Website Buffs Out there?

[ayamonte]

Sos for posting this here............but just incase anybody knows enough to comment.

We are having our website redesigned/developed, and the developer doing it created a sub-domain of the current site to do the work on. Last Saturday night the whole thing crashed - and so we now have neither the old or new site working, nor any email. He had been working on it up to a couple of hours before it happened.

There was clearly an issue with the server- as the hosting company have installed a new upgraded one for us as the previous one had some missing directories on it...........however they deny liability for the problem. It is an "unmanaged" account they keep telling us.

So somebody has to reinstall/rebuild the sites and get them working again. The website developer (Wordpress) does not want to get involved as doesn't understand the server setup nor the instructions, and the host's won't do it without charging us.

So we have had to go ahead and pay for it to be reinstalled by the host company.
It seems wrong to me as none of this was our fault. And neither side wants to admit liability, nor has to. We are stuck in the middle with 2 sides that refuse to work together.

Its rubbish. Any thoughts anyone?

 

[Blade for Life]

Sos for posting this here............but just incase anybody knows enough to comment.

We are having our website redesigned/developed, and the developer doing it created a sub-domain of the current site to do the work on. Last Saturday night the whole thing crashed - and so we now have neither the old or new site working, nor any email. He had been working on it up to a couple of hours before it happened.

There was clearly an issue with the server- as the hosting company have installed a new upgraded one for us as the previous one had some missing directories on it...........however they deny liability for the problem. It is an "unmanaged" account they keep telling us.

So somebody has to reinstall/rebuild the sites and get them working again. The website developer (Wordpress) does not want to get involved as doesn't understand the server setup nor the instructions, and the host's won't do it without charging us.

So we have had to go ahead and pay for it to be reinstalled by the host company.
It seems wrong to me as none of this was our fault. And neither side wants to admit liability, nor has to. We are stuck in the middle with 2 sides that refuse to work together.

Its rubbish. Any thoughts anyone?

I have had similar issues at work. I think IT people are worse than plumbers for over charging because they know they have you by the preverbials.
I just got them both on a Zoom call and gave them some very straight forward Yorkshire talking, until they had to work together but they did not like it.
To me your issue has to be the responsibility of the company hosting the data. If they changed servers then that sounds like it all went wrong during that transfer.
You could pursue this but it depends what this cost you compared with how long and how much cost to take this further.
I know this is not what you want to hear but sometimes it is cheaper to just take it on the chin and move on.

 

[Bulmer1889]

No idea myself but best guess for help on here to get sorted would be @Grayblade this will flag it up to him best of luck hope you can get it sorted

 

[ayamonte]

I have had similar issues at work. I think IT people are worse than plumbers for over charging because they know they have you by the preverbials.
I just got them both on a Zoom call and gave them some very straight forward Yorkshire talking, until they had to work together but they did not like it.
To me your issue has to be the responsibility of the company hosting the data. If they changed servers then that sounds like it all went wrong during that transfer.
You could pursue this but it depends what this cost you compared with how long and how much cost to take this further.
I know this is not what you want to hear but sometimes it is cheaper to just take it on the chin and move on.

Thanks BFL and Bully - they changed the server after the problem happened, but are managing to deny any responsibility via a mixture of bullshit and jargon I reckon. However I still find the developer's reaction very odd - ie unable to help reinstall the site as doesn't like their interface.

Stuck in the middle shelling out the money is not a great place to be

I

 

[tomytony]

Thanks BFL and Bully - they changed the server after the problem happened, but are managing to deny any responsibility via a mixture of bullshit and jargon I reckon. However I still find the developer's reaction very odd - ie unable to help reinstall the site as doesn't like their interface.

Stuck in the middle shelling out the money is not a great place to be

I

Have you paid the developer much? Is it worth going elsewhere?
Why, exactly, (get him to set it out in layman's terms) doesn't it 'like' their interface? What is his solution to that? Can he make it work? If not then he's of little further use.
Do the server hosts recommend a website developer that makes the best of their system?

 

[seanbeanstattoo]

Interesting. A clear case of the Norwood/ Lundstram conundrum. One dosen't give a crap and the other does but sadly is.
Sack both parties off without paying a red cent and threaten to absolutely plaster Rust Pilot and/or as many like fora with the kind of reviews so scathing the two parties would beg to be allowed to rectify a situation of their doing.
Sorted.

 

[ayamonte]

Have you paid the developer much? Is it worth going elsewhere?
Why, exactly, (get him to set it out in layman's terms) doesn't it 'like' their interface? What is his solution to that? Can he make it work? If not then he's of little further use.
Do the server hosts recommend a website developer that makes the best of their system?

Paid him a deposit TT - approx 40%...............he's young and up to now been very helpful - but I can now see he lacks experience and has overstated his abilities. Sent him an email earlier with my thoughts - obviously upset him but it had to be said. He still thinks he has done nothing wrong - but I feel there are holes in his explanation.

Very annoyingly - I initially approached him about creating a Wix website - as these are much much easier to manage and don't break down - but he pushed me over to Wordpress - and hey presto we have a site that's not working, and will cost hundreds of pounds to put right.

 

[ayamonte]

Interesting. A clear case of the Norwood/ Lundstram conundrum. One dosen't give a crap and the other does but sadly is.
Sack both parties off without paying a red cent and threaten to absolutely plaster Rust Pilot and/or as many like fora with the kind of reviews so scathing the two parties would beg to be allowed to rectify a situation of their doing.
Sorted.

Thanks SBT - are you available for a consultancy role with us?

 

[seanbeanstattoo]

Thanks SBT - are you available for a consultancy role with us?

Most certainly. If I can work from home we keep overhead down.
I could handle negotiations; debt recovery; marketing and PR.

I also bring the experience, networking expertise and address book courtesy of a dear friend from my mid teens who last year sold his web design company to an employee group buyout enabling him to take early retirement and add a large cliff top detached property with spectacular views of Dartmouth Harbour to his large pile just off Mansfield Rd in Nottingham. His decades of knowledge having got into internet based business literally on the ground comes at no extra cost.

I could do 20 hours a month.

Please let me know if this suits.

 

[tomytony]

Paid him a deposit TT - approx 40%...............he's young and up to now been very helpful - but I can now see he lacks experience and has overstated his abilities. Sent him an email earlier with my thoughts - obviously upset him but it had to be said. He still thinks he has done nothing wrong - but I feel there are holes in his explanation.

Very annoyingly - I initially approached him about creating a Wix website - as these are much much easier to manage and don't break down - but he pushed me over to Wordpress - and hey presto we have a site that's not working, and will cost hundreds of pounds to put right.

Exploit those holes, give him a short , time wise, opportunity to sort it to a deadline and then, when it comes to payment time, and after he has handed over fully and, after ensuring he cannot access remotely, negotiate on the outstanding amount.

 

[Grayblade]

Sos for posting this here............but just incase anybody knows enough to comment.

We are having our website redesigned/developed, and the developer doing it created a sub-domain of the current site to do the work on. Last Saturday night the whole thing crashed - and so we now have neither the old or new site working, nor any email. He had been working on it up to a couple of hours before it happened.

There was clearly an issue with the server- as the hosting company have installed a new upgraded one for us as the previous one had some missing directories on it...........however they deny liability for the problem. It is an "unmanaged" account they keep telling us.

So somebody has to reinstall/rebuild the sites and get them working again. The website developer (Wordpress) does not want to get involved as doesn't understand the server setup nor the instructions, and the host's won't do it without charging us.

So we have had to go ahead and pay for it to be reinstalled by the host company.
It seems wrong to me as none of this was our fault. And neither side wants to admit liability, nor has to. We are stuck in the middle with 2 sides that refuse to work together.

Its rubbish. Any thoughts anyone?

Hi Aya, only just seen this, it’s the Mrs’s birthday today so we’ve been trying to pretend things are normal-ish.

I only did a few dozen websites for customers over the years but balked at getting to far into development as I found the support side was too time consuming...but I’m pretty well up on the basics.

From what you’ve said, the problem seems to lie with the developer and my guess is that his inexperience using the Host’s systems has caused the problem and he’s now bottled the job. If you haven’t got a management contract with the hosts, they are right to say that it’s not their problem unless the whole host network went down and somehow scrambled several customer‘s files. If it’s just your website that crashed and lost data it’s obviously down to a 3rd party.. the DV guy.

It seems pretty poor fair to be honest, if you’ve paid money to the DV company you should try to get it back. During any website maintenance work or upgrade, the original website should be backed up in more than one location, even on a local computer or memory stick just in case anything goes wrong. The same goes for a brand new website or maintenance work on the existing, if the worst came to the worst complete copies of the old and new website and any auxiliary files are to hand.


So that none of the new work is lost, I would only transfer the new/ modified website over to your main domain once it has been fully tested and up and running for a few days on the backup domain. Once I’d completed a new/modified website I used to send a link to my customers so they could check it out at their leisure, a bit like a snagging list. Personally I didn’t invoice them until they were 100% happy but I know that could be an issue if the guy’s only just started up.

 

[ayamonte]

Most certainly. If I can work from home we keep overhead down.
I could handle negotiations; debt recovery; marketing and PR.

I also bring the experience, networking expertise and address book courtesy of a dear friend from my mid teens who last year sold his web design company to an employee group buyout enabling him to take early retirement and add a large cliff top detached property with spectacular views of Dartmouth Harbour to his large pile just off Mansfield Rd in Nottingham. His decades of knowledge having got into internet based business literally on the ground comes at no extra cost.

I could do 20 hours a month.

Please let me know if this suits.

Thanks SBT - but can you iron as well?

 

[ayamonte]

Exploit those holes, give him a short , time wise, opportunity to sort it to a deadline and then, when it comes to payment time, and after he has handed over fully and, after ensuring he cannot access remotely, negotiate on the outstanding amount.

thanks TT - good advice

 

[ayamonte]

Hi Aya, only just seen this, it’s the Mrs’s birthday today so we’ve been trying to pretend things are normal-ish.

I only did a few dozen websites for customers over the years but balked at getting to far into development as I found the support side was too time consuming...but I’m pretty well up on the basics.

From what you’ve said, the problem seems to lie with the developer and my guess is that his inexperience using the Host’s systems has caused the problem and he’s now bottled the job. If you haven’t got a management contract with the hosts, they are right to say that it’s not their problem unless the whole host network went down and somehow scrambled several customer‘s files. If it’s just your website that crashed and lost data it’s obviously down to a 3rd party.. the DV guy.

It seems pretty poor fair to be honest, if you’ve paid money to the DV company you should try to get it back. During any website maintenance work or upgrade, the original website should be backed up in more than one location, even on a local computer or memory stick just in case anything goes wrong. The same goes for a brand new website or maintenance work on the existing, if the worst came to the worst complete copies of the old and new website and any auxiliary files are to hand.


So that none of the new work is lost, I would only transfer the new/ modified website over to your main domain once it has been fully tested and up and running for a few days on the backup domain. Once I’d completed a new/modified website I used to send a link to my customers so they could check it out at their leisure, a bit like a snagging list. Personally I didn’t invoice them until they were 100% happy but I know that could be an issue if the guy’s only just started up.

Hi Gray
Thanks for getting back to me - hope you and your missus have had a lovely day.
The developer swears it is nothing to do with him - he last sent me an update on Saturday at 21.00 and the site went down at 23.00 approx. We also had a critical error message about a plug-in he had installed on Friday. Hey ho - he can walk away - he wasn't involved in the creation of the previous (still running) site.

I wonder whether the host's server had become obsolete, and the fact that he had started work on a new site caused the problem?

They have already installed an upgrade, ie Centos 7 v previous Centos 6 - which they said had "reached end of life" - was this our responsibility to know or theirs?

Fortunately I had a backup - taken a couple of weeks ago before this started.

We rumble on - hopefully back up and running tomorrow - bill to follow?!

 

[Grayblade]

Hi Gray
Thanks for getting back to me - hope you and your missus have had a lovely day.
The developer swears it is nothing to do with him - he last sent me an update on Saturday at 21.00 and the site went down at 23.00 approx. We also had a critical error message about a plug-in he had installed on Friday. Hey ho - he can walk away - he wasn't involved in the creation of the previous (still running) site.

I wonder whether the host's server had become obsolete, and the fact that he had started work on a new site caused the problem?

They have already installed an upgrade, ie Centos 7 v previous Centos 6 - which they said had "reached end of life" - was this our responsibility to know or theirs?

Fortunately I had a backup - taken a couple of weeks ago before this started.

We rumble on - hopefully back up and running tomorrow - bill to follow?!

Centos is just Linux’s operating system a bit like Windows so I wouldn’t think that would be an issue Aya. Beyond believe really that he had designed the new site to only run on the Centos 6 platform when it’s been common knowledge it’s on its way out...bit like windows 7 or 8. The host company should have flagged up their plans to upgrade to all their customers though but you’d also think that anybody in website development would be aware of their of their plans unless your host company is pretty obscure??

 

[Grayblade]

I have had similar issues at work. I think IT people are worse than plumbers for over charging because they know they have you by the preverbials.
I just got them both on a Zoom call and gave them some very straight forward Yorkshire talking, until they had to work together but they did not like it.
To me your issue has to be the responsibility of the company hosting the data. If they changed servers then that sounds like it all went wrong during that transfer.
You could pursue this but it depends what this cost you compared with how long and how much cost to take this further.
I know this is not what you want to hear but sometimes it is cheaper to just take it on the chin and move on.

OI! Not all IT bods!

 

[seanbeanstattoo]

Hi Gray
Thanks for getting back to me - hope you and your missus have had a lovely day.
The developer swears it is nothing to do with him - he last sent me an update on Saturday at 21.00 and the site went down at 23.00 approx. We also had a critical error message about a plug-in he had installed on Friday. Hey ho - he can walk away - he wasn't involved in the creation of the previous (still running) site.

I wonder whether the host's server had become obsolete, and the fact that he had started work on a new site caused the problem?

They have already installed an upgrade, ie Centos 7 v previous Centos 6 - which they said had "reached end of life" - was this our responsibility to know or theirs?

Fortunately I had a backup - taken a couple of weeks ago before this started.

We rumble on - hopefully back up and running tomorrow - bill to follow?!

Sounds like a job for Big Vern Aya. Just tip me the wink and we'll go round with the Dinsdale brothers and take him for a scrape round the block.
Amazing how that makes em see sense. Cushty schtum.

 

[ayamonte]

Centos is just Linux’s operating system a bit like Windows so I wouldn’t think that would be an issue Aya. Beyond believe really that he had designed the new site to only run on the Centos 6 platform when it’s been common knowledge it’s on its way out...bit like windows 7 or 8. The host company should have flagged up their plans to upgrade to all their customers though but you’d also think that anybody in website development would be aware of their of their plans unless your host company is pretty obscure??

Our host company is pretty obscure it turns out - I suppose the developer was unaware of the Centos issue as I set up the sub-domain for him to work on. They hadn't told us that it was becoming obsolete.

Anyway - 5 days later we are still offline with no email. Its beyond me why this should happen. Our website is basically a brochure with very little else on it - I had suggested Wix as we have had similar issues in the past with "problems with Wordpress"...............its like somebody invented it to create problems.

At least its put my "Blades stress" in perspective

 

[Grayblade]

Our host company is pretty obscure it turns out - I suppose the developer was unaware of the Centos issue as I set up the sub-domain for him to work on. They hadn't told us that it was becoming obsolete.

Anyway - 5 days later we are still offline with no email. Its beyond me why this should happen. Our website is basically a brochure with very little else on it - I had suggested Wix as we have had similar issues in the past with "problems with Wordpress"...............its like somebody invented it to create problems.

At least its put my "Blades stress" in perspective

Hope you get it sorted Aya. I’ve got a bit of sympathy with the developer then but I still think they’re responsible ultimately. To be honest if that’s all your website is, you could probably use one of the mainstream hosts and they will do you a step by step self create website up and running in an hour. Zero IT or web design knowledge required. In my opinion you only really need to pay a professional designer if you’ve got a multi page site where that takes online payments and uses multimedia etc. Basic websites like yours would probably only cost you £50-60 a year with no set up cost.

 

[seanbeanstattoo]

Our host company is pretty obscure it turns out - I suppose the developer was unaware of the Centos issue as I set up the sub-domain for him to work on. They hadn't told us that it was becoming obsolete.

Anyway - 5 days later we are still offline with no email. Its beyond me why this should happen. Our website is basically a brochure with very little else on it - I had suggested Wix as we have had similar issues in the past with "problems with Wordpress"...............its like somebody invented it to create problems.

At least its put my "Blades stress" in perspective

My ironing consists of laying items flat under the mattress. Sorted.