I recently moved my site to netelligent since I heard so many good things about them.
I basically run a simple LAMP setup, so nothing exotic. So I chose their netelCloud service because of the 100% update guarantee. Turns out it doesn't mean much.
I had some configuration problems at first (it's normal when moving to a new server) so I used their tech support to ask questions. I was surprised to see that most of the time all they did was to open a ticket with cPanel support and they would do the work which took a long time to fix anything. Twice I suggested a solution for them to try and they rejected them but it turned out that I was correct and twice they suggested a solution that was wrong. Half the time, they would say that it would cost 75$ an hour to look into it.
The second week there, my MySQL server goes down and I can't restart it. They tell me that there was some file corruption. Their fix was to disable InnoDB which was causing the problem and told me that they would charge 75$ an hour to look into it. Everything was back up so I said no.
A week or so later, some functions on WHM don't work anymore including the cPanel backup. Again, there was some more file corruption. So they take the virtual machine offline and do a file check. That seemed to fix the problem.
A week or so later, the file corruption problems come back. They suggest to reinstall the virtual machine from scratch. It's was a pain but I thought if it fixes the problem, I'll try it. Again I had the same configuration problems and again they just opened the same support tickets with cPanel. Finally, because it was taking too long I did the research myself and fixed the problem (they suggested to erase the DNS entries and put them back but in reality it was a file permission problem). Not the best tech support… My site had been down almost 24 hours.
A week or so later guess what, the file corruption problems come back even after the new installation. I was on vacation so I told them to do a file system check like the first time. But 45 minutes later the server was still not up so I contacted them asking for updates and they tell me the file corruption was too severe, they'll have to reinstall from scratch. I asked them how long that would take, and they said 12 to 24 hours! I cut my vacation short and rushed home. Fortunately, or because I complained to their sales department, I got a good tech and he put everything back from a backup. Another almost 24 hours down…
I get an email from them apologizing for the frequent problems and that they'll look into it in depth. I do some research to see what could cause such file corruption and everything points to the file system that was used (ext4) and a known linux bug in some versions when in combination with multiple other factors (type of RAID used, etc). I sent them the research I had done and they answered that they had checked and that their hardware was not at fault and that I was the only one with file corruption problems. I am not a sysadmin but I was pretty sure you can't get kernel file corruption by running php scripts. I asked them more details and the only answer they gave me was that they only guarantee their hardware's uptime and they don't guarantee that the virtual machine runs properly, or at all ,and if I wanted them to look into the file corruption problem, they would charge me 75$ an hour.
So I moved my site to another company (a really great one called FullHost based in Victoria BC and get their managed solutions, it's really worth it) since the file corruption problem had started again. When I told netelligent, all they said was that they notified the billing department to shut down my service. That's it, no apology or offers of reinbursment.
Maybe it's just me but I've been running my website for the past 20 years on different servers with two other companies and I have never encountered such serious problems and never have I seen such a level of incompetence and carelessness.
By the way, I had ordered their full backup service at first, which was expensive, but when I asked where I could access those backup files, they say I couldn't, that I'd have to contact them when I wanted a restore but that it was useless anyway because of the file corruption problems and anyway they had forgotten to activate it.
I basically run a simple LAMP setup, so nothing exotic. So I chose their netelCloud service because of the 100% update guarantee. Turns out it doesn't mean much.
I had some configuration problems at first (it's normal when moving to a new server) so I used their tech support to ask questions. I was surprised to see that most of the time all they did was to open a ticket with cPanel support and they would do the work which took a long time to fix anything. Twice I suggested a solution for them to try and they rejected them but it turned out that I was correct and twice they suggested a solution that was wrong. Half the time, they would say that it would cost 75$ an hour to look into it.
The second week there, my MySQL server goes down and I can't restart it. They tell me that there was some file corruption. Their fix was to disable InnoDB which was causing the problem and told me that they would charge 75$ an hour to look into it. Everything was back up so I said no.
A week or so later, some functions on WHM don't work anymore including the cPanel backup. Again, there was some more file corruption. So they take the virtual machine offline and do a file check. That seemed to fix the problem.
A week or so later, the file corruption problems come back. They suggest to reinstall the virtual machine from scratch. It's was a pain but I thought if it fixes the problem, I'll try it. Again I had the same configuration problems and again they just opened the same support tickets with cPanel. Finally, because it was taking too long I did the research myself and fixed the problem (they suggested to erase the DNS entries and put them back but in reality it was a file permission problem). Not the best tech support… My site had been down almost 24 hours.
A week or so later guess what, the file corruption problems come back even after the new installation. I was on vacation so I told them to do a file system check like the first time. But 45 minutes later the server was still not up so I contacted them asking for updates and they tell me the file corruption was too severe, they'll have to reinstall from scratch. I asked them how long that would take, and they said 12 to 24 hours! I cut my vacation short and rushed home. Fortunately, or because I complained to their sales department, I got a good tech and he put everything back from a backup. Another almost 24 hours down…
I get an email from them apologizing for the frequent problems and that they'll look into it in depth. I do some research to see what could cause such file corruption and everything points to the file system that was used (ext4) and a known linux bug in some versions when in combination with multiple other factors (type of RAID used, etc). I sent them the research I had done and they answered that they had checked and that their hardware was not at fault and that I was the only one with file corruption problems. I am not a sysadmin but I was pretty sure you can't get kernel file corruption by running php scripts. I asked them more details and the only answer they gave me was that they only guarantee their hardware's uptime and they don't guarantee that the virtual machine runs properly, or at all ,and if I wanted them to look into the file corruption problem, they would charge me 75$ an hour.
So I moved my site to another company (a really great one called FullHost based in Victoria BC and get their managed solutions, it's really worth it) since the file corruption problem had started again. When I told netelligent, all they said was that they notified the billing department to shut down my service. That's it, no apology or offers of reinbursment.
Maybe it's just me but I've been running my website for the past 20 years on different servers with two other companies and I have never encountered such serious problems and never have I seen such a level of incompetence and carelessness.
By the way, I had ordered their full backup service at first, which was expensive, but when I asked where I could access those backup files, they say I couldn't, that I'd have to contact them when I wanted a restore but that it was useless anyway because of the file corruption problems and anyway they had forgotten to activate it.
