https://www.facebook.com/groups/wphosting/permalink/938027639662290/
Recommendation: Never use “A Small Orange” for hosting.
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Why? Site down for 5 days and they have no urgency to fix.
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So I have had some of my company’s hosting at A Small Orange since 2003. We don’t have any mission critical sites hosted there but it has been okay for my needs. Until just recently.
I have a blog that I have not updated in a long time and the other day I noticed it was failing with a “Error establishing a database connection.” So I checked everything and could not figure out the problem so I contacted support.
After spending an hour on the chat and them telling me that they could not support me because I had a “non-standard configuration” (because I setup up sites as recommended here: https://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress…) I changed the config back to “standard” so they would look at it. They finally looked at it and came back to tell me that there was a corrupt table in the database.
Since it was not a critical site I don’t back it up continuously. And while I do have an older (and almost certainly current) backup I asked them to restore for their most recent backup via a ticket I submitted on Sept 28th. I asked about it both on the 29th and on the 30th but then I had to focus on an urgent client issues and it became less urgent to resolve.
Today it occurred to me to check on it again and it was still not fixed, 5 days later! But rather than explain anything else I’ll just let you read the chat log verbatim:
---------------------- 10:00:58 PM System Austin F has joined the chat! 10:01:23 PM Mike Schinkel My Support Code: 12345-ABCDE 10:02:19 PM Austin F Welcome to live chat, my name is Austin and I will be assisting you today. Give me a moment to pull up the information. 10:06:41 PM Austin F Your ticket will be worked as soon as possible, it seems that there are quite a few restores tickets currently. 10:08:12 PM Mike Schinkel 5 days is really unacceptable. 10:09:03 PM Austin F Restores can take quite a while to be completed. 10:09:13 PM Mike Schinkel This site is not critical, but what if is were? Does not give me faith in renewing my service when time comes to renew it. 10:09:56 PM Austin F I'm sorry you feel that way sir, but there isn't anything I can do to speed this process up. 10:10:54 PM Mike Schinkel Seriously? Then I now have zero faith in using A Small Orange for any mission critical sites. 10:12:49 PM Austin F Was there anything else I could help you with today? 10:13:12 PM Mike Schinkel Expediting the restore since it has been 5 days. 10:14:16 PM Austin F As I have already stated, that is not possible. Was there anything else I could help you with today? 10:14:43 PM Mike Schinkel Let me know when I should expect it to be restored. 10:16:51 PM Austin F I can't say for sure, but hopefully within a day or two. 10:17:05 PM Mike Schinkel A day or two?!? 10:17:32 PM Austin F I really can't say for sure, just guessing. 10:19:31 PM Austin F Was there anything else I could help you with today? 10:19:40 PM Mike Schinkel Fine. I have been with A Small Orange since 2003. Given this horrible level of support I will not be renewing. I am sure it is not your fault, you are probably just doing what your boss tells you to do. That said, the company you work for clearly does not appreciate loyal customers. 10:20:04 PM Austin F I understand sir, you gotta do what you gotta do. ----------------------
And with that I am done with A Small Orange.