Dotster VPS Hosting Review-Support no response!
August 17th, 2007 — ¥ong¥s
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Yes! Its happen to me. I wish to clarify that I am not from other hosting companies who wish to mess up their name. This is the true story happen to me.
Recently I was looking for window VPS hosting. After do some googling and visited some popular web hosting forum, I decided to choose dotster. There are neither the most expensive nor cheapest. Before I sign up, I did chat online with their sales staff to find more details on the plan (I choose plesk standard). There are friendly and helpful. At the end I decide to give a try.
Day 1 – Sign up run smoothly. After payment has been made, I receive a receipt email and another mail indicates my VPS is ready! It is fast! I manage to login to virtuozzo control panel and check all my allocated resources. Everything looks good! Then I try to login to plesk control panel with admin login. Too bad, it always prompt me invalid login! Try to recover through “Forget password” but no help! I immediate send a support request to their support team. After 2-3 hours still no reply, I guess there may be busy out there. So just give them another day. Meanwhile, I also found that my VPS window is 64bit version but with a 32 bit .net 2.0 framework installed. I have no idea how there do it. With virtuozzo, I guess, may be possible? I try to install MS ASP.NET Ajax 1.0 but get prompt to install .net 2.0 framework to continue. I guess window cannot find the 32bit .net 2.0 frameworks. Now the problem comes … I try to remove 32 bit .net 2.0 frameworks in the OS but failed and give me is not a valid version… and stop to uninstall it. Then, I try to install another 64 bit .net 2.0 framework. Too bad, the installation stops unexpectedly. What can I do now? Try to chat with online support. Guess what their reply? VPS support is not applicable to online chat support! Please send in support request or call us. Come on I am outside US. Call is not a good method for me. So I send another support request regarding these issues… besides I also asking is it possible to reinstall the VPS..
Day 2 – After 15 hours, I get a reply. “Unfortunately, these issues are outside of the scope of our standard support agreement…”. I have to purchase a VPS support incident ($75) to reinstall VPS. Ok, this is fine. But, how about other issues? Cannot login to plesk control panel….net 2.0 framework issues… This time I try to chat online with their support. This time, I guess he is a more friendly guy who at least willing to check my ticket status. At the end, he mentioned will help me to raise the plesk control panel issue asap. For .net 2.0 frameworks is not under standard support policy… there say this was use by hundred clients without any problem. I guess install MS AJAX may be pretty new to their VPS plan in this kind of setting (64 bit OS + 32 bit .net framework). Nothing I can do now. Just try to dig around and hopefully can solve by my self…
Day 3 – Still no reply on the plesk control login issues… This time, I try to install MS SQL Express. There make statement in their website that the VPS plan is supported MS SQL Express! Guess what happen? Same thing happen like MS AJAX issues. MS SQL Express installer prompts me to install .net 2.0 first!! I send another support request to report the MS SQL express issue. It is very clear that this is fall under standard support policy…
Day 4 – No response from them yet… Is it because today is sunday?
Day 5, 6, 7 - No response…. I give up contact them….
Day XX… I Cancel my VPS hosting at the end of the billing period.
For those who wish to choose doster, please think twice! This is only my personal experience with dotster in the past. I hope they can improve their support services soon. Otherwise, i do not know how far it can go…
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October 4th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I’ve had similar problems with Dotster.
I set up a vps for a client who wanted one. It ran Ok so I thought I’ll put my ten domains on one. It worked fine for a month then suddenly the server went offline. After twenty hours it went back on. During this time all my email bounced back. Then after six hours or so all email stopped coming in. The pop3 just bounced everything back. It was sending ok thought through smtp.
I was waiting for a couple of emails from potential customers that won’t have come through. Just rang customer support and got a woman who said she was just an answering service and unless it’s a critical server issue I have to wait. The next payment is due in a couple of days.
I think I will cancel it. The only thing stopping me is the pain of changing everything over: databases, packages etc. Probably take me a week and I’ll lose more business.
DO NOT USE DOTSTER AT ALL EVER.
October 4th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
Yes. I agree… Hope others aware of it.
December 26th, 2007 at 4:12 am
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.
January 13th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I agree - not 24/7. Hit an upload problem, choose 24/7 online support, 6th in queue, 30 mins @ #1 then “No agents available please email your question” Did this twice as I couldn’t believe it, same both times. Got an email response in the 23rd hour that didn’t resolve the issue, submitted new question now in hour 25 (they promise 24 hr response)
May 5th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I’m having a real difficult time with dotster hosting.
After some deep research, i came to the conclusion that dotster’s “pro” hosting plan suits my websites needs just fine.
I got the plan, paid for it - from that point on im living a nightmare. First of all, dotster didn’t even bother sending me all the hosting details. I figured they’ll be in the account - so i tried to log into my account - only to find they aren’t firefox friendly. The “manage hosting” button refused to go anywhere.
alas, it’s strange - but ok, many others out there aren’t firefox friendly. So i log out - and open dotster in explorer. Only to find out dotster’s questionable “session expired” page. Even though my browser is set to accept cookies - i kept on getting that “session expired” page for over 24 hours.
I still can’t log in and set everything up - I’ve had better experience with silly $1 a month hosting plans. I got a $20 a month plan from dotster - and they don’t even send a “thank you” or “welcome” or “here are your configuration details” emails.
Not to mention it’s been over 24 hours since i sent them a ticket about it - and no reply yet. Their support is a joke. You can use it only on regular working hours. If you, like me, need them on a Sunday. You better go and pray somewhere.
I’m very disappointed with dotster - and wouldn’t recommend them to anyone that cares about their websites. The search for an honest, reliable host continues.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Thank you for all the replies. Anyone else have same problem? Post it here!
May 30th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I just signed up with dotster on May 27th 2008. They took my money and the next day I got an email to access my account. Access was ok then the next day it was offline. I called tech support and they said it would take up to 24 hours to fix. Then I asked what the refund policy is since I have run my own servers at serverbeach for 5 years and this was my first attempt at using VPS and already I have an outage so I want my money back. The Dotster guy promptly stated no refunds are giving for the first money and only prorated after that. So now I am screwed. My only option therefore was to Google as many forums and post my warning. Do not use Dotster VPS hosting. They suck and don’t won’t refund a penny of your initial purchase.
August 17th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
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