Tag Archives: upgrade

‘HostGator’ Shared Hosting Servers DOWN AGAIN For A 2+ Hour Outage — The 2nd Extended Outage In 16-Days!

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by Anura Guruge
on December 11, 2022

Click to ENLARGE. Screenshot of my CHAT transcript with HostGator support.

This is becoming concerning. Second, major & lengthy OUTAGE at Hostgator within 16-days. As I documented here, HostGator shared hosting was up-and-down during all day Thanksgiving, i.e., November 24, 2022. It was pretty obvious that they were doing some sort of maintenance using the holiday as a cover.

Then this afternoon this site went down again. WordPress Jetpack informs me whenever it detects a Website outage. They started sending me notifications. I also discovered the outage, to my cost & chagrin, when I went to check the stats.

This site was down for over 2 hours.

The first person I spoke to at HostGator DENIED that it was a server issue. That was bad. It was pretty obvious it was. I quickly terminated that chat. It was a waste of time.

Tried again a few minutes later. As you can see above, the second person, quite quickly & readily admitted it was a server issue. Well, I knew that. Just wanted confirmation.

Not happy. HostGator was, till recently, immaculate. Now … Plus, support is nowhere near as good as it used to be.

‘HostGator’ Shared Hosting Was Up-and-Down During Most Of Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24, 2022.

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by Anura Guruge
on November 25, 2022

I would like to think that they were doing some server maintenance or possibly even an upgrade — trying to sneak it in during the holiday hoping that only a few would notice. If that was the case, it would have been nicer & more professional if they had given us a heads up. C’est la vie. It is done now — I hope.

I get these automated messages from ‘WordPress‘ ‘Jetpack‘ whenever they detect a site outage. I got at least 4 of them yesterday, the one shown above the last. Per these messages at least 2 of the outages lasted for over an hour. So, I think, in total, I suffered close to 4 hours of downtime, if not more. Not happy, but not much I can do.

At one point, late in the afternoon, during the 3rd outage I contacted ‘Hostgator’ support via chat. To begin with they were not aware of the downtime. Then they confirmed that it was a server issue at their end. That I knew. I knew it wasn’t MY Website, i.e., this one (you are reading).

I am just basically documenting this. As I said before, not much I can do.

To be fair, Hostgator outages, SO FAR, have been few & far between. I hope it stays that way.

I Opted For ‘WordPress’ ‘Jetpack’ (Unlimited) Website Backup Rather Than Persevering With ‘CodeGuard’.

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by Anura Guruge
on August 2, 2021

Follow Anura Guruge on WordPress.com

I had signed up for ‘CodeGuard‘ backup for this Website/blog when I got my hosting package with ‘HostGator‘ in June 2021. I got a bundled deal (or sorts) at quite a promotional discount. HostGator (& their sister outfit ‘BlueHost‘) as most people know likes to ‘encourage‘ you to get CodeGuard & ‘SiteLock Security‘ as part of your hosting. Yes, I had done my research BUT my main priority was to get this Website/blog up & running ASAP — & then worry about exactly how I wanted to refine, optimize & finetune offerings. And that is exactly what happened with Backup.

I had got the ‘basic’ CodeGuard offering — which is what I had been steered towards. It only comes with 1G of storage. I blew past that this weekend. I deleted a month worth of backups. But, I was still above 1G. I pruned it down to just 3-days of backups. Still not enough. Yes, it was easy enough to upgrade BUT I realized that I would be on a slippery slope. 3-months down the road I would have to upgrade again. This Website/blog is NOT getting any smaller. So, I looked around again.

I already had WordPress’ ‘JetPack‘. It was one of the first plugins I installed. I have been with ‘WordPress.com‘ for 13-years. Though it had never been all plain sailing, on the whole, I had managed to get what I wanted accomplished. I do know the differences & tie-ins between the ‘.com’ & ‘.org’ arms. But, I already had Jetpack & as such I was already dealing with the ‘.com’ even though I was self-hosted. Plus, push come to shove, who better to backup a WordPress site than WordPress itself?

But the kicker was, & I sought confirmation from them via e-mail, the UNLIMITED backup storage. Pay for a year & DONE. No constant harassment to upgrade (at least for more storage). It wasn’t exactly cheap, BUT it wasn’t outrageous either. For what they offer, it was fair. So, I did the deal.