MK Hosting USA - Down - Knowledgebase

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MK Hosting USA - Down

Posted by caymanhost, 04-13-2010, 02:11 AM
Last night at around 23.30 Server1 at MK Hosting USA stopped serving up all database driven sites with Cpanel status showing MySQL, exim-26 and exim (exim-4.69-23.1_cpanel_maildir) failures.

Over 24 hours later my Cpanel shows that Disk /dev/sda2 (/var) is at 100% - all other checkboxes have now been restored to "up" but until such time as the aforementioned problem is fixed, the server will not be able to connect to any MySQL databases.

To compound the problem for users, the support ticket system has recently gone down, as has the members area itself. Prior to this, all tickets submitted remain unanswered and no live chat support available either.

I have read elsewhere that to allow Disk /dev/sda2 (/var) to reach 100% is sheer negligence on behalf of the server owner who should have been well aware of the impending problem and has done nothing to ensure that action was taken before the inevitable failure.

Poor show and lousy customer communication from a host who had previously seemed to be performing very well. If anyone from MK Hosting reads these boards it would be good to know what you are doing to get your customers back online.
Posted by MikeDVB, 04-13-2010, 04:05 AM
It sounds to me like their helpdesk is on the same server, chances are unless they check they won't even notice that it's down and because their helpdesk isn't working they aren't going to get notifications.

I can just wish you the best of luck, may be time to find a more reliable provider.
Posted by cieslakd, 04-13-2010, 04:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by caymanhost

I have read elsewhere that to allow Disk /dev/sda2 (/var) to reach 100% is sheer negligence on behalf of the server owner who should have been well aware of the impending problem and has done nothing to ensure that action was taken before the inevitable failure.

An overselling. Any responsible company should monitor it's resource usage and use quota to block disk overuse. It seems this one didn't know that
Posted by caymanhost, 04-13-2010, 12:38 PM
Thanks for the replies.

This is a major failure on behalf of MK Hosting USA. Still absolutely no word from them after over 24 hours.

If it is a result of overselling or plain incompetence I'm not sure - there are not a huge number of sites on the server in question. Whatever the reason, it's no help to customers who are left out in the cold with no way to effect a resolution.

A new host is looking more and more likely but that brings with it a lot of headaches as MK Hosting also provide all my email marketing and autoresponder services too

I only moved to them a few months ago based on reports of excellent support and service. At the POS they were extremely efficient and helpful and up until now uptime has been 100% but it seems that once they have secured your monthly hosting fee that support all goes out the window.

I'll update this once I know more.

In the meantime if anyone has any suggestions for a shared host who can handle unlimited MySQL and domains I'm open to suggestions. I only actually have a couple of domains with this host running 3 Worpdress sites and a NucleusCMS based blog with moderate traffic - less than 10,000 unique visitors monthly overall.
Posted by grahammm, 04-13-2010, 05:28 PM
Same with me, did you try phoning them?

I have and just left a message to no avail!
Posted by caymanhost, 04-13-2010, 06:04 PM
@grahammm

Nope, I haven't phoned - couldn't find a number but as I'm over in the Cayman Islands phone support isn't my first choice ;-)

I have tried every contact address I can find, I've mailed via Cpanel contact/help, I've mailed via the privacy protection address provided on their domain records.

Their own blog is down for crying out loud and they still don't seem to be aware of the problem or doing anything about it. Support system is still down, live chat is about as dead as a very dead thing.

I've had zero response - nothing, from anyone.

I hope their claims on the site of compensation are true because I'm going to be asking for something over this fiasco for sure. I've never had a problem like this in all my years as a webmaster.

Non DB driven pages are being served but that's not much comfort when you're running MySQL driven sites.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-13-2010, 06:59 PM
Here is a list of the sites hosted on Server1 at MK Hosting.

websiteneighbors.com/results.php?output=php&ip_host=thecaymanhost.com&x=35&y=27

(sorry unable to post live link as new to the forum)

If you are on this list and running any DB driven websites or blogs your site is down. You can't make any database backups either because even if you have cpanel access all your database records will be unavailable. Might be a good idea to grab some website backups if you can though, especially if you have neglected them recently.

Email problems are coming and going but to all intents and purposes email accounts are down too.

Come on MK Hosting USA, where are you and what are you doing about this????
Posted by caymanhost, 04-14-2010, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grahammm

Same with me, did you try phoning them?

I have and just left a message to no avail!

Presumably you have had no response from MK Hosting USA?

Despite numerous attempts at contacting the company I have still heard nothing back from them. Cpanel access is now even more hit and miss and the MK Hosting USA site is now serving up errors when trying to access the billing area and the members area.

This has escalated from being annoying to quite seriously worrying as nobody seems to be minding the shop at all. I managed to find a name and contact in the Whois information for Michael Knox which provides a phone number and an address if anyone in the US is interested.

Details here

whois.domaintools.com/matrixkinghosting.com

I'll continue trying for a resolution but I'm rapidly losing faith and my confidence in this organization is now seriously dented.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-14-2010, 06:12 PM
Still absolutely no response from MK Hosting USA.

Their servers are located a the Planet's data center in Dallas afaik, and I have even fired of a help request to them to see if there is anything they can do to help all us stranded customers.

Ultimately I need to at least secure up to date backups of my databases to effect a move. Believe it or not I was right in the middle of backing up when this all happened so although I have all my site data safely stored, I have no up to date MySQL backups and now I can't get at my data.

Is there anyone from the Planet on these boards who may be able to suggest anything? Please?

Maurice
Posted by JD426, 04-14-2010, 06:43 PM
Hey Maurice

I am a member of a forum that was hosted on MK servers and it has gone down too. I managed to figure out that they have a dedicated server at host gator and I even contacted host gators' live support to see if they could do anything.

Unfortunately they can't access it and told me that I would have to contact MK Hosting USA. So pretty much we are out of luck until they notice that it is down and fix it.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-14-2010, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JD426

I am a member of a forum that was hosted on MK servers and it has gone down too. I managed to figure out that they have a dedicated server at host gator and I even contacted host gators' live support to see if they could do anything.

Hostgator? that would be news to me, everything points to the Planet in Texas at my end and according to MK's website. One of the reasons I chose them actually.

If the forum you mention is on a dedicated box at HG I don't think it's the same server as mine - did you check for it on the IP neighborhood list I posted previously? It's here:

websiteneighbors.com/results.php?output=php&ip_host=thecaymanhost.com&x=35&y=27

If they are having problems on more than one server it would point to the fact that there is nobody monitoring their client's sites at all, which is a very bad sign indeed.

Maurice
Posted by JD426, 04-14-2010, 07:24 PM
Host gator uses some of theplanets servers for their dedicated hosting.

It's the same one.

The nameservers are:

ns1.matrixkinghosting.com
ns2.matrixkinghosting.com
Posted by caymanhost, 04-14-2010, 07:33 PM
OK, understood, I didn't realize this, I thought that they were direct customers of the Planet.

Things seem pretty hopeless then, as you say.

I think that as soon as I can access my databases again I'll be moving home again, this is the worst support I've ever encountered, or, more accurately, not encountered! I don't like to bash hosts and it's the nature of the beast that technical problems arise, but this seems more like incompetence and a failure to have proper systems in place - coupled with total lack of support I'd say that's a good reason to spend my money elsewhere. For a few bucks more I could buy a VPS somewhere like Knownhost or, spend less for a more reliable shared solution of which there are several highly rated ones on these forums.

I can't believe nobody from MK Hosting USA has picked up on any of this yet, it's quite astounding.

Anyway, thanks for the information, I appreciate it.

Maurice
Posted by JD426, 04-14-2010, 07:47 PM
No Problem.

Yea It seemed like they were going good there for a while and I don't know what happened to them? It's kinda strange.

Hopefully they will at least get it working again and no data was lost.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-14-2010, 07:58 PM
Indeed, they seemed very good until now.

The frustrating thing is that you can see what's wrong from the Cpanel server status - a full partition where the databases and log files are kept - all someone has to do is clean it up and we'd be good again.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-15-2010, 02:22 AM
After more digging I have established that the owner of MK Hosting USA is one Daniel Garibay and I have managed to find some contact information for him via another of his domains.

Interested parties may like to try contacting him - I have already attempted to do so - no response yet.

webtrafficagents.com/Whois/knowledgeexploit.com

Information on other people involved with this host at the following address:

aboutus.org/mkHostingUsA.com#Company_Information

Brent Anderson who is listed as the sys admin was the person I first had contact with when signing up and he was extremely helpful. Where are you now Brent???

Email to all the mkhostingusa.com addresses is now bouncing back.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-15-2010, 11:11 AM
Update 10 am Eastern 15 April 2010

Server status remains unchanged - see attachment.

Zero response from anyone associated with MK Hosting USA.

Five straight days of downtime.

Company support, members area, blog and billing also still down.

Database data inaccessible.
Posted by JD426, 04-15-2010, 11:20 AM
Ok I have some news. I spoke with host gator and with 2 of their support reps. One of them said if you need a backup of your database to contact them at: support@hostgator.com

They said its not something they normally do but if you work with them they may do it because the owner of the hosting company is not responding.

So hopefully anyone who needs backups can possibly get them from host gator.

I guess it doesn't hurt to try right. Please report back if you have any information or you were able to get a backup from host gator.

I hope this helps.
Posted by PingVPS, 04-15-2010, 11:23 AM
If the problem really is just full disks I don't understand why this wasn't fixed days ago, unless something has happened to the company itself/whoever runs it. In 5 days you should really have been able to contact somebody by now, I would tihnk something serious has happened, if you can get your data through hostgator now I would before anything worse happens such as the server disappears entirely.
Posted by JD426, 04-15-2010, 11:35 AM
Yea I have no clue what happened? They are not responding to any emails from anyone or anything.

Its just really weird
Posted by caymanhost, 04-15-2010, 12:05 PM
Thanks JD426 - I had already approached Hostgator but was refused due to privacy issues which I understand.

However, in light of your comments I have written to support with details of my situation. Thanks for posting the update, it would save my bacon if Hostgator can help me out!

As for emails to the mkhostingusa.com domain - they are not getting them so they are not going to respond - all my mails to support@ abuse@ billing@ and order@ are bouncing.

@PingVPS - absolutely, the situation seems to indicate that MK Hosting USA are about to disappear. There could be any number of reasons for this but I think the writing is definitely on the wall. I hope it is not something serious like death or illness but these are always possibilities.

However, I cannot run a business like this and migration is ultimately going to be the result, probably to a managed VPS.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-15-2010, 02:30 PM
The server has suddenly come back online!

Still no responses from the company but someone seems to have finally woken up.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-15-2010, 02:53 PM
UPDATE

I was contacted by Hostgator who very kindly tried to contact the owners of the server on my behalf - seems likely that this is what did the trick.

That being the case, big thumbs up to Hostgator for their flexibility and willingness to help both their own customer and the customers of that customer.

I am now backing up once again. I still have no idea why my host, previously so responsive and reliable, let things get this far. It has certainly shaken my confidence and planted the seeds of possible migration to another provider. That's a real shame but 85 hours downtime and no support is a serious issue IMO.
Posted by JD426, 04-15-2010, 04:54 PM
Are you able to get database backups yet?
Posted by caymanhost, 04-15-2010, 05:04 PM
I am downloading full backups right now, yes.

I'm still concerned as the partition that caused the problem is still at a pretty critical level - 97% and rising again.

I'm relieved to get my data but I'm not 100% convinced the problems are over yet.

I'm off out now as we have a new show opening at our gallery tonight - we'll see how things are when I get home later.
Posted by JD426, 04-15-2010, 05:14 PM
Sounds good.

Anyone else who hosts with MKHostingUSA I strongly recommend you get backups of you databases right now!
Posted by JD426, 04-15-2010, 10:47 PM
Well I hope everyone who needed backups got them because the server is offline again.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-16-2010, 01:31 AM
Yep, just arrived home to see that my prediction came true.

Fortunately I got my data and now I think my mind is made up - it's definitely time to migrate based on the evidence that I've seen here in the past few days.

Thanks to the Hostgator staff once again for your assistance and going above and beyond but if a host can't get their act together after such an episode and get their server issues resolved I'm not happy with them handling my business.

It's just a full partition and they are plainly not monitoring things as they should.

Biggest downside will be the loss of my autoresponder and email marketing facilities but downtime like this and zero support is far more harmful than the loss of a few hundred subscribers.

For the record not even a whisper from MK Hosting USA which is pretty poor form and suggests a cavalier attitude towards its customer base that is only going to hurt them in the long run.

I'm feeling pretty mellow because of the good wine tonight and that's probably a good thing :-)

Thanks to everyone who participated in the discussion and for offering advice and suggestions - I hope that other customers grabbed that window to backup and got their data safely too.

Maurice
Posted by caymanhost, 04-17-2010, 10:31 PM
Well, they are still down at the time of writing and I can safely say that this is the most horrendous fail by hosting provider I have ever seen.

Migration to new VPS is underway but guess what - one of mybackups for one of my highest traffic sites was corrupted. It sucks but I'm beyond caring - hopefully within a few days I can recover most of my data and cobble things together from various backups I have on file - messy but I can't wait to get away from MK Hosting USA.

I can confirm that support and service at Knownhost is already first class and despite all the hassle, I'm happy to feel confidence in a hosting provider once again.
Posted by JD426, 04-18-2010, 12:19 AM
Hey man who knows maybe they will come back online sometime and you might be able to get another backup.

Good luck though and it really sucks to see a host like that fail so badly.
Posted by caymanhost, 04-18-2010, 01:29 AM
Thanks JD246

- yeah, they 'may' come back online but I can't keep waiting for them to get it together while I lose money every day. They sell themselves as a great solution for business/marketers and until last week they were indeed serving me really well. It's really a case of "once bitten twice shy". I've lost a full week of work and wasted that whole week just trying to contact them - still without success I should add. That just isn't right.

I had my previous shared hosting plan for five years until things suddenly went severely downhill and I was eventually forced to move on - MK Hosting USA didn't even manage five months.

Anyway, I'll use an older backup of my db's and files and then use selected data from the corrupted file if needed. Fortunately most of my Wordpress sites were safely stored on other backups so hopefully the damage will be limited and I won't lose too much.

When my subscription falls due in a week or two I'll be canceling my account for good. Having said that, if anyone from MK reads this and would like to secure some backups for me I'll take them, thank you very much, and a refund for the downtime wouldn't go amiss either If you feel like paying my lost ad revenue and ppc earnings as well, I could deal with that too.