maybe.... they will take notice... of these post... and start informing people... of "PLANNED"... outages & upgrades...

Personally... I find tech support on POWWEB... to be excelllent...
I've hosted with the full range.... from people who thought I was a complete idiot... because I didn't understand something about the server..... to companies.... that NEVER... answer their phones.... or respond to their e-mails.....

I have a question for those not receiving responses.... are you using e-mail.... from your account on powweb... to get in touch with them?, or are you using your ISP e-mail acounts.....

Sometimes we assume, just because we sent something... they got it ..... this is not always so.....

[Dragon]

Very true ... and that is one reason they have auto responder....
and if you havent gotten the autoresponder message chances are they did not recieve the email on their end ...

[Starr]

Normally, I wouldn’t butt in, but here I go anyhow:

It's been one of those "what else could go wrong" kinds of weeks.

Our support supervisor got sick (Luke), then we lost our head sysadmin (me). Of course this was just after our devel department upgraded all our web servers to FP2002.

Worst was during Luke and Starr's sick leave, we experienced a DNS outage (this would affected email, POP, SMTP, FTP, SSL, Ops, etc.)

Murphy’s Law dictates that if it must fail, then if should fail in the worst possible way. ;)

The good news is that all issues have been resolved and we are at full staff again.

Thank you for your continued support and patience through all of this. :)

[homesteadweaver]

I am new to Powweb and am having problems getting started. I've moved two domains to your hosting.
One site, http://www.recycled-rugs.com still shows as being under construction although I've transfered the files.
The other (main) site, http://www.homesteadweaver.com is there, but contains information from a month ago and the pages that I've recently uploaded are not showing up. I use Cute FTP for uploads.
I am also having a problem with my emails. They don't seem to be coming through from either site, although I think I have the settings right.
Any help would be appreciated.
Chris

[fcsnc]

(1) recycled-rugs.com comes up fine, but the "index.html" file under you /htdocs directory does indeed seem to be the Powweb "under construction" page.

(2) At the moment, the authoritative name servers for homesteadweaver.com are:
NS1.DNS-HOST.COM 209.235.102.13
NS2.DNS-HOST.COM 209.235.102.12

These are not Powweb's name servers. In order to correct this issue, warped@BLUEMARBLE.NET is going to have to contact the folks at Verisign and get this changed.

(3) mail for recycled-rugs.com should be working fine if you have set it up properly.

By the way: I'm closing this thread because it's too long and has gotten a little off-topic, don't you think?