24-hour email support is NOT true

My website is currently hosted by Dreamhost, and they claim to give 24-hour email support.

This is NOT true.

My site is DOWN and I have sent a message over 4 days ago already labelled as the highest priority with no response at all yet.

I would NOT recommend Dreamhost.

Who are you? You register just now to post this? Being a one-post wonder, you lack enough credibility to sway anybody.

And to clarify, their 24 hour goal isn't a guarantee. They *try* to respond within that time, but weekends and holidays throw that off. Personally, I don't expect much from anybody in the week between Christmas and New Years. People tend to be on physical and/or mental vacation during that time period.

-Scott

I am currently an EXTREMELY DISSATISFIED customer with Dreamhost, whose website is down, and who is having NO response at all for over 4 days from my support requests to Dreamhost.

Yes, I signed up here, to warn other people considering signing up with Dreamhost. People can ignore what I say if they want, but it is true.

Who are you?

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i've never had a problem with DH email support. they have always been prompt, knowledgeable and easy to work with.

i think the longest i've waited for a response was 4 hours, and it has never resulted in anything but a satisfactory resolution.

What's your URL ?
What's the actual problem you're having ?

I've been with dreamhost over 5 years...haven't had many problems, but support has been great. I even have the 5 callbacks a month, only used one once : )

What is your url? It might not even be dreamhost. did you try a tracerout and/or ping? can you post them here? We are only customers, but we feel for you. if you post your url someone might be of some help.

I'd be distressed too if I heard nothing for four days. Sure, holidays can cause some delay in response in some instances, but still you should have some reply.

If you reply with your domain name, I'll gladly look into your situation and see what the problem is (Otherwise, I have no way to even know who you are or what account is involved here).

--rlparker
--DreamHost Tech Support

The URL is http://romeobox.com

Thanks for that information. I see that you have now received a reply, which essentially re-states the information you were given 4 days ago.

Your site had drastically outgrown the resources available to you on a shared server, and you agreed to be upgraded to a new server in order to keep your site from being disabled.

When this was done, with your full knowledge and approval, your site broke. Investigation revealed that this was a problem with the coding of your site. You were using a customized PHP environment, and that environment was configured using a 32 bit server's toolchain. Your new 64 bit DreamHost machine will not run that PHP-CGI binary, and you were notified of the problem.

We warn users repeatedly that if they choose to customize PHP for their domain, that there is *no support at all* available from DreamHost for that customization, and that the customer will need to maintain that themselves.

Our support staff responded to you 5 days ago and told you *precisely* what needed to be done to correct this issue:

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It looks like your site is down due to you using custom php scripting.
I checked your site's .htaccess file, and see this:

AddHandler php-cgi .php
Action php-cgi /cgi-bin/php.cgi

The problem is that you were moved to a 64 bit operating system, but your scripts are configured for 32 bit. To solve this issue, all you need to do is recompile your php binary again, and that should take care of it for you.

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You responded to that by blaming DreamHost for "screwing up your site", and then asking *us* to do the recompile for you.

We responded to your next support request, which was an angry "ALL CAPS!" screed ending with "I'M ABSOLUTELY FURIOUS!!!!! I WANT YOU TO FIX THIS, AND GET THE SITE BACK ONLINE.", to which we again replied, within the hour

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I'm terribly sorry about the problems relate to your site, but we cannot fix custom compiled code for you. Yelling at us won't change that.

We have the need to move accounts at various times, and cannot take into consideration every single aspect of every single site and how it may be effected. If users are using our default system, without anything special, then sites that are moved will be perfectly fine. If you've chosen to install custom software, it's up to you to maintain it, not us. We did not make you install custom code, and cannot maintain it for you.

You'll need to recompile that custom binary yourself, we cannot do that for you.

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Your next support request devolved to a near hysterical rant including assorted demands and threats ... I'd love to republish them here, but I won't out of respect for you and not wanting to embarrass you - hey you were angry. You followed that with another, milder, but still unreasonable exhortation that we "put your site back online" while blaming us for your problem and repeatedly expressing your frustration in harsh words.

Wow. I'm not surprised at all that they quit answering you. Your complete refusal to acknowledge what you were told, and blind insistence that your customized code was DreamHost's responsibility to correct, most likely made answering you seem to be an exercise in futility for most support staffers.

I'm sorry that you are having this problem, but as the last support response you received, earlier today, so succinctly puts it

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"Paragraph 4 of the Material clause on the Dreamhost Terms of Service
Agreement, http://dreamhost.com/tos.html states:

"The Customer agrees that he or she has the necessary knowledge to create Customer's Webspace. Customer agrees that it is not the responsibility of DreamHost Web Hosting to provide this knowledge or Customer Support
outside of the defined service of DreamHost Web Hosting."

I'm deeply sorry that we cannot be of further assistance for you.

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So what do you do from here? Well, you might consider that if the correction you need to your code is something that you cannot do (you stated you had "a company" do this for you initially), hiring someone to do this for you might be an alternative.

Another is just to keep blaming DreamHost, and leave your site broken. Or move it to another host. You have lots of choices here, but probably the least effective of the courses of action available to you are to keep yelling for DreamHost to fix your code, or going onto the DreamHost forums to protest about how badly you feel you have been treated.

I think our folks showed admirable patience and restraint in the face of your hostile and ill-informed messages. but of course you are free to disagree with that. Either way, moving the "yelling" from the support channel to the discussion forums isn't going to change the facts of the situation any, or get your site back online.

--rlparker
--DreamHost Tech Support

Golly, *what* a surprise. (that dripping sound is sarcasm)

Yet *another* person acting as if their problem is entirely DreamHost's fault. Which is why I point out that this person is a one-post wonder with no credibility. Who am I? Someone with over 3000 posts. Read through them and you'll get some idea of who I am.

-Scott

Damn, I love DreamHost. This is not sarcasm -- I think that response was fabulous.

The wider problem of why my website was down and who is to blame (myself or Dreamhost) is not one which I am talking about in this thread, but is one I will be more than happy to discuss in another thread.

The problem, which I raised here, was that I had not had a response to my urgent support request from Dreamhost in over 4 days, and customers are led to believe that the response will be 24-hours, which is not true.

The suggestion is made in rlparker's post that when the answer did finally come, it gave no more information than I already had. This is not true at all. In my post to Dreamhost I gave suggestions as to how my site could be got working again quickly (by moving it back to the original machine or to another 32-bit machine), and in the reply which I got over 4-days later, I was told that these things were not possible for various reasons.

This is extremely useful information for me to be able to deal with the situation.

Sure, as a customer whose website has been down for nearly a week now (and I do blame Dreamhost for this, but I do not want to get into that in this thread since that is a large topic in itself), I was and remain furious. Nonetheless, by Dreamhost not replying for more than 4 days, Dreamhost have made an extremely bad situation (my site being down) even worse (since I have lost another 4 days in trying to get my website back online.

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The problem, which I raised here, was that I had not had a response to my urgent support request from Dreamhost in over 4 days, and customers are led to believe that the response will be 24-hours, which is not true.

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Actually, the fact of the matter is that you had a response, and that response was accurate and correct - you just didn't like , or accept, that response. Multiple days between responses occurred when you ignored the initial response that detailed the required fix for your situation and moved the dialog into the realm of posturing and threatening.

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The suggestion is made in rlparker's post that when the answer did finally come, it gave no more information than I already had. This is not true at all. In my post to Dreamhost I gave suggestions as to how my site could be got working again quickly (by moving it back to the original machine or to another 32-bit machine), and in the reply which I got over 4-days later, I was told that these things were not possible for various reasons.

This is extremely useful information for me to be able to deal with the situation.

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Nothing at all changed between the first response and the last, except your attitude about it all and the "fix" being reaffirmed to you. We are not responsible for your inability to comprehend that. The site was moved for a reason, and nothing had happened to change that. Moving it "back" was, or should have been, an obviously unacceptable alternative.

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... I was and remain furious. Nonetheless, by Dreamhost not replying for more than 4 days, Dreamhost have made an extremely bad situation (my site being down) even worse (since I have lost another 4 days in trying to get my website back online.

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DreamHost's failure to respond to your rant for four days is not why your site is still down. Your inability or unwillingness to follow the support direction you were initially given, choosing instead to harangue support to do it for you, is the reason your site is still down. A few minutes work by a competent web developer could have resolved your problem. There was no need to argue the matter further with DreamHost support staff after having the fix described for you, and after you were told that it was your responsibility to implement the fix. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make the horse drink; if the horse dies of thirst because he refuses to drink, that's on the horse.

You can have your site back online as soon as you do as support initially instructed you to do ... if it remains offline it is solely because you refuse to accept that instruction and take the step(s) necessary to return your site to service.

--rlparker
--DreamHost Tech Support

If it helps, I would be happy to perform the necessary steps to recompile your PHP installation on your behalf (if you give me all the necessary account access). All you need to do to "activate" my assistance is to visit this page and send $500,000.25 (the 25¢ covers administrative costs). Once I have confirmed that the payment is received and you have sent me your account details, I'll get right on it.

-- si-blog --

Ouch. Doesn't it suck when you try to BS people and someone shows up with the other half of the story?

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I would NOT recommend Dreamhost.

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That should put them out of business. Now all you have to do is find that secret list of people that take lying retards seriously and get the word out!

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Multiple days between responses occurred when you ignored the initial response that detailed the required fix for your situation and moved the dialog into the realm of posturing and threatening.

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I did not ignore the initial response at all; my website was down, and the fix which you proposed was not possible to organise during Christmas, so I was trying with all earnestness to find another solution. It was more than 4 days before I finally got a response from you that my alternatives were not an option.

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Nothing at all changed between the first response and the last, except your attitude about it all and the "fix" being reaffirmed to you.

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In a sense, you are right, that "nothing at all changed¨, since I had no other options than that which was originally stated. Nonetheless, I finally knew that these other fixes which I proposed were not an option.

It should not have taken more than 4 days (and 3 times opening a ticket with the priority "OMG, EVERYTHINGS BROKEN, PEOPLE ARE DYING"), and coming here to the forums in desperation and frustration, before you finally answered my support ticket and said that my alternatives were not possible. For me, when I needed 24-hour email support most, Dreamhost failed me.

Being ignored 4 days is a BS claim on your part. It's not support's job to sit around swatting down your bad ideas after they already suggested a solution.

Is trying to make them look bad really that much more important to you than being honest?

It appears that this thread may be somewhat of a dead horse at this point, but I just wanted to throw my $0.02 in for posterity's sake. I've had to call on Dreamhost support probably 3 or 4 times since opening my account around 5 years ago. They were always extremely prompt with a response, and always exceedingly helpful.

My number of support requests were certainly reduced thanks to this fantastic user forum as well. I realize that many of the DH staff members read and respond to posts here, as well as a bunch of very helpful and educated members who don't work for DH. This is a special place and I am continually thankful for that.

Thought I'd add my slightly less than 2 cents worth (but probably more than 1 cent worth :D)....

...now this is a minor point as it seems as though DH support did what they could...

..the 24 hour email support in my eyes just means they have somebody working on email support 24 hours a day.... it doesn't mean that all issues will be definitely responded to within 24 hours.....esp if something major is going on or its holidays.

...in my experience this is most definitely true as I'm in Hong Kong and most times I send a support ticket it would be during working hours here which would be the middle of the night at DreamHost. I tend to get a response within minutes or an hour at the max...... it tends to sort out any issues I have first time or tells me why it can't be sorted out. Even when I was a fool and in my over eager excitable state I paid my yearly bill twice.... they fixed everything for me within minutes of my dumbassery.

From what I read here they did respond to you... just because their final answer isn't the perfect world answer you were hoping for doesn't mean its Dreamhost in the wrong

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Being ignored 4 days is a BS claim on your part.
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Is trying to make them look bad really that much more important to you than being honest?

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You will see that it really was more than 4 days when you see that Dreamhost never denied it (which of course they can easily see the truth of since they have all the records). If I had been talking BS, or had been being dishonest, then they could even prove it with the so-called true delay.

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It's not support's job to sit around swatting down your bad ideas after they already suggested a solution.

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It is actually the job of support to respond to tickets submitted by customers. I am trying to run a website business, and it is absolutely essential to me that my web host support respond as soon as possible to my support tickets. It's quite possible that I have bad ideas which cannot work, but if I ask them to do something which is not possible, I need to know as soon as possible that this is the case.

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It is actually the job of support to respond to tickets submitted by customers.

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And they did. After that, it's not their job to swat down your bad ideas all day after they already gave you a solution.

You've blamed Dreamhost for your site being down and you've blamed Christmas for not being able to do what they told you.

Is it pretty safe to say at this point, that your site being down is everyone in the world's fault, except for yours?

You also don't seem to have any idea of what support's job is. Their job is not to keep your site working -- that's your job.

If your site doesn't work on a server where hundreds of other sites are working fine, the problem is on your end--not theirs.

Somewheres there is fine print that states Dreamhost is not responsible for 3rd party issues. Php is 3rd party software. If you don't use the default php that dreamhost provides including any add on features of php, Dreamhost does not have to help you. The fact that did provide you with a response was more than they had to do. In fact they bent over backwards for you.
When you install anything on the server it is your responsibility and no one else's to make sure it is running correctly. If you do not know what you are doing, then you should be hiring someone that does. Take care of your own business and stop running down someone else's, namely Dreamhost.
Enough said...

My website

The Dreamhost website seems to advertise 24x7 support, which we all know they have. I think the OP is referring to the automated email that we all get when we submit a support request:

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This email is to let you know that we have received your message and
will be replying to it within 24 hours. Your tracking # is nnnnnnn.

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I suspect the OP opened multiple new tickets in order to try to get better support rather than replying to existing tickets - thus the assumption of the 24 hour reply because of above automated email that gets sent out.

Anyway, this is all beside the point. The OP has been disingenuous in not telling us the full story.

Interestingly, I think his claim is actually accurate. I find that though support requests are almost always looked at by a human support person within 24 hours, the actual email reply takes as long as it takes to fix rather than falling within the 24 window. I would prefer to receive an email when the ticket gets assigned to a real person - that's the way the support ticket system works at the company I work for and I've been pretty pleased with it. Then again, I can understand if the Dreamhost ticket system has to work differently because the people asking for support are as intransigent as the OP.

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While I think it'd be *nice* if the assigned tech would acknowledge that they're working on it, I can't blame DreamHost for not responding as soon as someone starts working on it.

While a good portion of users will be patient and satisfied to know that someone's working on it, there are enough people who are overeager or just demanding and impatient who want regular updates and will nag the system and the tech until the job is done. Like "Done yet? How much longer? When are we gonna get therrrrrrre?"

I think it's good enough that if you don't hear *anything* back in 24 hours to re-submit a ticket and let them know it's a resubmission of a previous ticket. There have been occasions where the assignee has become unavailable while the ticket sits in their queue.

-Scott

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And they did [respond to your support ticket]. After that, it's not their job to swat down your bad ideas all day after they already gave you a solution.

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The problem is that they did not respond to my ticket for more than 4 days. The fact that they had responded to an earlier ticket does not change that fact.

It is the job of support to reply promptly to support tickets, whatever the content, and their reply can include that the question or whatever is out of the scope of support.

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You also don't seem to have any idea of what support's job is. Their job is not to keep your site working -- that's your job.

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In placing my website with a company such as Dreamhost, I am actually sharing the job of keeping my site working, where part of the responsibility is mine (e.g. maintaining custom code) but part of the responsibility is Dreamhost's (e.g. upgrading hardware).

Support's job includes answering support requests as quickly as possible, which they define loosely as 24-hours.

Support's job certainly includes giving support for those parts of web hosting which are under the control of Dreamhost. When, as was the case in my support request, what I was interested in doing involves options to which only Dreamhost can agree to or not, then I believe that this is a perfectly legitimate support request which deserves a prompt answer. Even in the event that my support request had been an unreasonable demand, it is still the role of support to reply promptly stating that this is the case, so that I can know what the options available to me are.

You must not have carefully read my responses to you, or you clearly did not get my meaning. It is not in the best interests of our customer base in general for us to respond to redundant and hysterical demanding rants or harangues from customers who have been given an accurate and timely response that they refuse to accept.

Technical support is a finite resource, like RAM (shared between users on shared servers), and water (shared by all living things) - when one person monopolizes it unreasonably, while it is tempting to engage in spirited exchanges, it is non-productive and deprives others waiting for service from receiving their fair share of the support pie. A responsible support staffer focuses on what needs to be done, not who yells the loudest or the most often.

I understand you are upset about the fact that we did not answer your most egregious support communications (ALL CAPS rants and unreasonable demands are not "support requests"). Your professional requests were handled in a timely manner. Today, even after the fit you've thrown, I answered your most recent request ... within 22 minutes.

I won't engage in a "blow by blow" exchange with you on your expectations any further, as it is clear that is likely to be no more productive than your support communications, but I will encourage you to re-read your last post here, and then re-read the Terms of Service to which you agreed when you signed up. The hope here is that you learn what is reasonable, and what is not - it's fine to have your beliefs, but believing something does not make it so (except when trying to save Tinkerbell).

A final thought here that bears remembering, is that one size does not fit all, and if you do not feel that you can receive the support that you need here, for whatever reason, I most strongly encourage you to seek hosting elsewhere. We will do our best to serve you, but not at the expense of our other customers, and there are limits to the level and amount of support you can command under our pricing model.

Life is far too short for you to be this unhappy about your hosting arrangements, given all the choices available to you, and the kind of stress you exhibited over all of this during the holiday season is not good for your health. Seriously. Be happy, live long, and prosper.

--rlparker
--DreamHost Tech Support

Long story short: You have no idea of what you're talking about.

You should literally start saying the exact opposite of whatever you think. If you did that on an IQ test, you'd make Marilyn vos Savant look retarded.

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The problem is that they did not respond to my ticket for more than 4 days. The fact that they had responded to an earlier ticket does not change that fact.

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So if you generated a content-free support ticket every five minutes for eternity you'd expect them to respond to each one within 24 hours despite the fact that they were redundant (and content-free, to boot)?

I certainly would not.

It's clear to me that our support expectations differ. I expect competent best-effort support. I'm thrilled when my problem is resolved within a few minutes and I'm happy when they are resolved within a few hours. I'm disappointed when it takes a couple of days to resolve problems. Honestly, I haven't had enough problems to constitute a statistically significant sample size.

I don't harangue or abuse the support staff. I treat them in a professional manner and expect to be treated in kind (and have been).

I'd recommend that you note the opinions of those who've taken the time to respond to you hear. I recommend that you read the responses carefully and try to learn from them how other people approach their problems and try to work with others to solve them.

For a long time I lived in my own little world where the only opinion that counted was my own and where I was always right. I eventually learned that I could get a lot more done if I played well with others. :)

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I'd be distressed too if I heard nothing for four days. Sure, holidays can cause some delay in response in some instances, but still you should have some reply.

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I just signed up for the forum here, but I have been with Dreamhost for several years now, and I know the frustration of not hearing ANYTHING from support for

That would justify a rant. I probably woulda thrown in some ALLCAPS.

If someone's paying the premium they have every right to expect higher quality service.




How To Install PHP.INI / ionCube on DreamHost

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That would justify a rant. I probably woulda thrown in some ALLCAPS.

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The act of writing it was enough.

I got a very nice response from tech support a while ago. I voiced some of my concerns and offered some suggestions to make this thing work better in the future.

I mean, it is one thing to complain about something, it is another not to have any constructive suggestions to fix the problem for the future.

We've already established that Sh*t happens, and things crash. It is what you do AFTER that which is important. Part of the process is letting the customer know you are "all over it." Maybe throw out some generic time frame, with the explanation that nothing is for sure, but the average time for resolution of this kind of problem is ______ hour(s). At least it gives the customer some kind of idea what to expect.

DJ Allyn