MY SITES ARE STILL DOWN

How long is it gonna take? Are you doing the utmost to resolve things? Don't you have any backup plan when things go bad? I'm pissed.

Relax, dude. There are many customers in the same boat (myself included). DreamHost say they are running a special update to try to fix everything, so you may have to sit tight for a few more hours while that is happening.

-- si-blog --

Dunno about others, but from what I can gather my site has been down for 13 hours now, possibly longer...

<sarcasm>
Every minute that my websites are down is costing me BILLIONS of dollars!
</sarcasm>

-- si-blog --

"DreamHost say they are running a special update to try to fix everything, so you may have to sit tight for a few more hours while that is happening."

Where did you see that? The lack of info makes this even more frustrating. Dreamhoststatus.com is supposed to be hosted elsewhere, but it's clearly still linked to their main servers somehow. Pathetic.

You've got to love the fact they ask you to email them instead of using the panel and then the mail bounces...

Mail Delivery Subsystem <noreply@dreamhost.com>
to me

show details
8:34 am (5 minutes ago)
We're sorry.. your email was unable to be processed by our automatic
support system, and so is being returned to you.

We could not find your email address in our customer database and so
couldn't accept your email. Due to the HUGE volume of spam we receive
at this address, we've been forced to implement this new policy.

Therefore, please just re-submit your message at:

http://www.dreamhost.com/contact.cgi

All messages submitted through that form are guaranteed to be received,
even if you aren't currently a customer!

Also, we are currently having the following known emergency
situation (posted 7 hours 16 mins ago):

Sorry about the downtime experienced today. We have network and DNS issues today. If you are writing in because your site is down please hold off if you can. We are currently running an update that will fix all of your domains, but unfortunately the update takes a while to run. If by tomorrow your site is not up please write directly to dhstatus@dreamhost.com rather than posting to normal support. We have a specialized support team ready to assist you.



You can keep updated at <a href="http://www.dreamhoststatus.com/">dreamhoststatus.com!</a>


(If this doesn't resolve your current issue, just go ahead and write
us via that URL above!)

Our apologies for the inconvenience,

Granted - I know I sent it from another email address - but come on - I made it clear in my message...doh!

In reply to:

---

Where did you see that?

---

On the front page of the support area of the control panel.


-- si-blog --

My sites are down too... and their status site seems to be down also. This is the biggest, messiest downtime I've observed in over six years hosting with Dreamhost.

-- Dan

Mine too.

Dreamhost is just s.h.i.t., to be honest.

Anyone know a decent webhost?


Edited by jpotter on 08/17/07 05:57 AM (server time).

[quote]the biggest, messiest downtime I've observed in over six years hosting with Dreamhost.[/quotes]

I don't think it is as serious as all that. If DNS is down, that cripples everything. The servers are still running, but we cannot reach them.


-- si-blog --

> This is the biggest, messiest downtime I've observed in over six years hosting with Dreamhost.

Other than the odd power outage or two.

The most important thing is the signup page is still up. :-)

.......

Let's see, apparently the whole Dreamhost empire is crumbling due to
their DNS problem. E.g., to post this, I had to register an account.
To register an account, I had to give an email address. Because my
email address is on a Dreamhost domain, of course my domain's A and MX
records are gone due to DNS problems. So I had to give a different
email address to post here... here on the last part of the Dreamhost
empire that hasn't crumbled, like Dreamhoststatus... which leads one
to click to wordpress's help page...

>><sarcasm>
Every minute that my websites are down is costing me BILLIONS of dollars!
</sarcasm><<

I said nothing about money did I. Just stating the time my site has been down.

Pretty predictable that someone starts flogging that horse...

At least this forum was able to send your starting password. :-)

In reply to:

---

But for now, I’m just glad the present has been a little better for DreamHost customers than for 365 Main’s!

---

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site:blog.dreamhost.com+schadenfreude

What goes around comes around...


.......

what's going to happen with emails that i haven't read and new emails people are sending me? i hope they won't disappear in lala land

Where do we go to get a status update....
- my customer sites are downs and emails are not working.
..... even the Dreamhost emergency status url is down (or features of it like ..word press)

In reply to:

---

what's going to happen with emails that i haven't read and new emails people are sending me? i hope they won't disappear in lala land

---

We are all hoping the same thing!

Generally, mail should get spooled and shows up later, but with DNS wonky, it could also just "bounce".

--rlparker

The latest status updates I've found are on the Control Panel -> Support -> Contact support page, in the form of "Critical Announcements".

--rlparker

> Where do we go to get a status update....

Good question. Where's Michael when a voice of informed, calm reassurance is needed? Did they let him take vacation again?

https://panel.dreamhost.com/index.cgi?tree=support.msg&

Currently says

Critical Announcement! Please Read!
Sorry about the downtime experienced today. We have network and DNS issues today. If you are writing in because your site is down please hold off if you can. We are currently running an update that will fix all of your domains, but unfortunately the update takes a while to run. If by tomorrow your site is not up please write directly to dhstatus@dreamhost.com rather than posting to normal support. We have a specialized support team ready to assist you.

You can [not necessarily] keep updated at dreamhoststatus.com! (posted 8 hours 35 mins ago)



.......

> I don't think it is as serious as all that. If DNS is down, that cripples everything. The servers are still running, but we cannot reach them.

Um... If we can't get to our domains, how are other people supposed to get to them? I'm not sure why 13 hours of outage is not "as serious as all that."

Dreamhost asks that you email them with specific issues during this outage. Okay, but my dreamhost email is OUT. Use a non-dreamhost account? Nope, they don't have that on record.

And the fact that the frickin Support Status page is down would be laughable if it weren't so infuriating.

This is beginning to feel like the SunRocket meltdown or the ViaTalk Signup fiascos. Anyone get caught in those. I bailed on both, but learned one thing:

"When they start stonewalling your requests for information, it's time to head for the exits."

DreamHost used to be good about keeping customers updated with info... for better or worse, and that is the ONLY reason I stayed with them through past crises like this one.

I now get the feeling that they are over their heads and treading water.

If I'm wrong I wish they'd give some credible statement to the contrary.

well, most of my sites are back up...whew

In reply to:

---

well, most of my sites are back up...whew

---

Good for you, but I'd be a little cautious with the "whew"! I've had clients' sites down, up, down, up, then down again all night long ... some that had *never gone down* initially are just *now* failing, so you might not be out of the woods yet.

I'm not trying to be discouraging (it *is* what it *is*), but I wouldn't advise telling any clients it is "fixed" yet .

--rlparker

Yes, my site is down as well, but MUCH more important is my email....aaarrrggh

Gentlemen, I have discovered Dreamhost's problem, using
http://www.dnsstuff.com/ where you enter your domain to test it.
E.g., http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=jidanni.org
(which you can't click on directly, but need to fill in the forms.):

ERROR: Some of your nameservers listed at the parent nameservers did
not respond. The ones that did not respond are: 208.96.10.221

ERROR: You have one or more lame nameservers. These are nameservers
that do NOT answer authoritatively for your domain. This is bad; for
example, these nameservers may never get updated. The following
nameservers are lame: 66.33.216.216 66.33.206.206

ERROR: One or more of the nameservers listed at the parent servers are
not listed as NS records at your nameservers. The problem NS records
are: ns3.dreamhost.com. ns2.dreamhost.com. ns1.dreamhost.com.

In reply to:

---

I said nothing about money did I. Just stating the time my site has been down.

---

I was just making a joke about it. Usually, any major outage is followed by a cascade of angry posts about losing money. I just thought I get mine in first this time.


-- si-blog --

you can still get to your email while the DNS problems are ongoing.
go to the main web panel
manage domains
find your domain and click the dns link
find the record for webmail
copy the listed IP address to your browser's address bar
login with your email address and password

should give you access to your email.

thanks for the tip. this works...but unfortunately it appears that i have no new mail. i know that i should have new mail (yahoogroups digests, etc.) and they are simply not there.

hopefully they are sitting...somewhere...waiting to be delivered once the DNS stuff is all figured out. :-(

-----------quote---------------
you can still get to your email while the DNS problems are ongoing.
go to the main web panel
manage domains
find your domain and click the dns link
find the record for webmail
copy the listed IP address to your browser's address bar
login with your email address and password

should give you access to your email.
-----------quote---------------

Thats all fine and dandy, but if your email can't even be delivered to your mailbox, why access it.

I've done a lookup against Dreamhosts DNS on a few "MAJOR" domains below. Apparently, only the most important one, dreamhost.com, resolves. I find it ridiculas that ALL 3 DNS servers are hosed. The redundency of this place is just non-existent. And for the comments made earlier that said something like, don't worry about it, it'll be back up in a few hours. Thats just assinine. My perception of DH now is that they perceive all their sites they host as personal websites. If this was the case, I wouldn't be so irritated. But for people that are entrusting them with their livelyhood(business sites),
wow is all I can say. Someone needs to be fired for the design of their infrastructure as to me, the person(s) who designed the network are far from qualified.

-----------quote---------------
> server ns1.dreamhost.com
Default Server: ns1.dreamhost.com
Address: 66.33.206.206

> yahoo.com
Server: ns1.dreamhost.com
Address: 66.33.206.206

*** ns1.dreamhost.com can't find yahoo.com: Server failed
> google.com
Server: ns1.dreamhost.com
Address: 66.33.206.206

*** ns1.dreamhost.com can't find google.com: Server failed
> dreamhost.com
Server: ns1.dreamhost.com
Address: 66.33.206.206

Name: dreamhost.com
Address: 66.33.201.141
-----------quote---------------

__________________
-Lyle

For the first time in something like fourteen hours I can now access my email. And guess what.....

It's all gone. No email in last fourteen hours, and I sent test messages every hour to have a bench mark to use after service was recovered to see how much mail was missing.

And now I know. ALL of it.

What a bunch of jackasses. Fourteen hours of down time, all email lost, the 'emergency site' not working, and no information at all for the suckers.

Good-bye. I've had it.

Thanks,
It worked, but no email since 9pm Thursday night.
I sent a test email from gmail, and it's not there.
Will they all come through eventually? I assume so, since my test email didn't bounce back (yet)

didn't think about that. I checked mine earlier and had email from last night, didn't pay attention if any of it was from today.

I can say, too, my email is down as well as my website. Pretty sucky. I hadn't gotten a single email on my primary email address since last night -- and I normally get at least 10 overnight.

I thought it was really odd this morning when I was told I only had 9 emails (normally it's in the 20s).

Btw, I've always been able to access my email -- I have everything forwarding to GMAIL. The only emails I got since the outage were mailing lists tied to my GMAIL account. All my addresses are tied to my domain (which is down).

In reply to:

---

It worked, but no email since 9pm Thursday night.
I sent a test email from gmail, and it's not there.
Will they all come through eventually? I assume so, since my test email didn't bounce back (yet)

---

Yeah, emails should eventually come through. Usually mail servers are configured to try to deliver your mail for up to 5 days and then it will bounce back if target is not reachable.

I do have to say though that it's really frustrating to see how DH hides from the users, no response, no mention about the progress or any communication whatsoever.
The "it should be up by tomorrow morning sign" doesn't look very professional and isn't informative. I've been paying them for 4 years now and now I think I am gonna look elsewhere.

Some happy news for a change.
My sites are working, after an outage lasting 9 hours and 7 minutes. I just hope things are stable now.

Jack.
$97.00 off all yearly DreamHost signups, use code

My services have been back up for a little while now, and the spam is starting to return to my inbox


-- si-blog --

still waiting for two of my three DH domains to come back up.

Tomorrow is the most important day of the year for my site to be up. I'm going to be mighty irked if it's not up soon...



edit: one of the last two just came up. waiting on the third..

:-/

Edited by oracle3410 on 08/17/07 11:41 AM (server time).

SpamAssassin is your friend

<http://www.unsaturated.com/projects.spamassassinMySQL.html>

[*WARNING* this site is hosted by Dreamhost, so it may or may not be up right now.]

hahahahahahaha
(it *is* up at the time of this post)

My email is finally back up and running. Within the last hour or so, I just started to get normal emails once again.

Spam? nah, Gmail takes care of all that for me. ;)

yea i'm starting to get spam emails like normal again lol

My sites are back online now, too. Thank god!

In reply to:

---

I was just making a joke about it. Usually, any major outage is followed by a cascade of angry posts about losing money. I just thought I get mine in first this time.

---

Well my Adsense was off for that time, may have missed a click or 2... you never know... that could be lost income in the realm of 2cents minimum!!!!