Spikednation Host Issues

merlock's picture

Apologies to everyone for the last 6 months of data getting lost! Our host, Webfaction, suddenly shut down and deleted our data without any specific warning of an imminent shutdown.  Backups existed in case of the site messing up, but those backups were on Webfaction's server.  We had a March 10th 2021 cloned development site located on another server which was a duplicate of how the site was on March 10th 2021. This development site was put up to work on doing a Drupal upgrade without risking downtime of the production site, but the upgrade turned into a nightmare due to undocumented custom code making it not upgrade friendly, so the upgrade was put on the back burner.  We've now pointed the spikednation.com domain to the development site, making it the production site for the time being. It's something of a minor mirracle the development site wasn't deleted, as it was meant to be temporary.  Going forward there will be backups located on different servers so this never happens again.  There is a vague hint of hope as near the end of their announcement it says they handed over, "some support services to our friends at tsoHost" so maybe we will get lucky and get that 6 months of data back, but it's unclear what support services they could offer since the beggining of that paragraph starts with, "All hosting data has been deleted."  Webfaction might as well just direct all their clients to a suicide prevention hotline, as most likely the only support they will offer is to console traumatized clients who lost everything and then try to make them a client. Something like, "We are sorry Webfaction deleted all your data, but we can host a new site for you if you had a backup on a different server, or if you want to start all over again."

 

You can see a message on the Webfaction site about this if you'd like to look, it's at https://webfaction.com/

 

Announcement on the Webfaction site:

 

The Future of WebFaction

WebFaction Closure

The WebFaction platform was switched off and permanently decommissioned on September the 15th, 2021.

Refund Process

Any refund for paid services extending past September 15th will be issued as a pro-rata refund via PayPal. Example. A purchase or renewal of a $10 monthly package paid a year in advance for $120 on March 15th 2021 would be due a refund of 6 months unutilised fees for $60. If you paid through PayPal we will issue a refund to the PayPal address used to make payment. Payments made through other methods will be issued as a refund payment via PayPal to the primary email address held on the WebFaction account. Please ensure this is updated accordingly before September 15th. Refund payments will be processed within 28 days of September 15th. If a refund is not claimed via PayPal this will be returned after 30 days to WebFaction. You will need to contact our service team after November 15th to make alternative arrangements.

Contact Service Team

All hosting data has been deleted. No access is available to web, database or email content from customer hosting accounts. Any refunds unclaimed cannot be reissued until the PayPal payment has not been claimed and returned to WebFaction. We expect that process to be completed by November 15th. The WebFaction business has closed, our service team are not available. We have handed over some support services to our friends at tsoHost who can be contacted by online chat, please have your WebFaction account ID and company name available.

Comments

flynn's picture

Sorry for the inconvenience.

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flynn's picture

Also testing the embedded youtube links.

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backdraft's picture
Beta TesterDiscord userImage gallery

Thats fucked up.

Did you ask them about why they don't send any warning before deleting the whole site?

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sal9000's picture
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they did give people a warning. spent a few minutes looking into it. they sent a notice in october of 2020 that they were closing. sent out another notice in august 2021 that they were giving up on migrating sites and that they would be closing the company on september 15th. can't really blame anyone cause nobodies really in charge of that kind of thing. i know i was, i wouldnt have seen the emails or had a backup ready. losing 6 months is spilt milk

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backdraft's picture
Beta TesterDiscord userImage gallery

Yeah not looking for someone to blame, I know were a loose bunch, but the contact email the host has should be one that someones reads regularly. Preferably there should be 2-3 email addresses that these are sent to.

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merlock's picture

Would it be possible to see a copy of the August email? You could redact out who it went to, but we didn't get it, so I'd just like to see what it said exactly. Thank you!

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sal9000's picture
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Dear WebFaction customer,

 

This message is concerning your "kmwebfaction" hosting account.

 

We emailed you in October 2020 to let you know that the WebFaction platform
would be closing down, and where possible all websites and services would be
migrated to a new platform.

 

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to successfully migrate your hosting
package.

 

We will be closing down all websites and services on 15th September 2021, at
which point your website and email will be offline and no longer accessible.

 

What to do next:

    You will need to create backups of your website, databases, applications
    and emails before the closure of the platform, and move your hosting to a
    new provider.

 

The below hosting providers offer additional features which may be more compatible with your current WebFaction package:

    - Opalstack (opalstack.com),
    - DigitalOcean (digitalocean.com)
    - Heroku (heroku.com)
    - PythonAnywhere (pythonanywhere.com).

This is provided for information only and we don't make any representation or warranty about their services, nor do we recommend, endorse or approve any particular hosting platform. Any credit left on your account will be automatically refunded via Paypal within 28 days of account closure on 15th September 2021.

 

WebFaction would like to thank you for being a loyal customer all these years, and we wish you well in the future.

 

Regards,

The WebFaction Team
WebFaction - Smarter web hosting
http://webfaction.com

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merlock's picture

Thank you, what was the date amd time of the email?

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sal9000's picture
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comment was posted pm agaust 3rd around 10am mountain time zone. so sometime right before that

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sal9000's picture
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i'm not sure if its anything but the site wasn't accessible saturday around 8:30-9:30pm eastern time zone. tried via proxy site in europe and it didn't work either. just fyi

 

 

also. i'm not 100% sure on this but i think the fivestar module isn't working right. comparing the page source from what we got now and a cached version. view-source:https://web.archive.org/web/20210504194914/https://www.spikednation.com/ fivestar isn't in the code as much. i don't know if that means anything

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backdraft's picture
Beta TesterDiscord userImage gallery

For me the five stars have been missing for a week or so. 

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Dude's picture
front pageLe roi de Belgique

Pages on spiked have been loading realy slow recently for about a week now, takes a minute to load a page, sometimes longer, it is not my connection because other sites don't have this, cleared browser cache and cookies and all that.
You guy's don't let Danman access server internals right?

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danman's picture
whm2whm3

have you tried turning it off & on again?

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Dude's picture
front pageLe roi de Belgique

I think you just did, it is fixed, thank you

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sal9000's picture
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https://www.spikednation.com/videos/mcmurtry-spéirling mentioned it to nakey yesterday. he told merlock. it was working somehwhat ok last night but still ongoing. i say this as a joke but somewhat seriously. these problems are going to make me an admin

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