Should I Stay . . . or Should I Go

[cleonard]

I've been with Matrix about 2 weeks now and as many of you know it's been a heck of a two weeks for them (and me). I've got a handful or two of clients plus 3 personal sites and have been looking for an alternative due to poor support on issues by my current provider.

I've played around with the Sphere system and really like it. I've redesigned my reseller site to go along with their system (course I can't publish it yet because of recent issues) and have preped my customers for a change in the near future. Current sites are all W2000 hosted and I've never had major issues, it's just the small things my current provider isn't great at taking care of.

None the less, I'm looking for comments from those of you who've been around for a while. Is this whole thing unusual for Matrix. It appears they're working diligently on the problem, however I've still got a web site that I can't login to and make changes. I've still got a cp that I can't access.

Honestly I'm a little nervous about the change. But I'm also willing to admit that things happen and timing is everything . . . maybe it's just bad timing. My question to you all is if these type of issues we've seen over the past couple of weeks are unusual?

Please share your thoughts

Thanks

Chris

[ramjet]

its more whether you think H-sphere is worth it as a system.
i think Matrix have demonstrated that they do provide extraordinary support in trying to fix problems... but is the H-Sphere system itself trouble free enough (obviously not, but will it soon become stable?)
My suggestion is stay if you have few enough customers to manage and you haven't promised them the earth.
Brad and co are constantly and openly dealing with it, and thats more than most do.
murray.

[somereseller]

The best thing to do would be to search the forums to get an idea of what went wrong in the past 8 months.

I cannot really talk about the windows part since I host exclusively on *nix, but it seems that every two months or so, we're hit by a serious problem.

Why am I still here?
Because we always have some sort of a communication channel, sure it's not as responsive as having your tech in house, but we know that people are aware of our problems and try to do something about it. It's perfectly normal to have problems once in a while (upgrades, addons), but you have to quickly identify and fix them. I had some weird answers from tech support at the beginning (april), but now it seems people know what they talk about

Because the cost of change is higher than the cost of stay and because you cannot test every host, you might end up with a worse one...I had a Vortech competitor asking me for help on a Hsphere upgrade...

Because Hsphere is he best concept for the solution integrators like me (except for the lack of translations) and Vortech now knows the system well.

Because hostnet knows how to manage *nix servers. We have a very up to date php with good addons, it could be better but these things need time for testing.


I have three major complains:
Vortech did one major downgrade in the past (GD). The position they took in this issue is to me, unreal and dangerous.

We need to get emails when problems arise. The forum is not always working properly (sending emails)

EDIT: I am sorry but I had to edit your post as your last little remark is un-called for here.

[admin]

somereseller,

Also GD was not downgraded by us it was done by Psoft with out us even knowing about it. We also fixed this for you once we found a work around.

As for E-Mails I am putting together a system that should help in this area here soon.. But if its a big issue we do try and send out a notice now..

[Risewire]

I have been scouting for a new host for about 4 months before I signed up, I signed up two weeks ago and I have to say I am a bit scared for the future of Vortech/Matrix. I think the growing pains and their reliance on psoft will cause things to get worse before they get better but if they can get through it matrix will be even stronger.

[admin]

I am sure we will get past these problems.. The NT4 and NT5 thing was a big pain in the butt for us all.. I talk with the owner of Psoft every day and once we get every thing worked out as far as the CP and SiteStudio witch I am hopping will be this week. We will be good to go again.

Because of some of the problems with H-Sphere that is why we also launch CPanel to help keep things a little more stable.. We have been using CPanel for about 2 1/2 years now so we know it in and out..

But this is not going to take us away from making H-Sphere very stable as well. I know this system can and will work its self out of all the bugs and I think Psoft is getting very close here soon..

[somereseller]

About GD, yes Psoft went back to 1.62 to be compatible with a counter, but you were not willing to put it back at first, we had to fight hard and had the equivalent of two weeks downtime (Our sites could not work properly during that time). I think the situation was not well managed. GD 2 should have been put back on the server it was installed on and then there was a planned decision to make whether we wanted to keep that or not.

I'm glad a new email system will land soon. The last email was great. But we should get things like that when problems arise, not only when there is a fix for them. We need to communicate with our customers.

About the edited thing, why can't you like many other sites be more open about sponsored link?

[admin]

somereseller,

There was no way for us to upgrade to 2.0 at the time. Psoft said they would not be able support the system if we did and that the counter would 100% be messed up. So in all we never really supported 2.0 or said we didyou just got luck and then we upgraded the system for you.. So your sites could of never worked if someone had not messed up and some how got 2.0 on there..

As for the sponsored link thing.. I never said I was hiding it but its really none of your biz now is it?? Why does that even really matter to you or any one else?? I don't and thats really the bottom line.

[somereseller]

admin,

OK, so if Psoft has threatened you... A host really needs Psoft support to run Hsphere . My sites would have worked, I would have designed them differently...

BTW, how could I have known that GD 2 was not supported? I asked for it with a ticket and got a positive answer and it was there. Ready for use. Every new customer tests the functionalities of a server before trying to build something and if something is missing, he simply asks for an update. So when someone sees in the phpinfo that GD 2 is there, how could he realize that this is a mistake?
We have no way of knowing and this is frightening. Who knows what else we now rely on that is "not supported". (I was not the only one affected)

About the links, maybe I take this too personnaly, but I hate it when things are hidden from us. I love to click on a sponsored link when I need something and I know that this will benefit the poster (and that he was open about it). It's a win/win situation. If nothing is said, I feel cheated. Even more when someone advertises a special deal that in the end anybody could get. Yes, you had the idea, yes you add value to your hosting, so why not say it?

[somereseller]

To be fair.
On other occasions, Matrix did discuss upgrades with us (curl comes to mind), so it's not that they don't know what they are doing

[admin]

somereseller,

Let me see ifyou can understand this.. Its really simple if you think about it..

Demodemo.com ( AKA vito ) is a good buddy of mine. We talk every know and then. The link is and was not really for us to make any money off it.. I could care less about the $$$ from that.. Its more to help us stop getting as many tickets. But we do like to track who can from us to demodemo.com to get there stuff.

Maybe you should think about that before posting like you did in my other post.. I am sure you see my point now. If I did not want you to know about demodemo.com I would not of posted the link like I did. I would of resold it on our site.

Thats all.

[somereseller]

OK, maybe. I went back to see the annoucement and I understand why I had this feeling. Prior to the annoucement, you stated that you were in discussion to get us a good deal and in the end it was just a sponsored link that I could get myself. The price was the same as if I bought it from their site. So I expressed my feeling and got censored. I thought it was a strange reaction and I've wondered ever since if other users were censored in the same way when expressing their views.

I have to say to our viewers that this kind of censorship is not common here (at least for me)

[admin]

I think you may be looking at 2 different things here.. I don't remember saying I could give any deals on the Tutorials. I did make a post about modernbill but not the Tutorials that I remember any way..

If I did please point me to the post as I sure don't see it.. Must be losing it in my old age.. hehe

[cleonard]

Gentlemen,

Can we move on . . . or back, to the original intent of my posted question?

Thanks so much for your comments.

Any other thoughts?

Interesting enough I did go back in the forum and it does appear that there are "more" issues on the Windows side. Is that true or just my perception?

Also, I can't really see a major issue like what I've seen since I signed up. True?

And lastly, it does appear that the H-Sphere system is a large contibutor to the issues - is it that closely integrated?

Chris

[admin]

Windows is Windows what can I say..

Yes windows does seems to have a few more issue our unix side is very stable for the most part.. Windows has had 2 problems in over 9 months that have made for any real down time.

1. NT10 had some issues with in IIS but has been fixed and runs like a champ now..

2. NT4 and NT5 that was all Psofts bad coding on us then our backups failing on NT5 just did not help the matter at all.

Thats about all that really come to mind other then the time to time little windows things that just seems to pop-up now and then..