Reminder: DreamHost central database maintenance
Just a reminder that the scheduled maintenance of the DreamHost central database will begin in approximately 35 minutes, at Tue Mar 6 22:00:00 PST 2007. This will take the DreamHost Webpanel offline for up to 4 hours.
02:25 PST, 10:25 GMT - The Database Maintenance is progressing. There are a couple new indexes taking longer then expected to create and the current ETA for completion is 03:30 PST. Apologies to the Europeans currently at work!
02:45 PST, 10:45 GMT - Webmail is back online.
03:20 PST, 11:20 GMT - Starting to bring central web services back online.
03:30 PST, 11:30 GMT - All services online.
18:23 PST - Planned “Online” maintenance that has been ongoing since the offline maintenance last night caused a table lock that made the panel unresponsive. Will be back online shortly. Sorry for the interruption.
.
March 6th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
one after another….
March 6th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
again
March 6th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
damn you dreeeeamhost for upgrading a central database server! I get so angry when you plan things out far in advance, advise me and then do as you said you would right when you said you would!
March 6th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Maybe you mean all day. Best to update if it goes past the 4 hours !
March 6th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
there once was a host named dream
whose work went sight unseen
till they upgrade my data
queda’s meta from beta
to make my projects seem
March 6th, 2007 at 11:03 pm
Great my site goes down when dreamhost decide to update their panel…
March 6th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Not amused, why damnit. Statistics hit me again! I wanted to create a mail alias cause I was about to buy from some spam source online shop (symantec hehe)
March 6th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Did you failed to mention this’d also make it impossible to reach the webmail?
March 6th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
I have noted the same thing … I can only get into 1 of my 6 or so domains, duno why……but yeah, no email makes Davey sad. :((
March 6th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
It would be very nice to access my email.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
Yup.. webmail is also down.. not the first time this week
March 6th, 2007 at 11:49 pm
Yep mail is down….
again
March 6th, 2007 at 11:51 pm
Email of DreamHost, thats, webmail.mydomain.com is down once again…
come on…
its really unxpected to have ur webmail going down without worning
March 7th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Don’t you quys have some form for backup server, I cannot check my mail now, and I’m realy pissed!
I hope the problem will be sould sooon!
Downtimedreamhost.com
March 7th, 2007 at 12:10 am
I get a weird database error when trying to access my email.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Dammit! Why can I not log into the panel so I can stare at my 31 domains and refresh the bandwidth usage page!!!!! WHY WHY WHY!!!!!
Love the service, another year here I come…
March 7th, 2007 at 12:18 am
“This will take the DreamHost Webpanel offline for upto 4 hours.”
I agree with earlier comments that you could have also mentioned “NO EMAIL AT THIS TIME TOO!!! ” :o(
March 7th, 2007 at 12:20 am
DAMNIT, i go to dreamhost because they were good and smooth. i left the dutch hists for dreamhost and now i can do nothing, no sending mail, how must i work and make money to u guys.
non greetz from the Netherlands
a dutch phrase says… stelletje klootzakken
March 7th, 2007 at 12:22 am
If you really need to check email, just use Pine. I’m online with my email right now.
Login to any of your shell accounts. Type “pine” and then when it asks for user name, type your full email address (e.g. “me@mydomain.com”) and your password.
Or download an IMAP client and IMAP into your mail.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Ahh, didn’t realize this was going to take down webmail. It’s not a terribly big deal but I’d have liked to have known so I could have warned my users ahead of time.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:36 am
Webmail down again!
And the page says “your websites will not be affected”. What a joke!
Oh and http://www.dreamhost.com/contact.cgi is down as well. How thoughtful.
Every other day there is a webmail outage. Why do you always have to play with the configuration? Why can’t webmail be running stable?
Webmail currently says
Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Lost connection to MySQL server during query in /usr/local/squirrelmail-1.4.9a/plugins/dreamhost_virtualhosts/setup.php on line 189
1044: Access denied for user ’squirrelmail’@'192.168.10.0/255.255.255.0′ to database ‘dreamhost’
March 7th, 2007 at 12:44 am
@elke
“And the page says “your websites will not be affected”. What a joke!”
I think you have webmail confused with your website…
March 7th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Well, if it just works with an imap client, I’ll install an imp on my own domain and have it access dreamhost mail server so that I can workaround this frigging shortage.
I’ll give http://www.horde.org/imp a try
March 7th, 2007 at 12:52 am
Seriously, stfu.
It’s a planned outage, and webmail is down because it’s using their databases, which are being moved around.
Stop bitching and get a real email client.
@Elke: webmail.yourdomain.com is actually webmail.dreamhost.com, it’s NOT your site, it’s theirs.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:53 am
@joe:
I have no influence on the webmail installation. If it’s broken, it means dreamhost messed up the configuration again.
And yes, I consider webmail an essential part of the website. Actually, I use it more than the actual webpage.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:07 am
It would be nice if they sent us emails rather than us having to come and look here instead.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:09 am
@elke
the configuration is not messed up, they are upgrading a database server and so the database is unavailable. and when dreamhost talks about your website they are not talking about webmail. you will need to update your definition of the word website to not include webmail if you want to be able to understand the communications coming to you.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:09 am
Serious problem over all email web panel!!!
March 7th, 2007 at 1:09 am
Just get the webmail up and running. Some of my guys are outstation and they use the webmail to check their mails. BTW here in Singapore is 4pm in the afternoon and things are not moving but customers keep calling.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:10 am
Not sure about you guys, but I use Outlook to check my dreamhost webmail, and its working on my end. You all should really find an alternative to checking the email via the website.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:12 am
OK, I need to set up a db to install horde…
As according to the original announcement, it shoul ddbe over in less than an hour, I’ll just wait and see.
@Gareth: You’ve got an RSS feed for Dreamhost annoucements.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:14 am
@Abdul: Some of We (€trash) are currently at work which mean we can only rely on an https connexion to get to our private mails.
I wish it had been more convenient, like for exemple at a moment when both Americans and €ans are not working…18/1900 PST should have done it ok
March 7th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Webpanel says email will not be affected! Mine is down again.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:37 am
it would just have been nice if they would also mention that webmail is going down when this central database is down. Just adding that in their message would have made a lot of these comments not be posted at all. It is annoying to have no webmail but what is more annoying, to me, is that Dreamhost seems to think that because 3 am eastcoast does not affect people in that timeframe that it does not include custormers in other timezones either. These are the hours when European businesses start up, when people go to work (and maybe want to check their webmail first) etc.
anyway. their have indeed been a lot of timeouts and such with webmail the last few weeks… lets hope this update will solve that and if not, maybe thén we can complain more
March 7th, 2007 at 1:49 am
@Sergej:
Another Dutch phrase: Zeik niet zo, eikel.
As I’m not afraid to translate, he said: Bunch of assholes. I replied: Stop whining, d*ck head. (Yeah, we’re a gentle people, we are.)
March 7th, 2007 at 1:55 am
Wel veel hollanders hier..
March 7th, 2007 at 1:59 am
And I used to think the Dutch were quiet and once their caravans were parked and the highways left…
March 7th, 2007 at 2:00 am
Another Dutch phrase: Je kan niet voor een dubbeltje op de eerste rang zitten
March 7th, 2007 at 2:00 am
N’ESTIC FINS ELS COLLONS
Please we aware that when in the Pacific Time it’s night, in europe it’s the morning and we are working so this shutdown has come right in the begining of the working time.
It’s that much dificult to have a server for the states an another for europe? and turn down them for fixing rutines acording with the working times of each area?
March 7th, 2007 at 2:06 am
Same Here In Egypt, We Are Working At This Time And Our Mailing Accounts Are Down, Please Put This In Mind That Lots Of Your Clients Are From (ALL OVER THE WORLD)
we really appreciate your effort for making the services you provide the best
March 7th, 2007 at 2:07 am
xavier: It’s always morning somewhere. They probably have far fewer European customers than North American customers, and since this doesn’t impact the function of a site from the user-perspective, this inconveniences the fewest number of users possible. Sadly, that means someone WILL be put out, but better a small number than a large number. Even eBay, Youtube, and Yahoo services have downtime sometimes and schedule it for minimal impact, but in the end, someone will be affected, it’s all about managing numbers.
March 7th, 2007 at 2:10 am
it’s always us europeans that get the short end of the stick when it comes to websites updating.
i have to hand in a project for school in 2 hours but i can’t access it because the webmail is down. i just hope my teacher will understand..:(
March 7th, 2007 at 2:18 am
While it’s not much consolation now that everything is down, this may be useful for future reference. You can install a webmail package on your own website (such as Roundcube, Horde etc.) that can still access your mail via imap when the dreamhost webmail is down. There are instructions on how to do this on the Dreamhost wiki - not sure if that’s down now
March 7th, 2007 at 2:22 am
Once again. Seriously, everything was fine, then you have to update this shit again!?! It was fine! thank you, now I can’t access my email from work, which is a pain in the ass. BTW i don’t use pine or outlook because this is a work computer, and not my own.
March 7th, 2007 at 2:38 am
@Darkchaos: You can use pine from a shell, using SSH and the email will not be left on your computer.
Login via ssh and type “pine” as Jimmy said.
SSH information: http://wiki.dreamhost.com/index.php/SSH
Or use POP+Telnet ( or nc on unix machines ): http://www.yuki-onna.co.uk/email/pop.html
March 7th, 2007 at 2:39 am
Just as I was trying to access the panel.. a thing I do rarely.
I’d be glad to pay double for a reliable service. Even if I don’t have a business, my time is still very precious and I can’t depend on all those “system updates”.. which always seem to take a lot more time than announced.
If you can’t provide reliability, please give us a hint on a good reliable service. So much for being a customer for 10 years (or so). I feel like I’m stuck..
March 7th, 2007 at 2:40 am
Can _someone_ please put a clock in the ‘dreamhost title’ showing what the current PST time is? some of us work off GMT and still find it difficult to take away five hours from the current time…
March 7th, 2007 at 2:40 am
Apologies to the Europeans currently at work!
accepted, carry on////
March 7th, 2007 at 2:42 am
@Tim: http://time.gov/timezone.cgi?Pacific/d/-8/
March 7th, 2007 at 2:42 am
I need zip_open function suport in my site… how i can get it?
March 7th, 2007 at 2:43 am
@Jackson: Contact Support when the panel comes back up, this is not Technical Support.
March 7th, 2007 at 2:43 am
Working now so you can all be quiet!! :o)
March 7th, 2007 at 2:45 am
happy to say my webmail is back up. Tx Dreamhost
and people, let’s keep the obscenities (Dutch or other) limited (actually, let’s just not use them at all).
@foobar: using pop+telnet is not an option if you have 30 messages or so to sift through; it’s not a very nice interface (although i have used it way too often); pine is ok; elm is better but I am a spoiled nerd and prefer a more graphical interface; just like I don’t make archie or gopher pages anymore…
March 7th, 2007 at 2:58 am
All working fine in Barcelona
Apologies accepted
N’ESTIC FINS ELS COLLONS
That’s not an obscenity but an exclamation/complain.
Greg, I know thaty there is always a morning somewhere but there are only two shifts of 12 ours. So If you have a server for Europe-Africa- Middle-East an another one for Asia-America you can carry your operations afecting less people. There will be always people more afected then the others what the impact of a shutdown will be reduced.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:08 am
Lots of people moaning but i think you should all suck it up quite moaning!! I think DH is excellent and cheap, go to rackspace and pay 10 times more or get your own server in your bedrooms if you don’t like it!!
March 7th, 2007 at 3:09 am
@hyde: POP+Telnet is just down right fun! But sucks when you have more than about
12 messages, or embedded/attached anything in the messages. I
March 7th, 2007 at 3:10 am
@hyde: POP+Telnet is just down right fun! But sucks when you have more than about
12 messages, or embedded/attached anything in the messages. I <3 pine, elm rocks too,
but I felt people wouldn’t want to be compiling it to check their email during this OMFG
NO EMAIL I DIE stage ( It’s not compiled on my server, don’t know about others ).
March 7th, 2007 at 3:17 am
Webmail Working
March 7th, 2007 at 3:52 am
http://www.chimi.es, http://www.malaparcado.com and my other webs don’t work since (7 de marzo de 2007 09:17:05 GMT+01:00)
Are on schweppes machine.
March 7th, 2007 at 4:04 am
my website http://alexbrie.net has been down since 22PST and still is now 04PST. The traceroute command shows some problems over at dreamhost.com.
16 ge1-l3.dreamhost.com (4.78.192.66) 273.414 ms 184.712 ms 298.355 ms
17 * * *
18 * * *
March 7th, 2007 at 5:14 am
WOW! You stated GMT times - thank you!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally a time specification that I can use.
March 7th, 2007 at 5:51 am
I don’t know what’s wrong with these incompetent knobs, but I’ve been down for about 12 hours now.
Any suggestions for other hosts with similar features?
March 7th, 2007 at 6:10 am
again >/
March 7th, 2007 at 6:10 am
What a lame host, They have no backup plans when the should update things!
Fitte firma! jævla dirtt!
You guys sucks like hell! I calculated the uptime this year, and I came to about 80 % uptime!
Theres a reason why the don’t say anything about the uptime garantie!
Fuck dreamhost, choose Go daddy!
March 7th, 2007 at 6:25 am
In the past six months, for one reason or another, (there is always a ‘good’ one coming from dreamhost) the service has been on and off continuesly, I mean almost every day, it has become a painful lottery whether your site is up or down. The scheduled time for recovery never applies and problems continue well after into the next ‘unforseen’ downtime period adding confusion to frustration.
What would you say over six months your uptime has been: - 90% 75%, 50%? . Hum!!! 75% seems to be a conservative estimate.
March 7th, 2007 at 6:29 am
Since January 1st, when I signed on, 98.93%. Not quite the 99.9% that you hope for, but it’ll get there if there are no more power-related issues at that datacenter.
GoDaddy? I’ve been there, done that. You think your database-driven sites runs low here (they don’t of course), wait till you see what goes on there.
Peace,
Gene
March 7th, 2007 at 8:19 am
@Henrik Lied: Okay… have fun with Go Daddy and the lack of control they give you.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:15 am
@stimpy ik dacht dat de derde klas was afgeschaft in 1800-nogwat
Voor een dubbeltje op de 300ste rang misschien?
Cheap hosting and poor service are synonyms?
Another Dutch phrase:
Hete lucht verkopen… which roughly translates to selling hot air!
What good are all the gigabytes and massive bandwidth, if whether your site is up has to do with luck?
March 7th, 2007 at 10:14 am
@Croykee - this outage had nothing to do with luck. It was a PLANNED outage that was announced A WEEK AGO.
As I’ve mentioned in other comments, no one should be surprised about the level of uptime. I can’t find any trace of an uptime guarantee in the TOS that was in effect when I signed up. I made a conscious and studied decision to take the risk that service might not be as good in exchange for a lot of bandwidth and disk space at a cheap price. If I decide that the risk is greater than I want to bear, then I’ll leave for a less risky (which will probably equal more expensive) host.
Here’s a Latin phrase: “Caveat emptor” - let the buyer beware.
Cheap hosting = the RISK of poor performance. Signing up with a host that does not guarantee uptime is a risk that you should have assessed when you signed up. If the uptime is not acceptable, or the service is worse than you expected, then leave.
March 7th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Glad this was at night and none of my clients noticed it. It has been a difficult week, but my pages had’n had any problem.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
I LIKE THE WAY YOUR EMO C.E.O. WRITES A CHEEKY F*KING ARTICLE ABOUT OVERSELLING WEB HOSTING WHILE YOU BASTARDS HAPPILY OVERSELL YOURSELVES THE F*K OUT. NOT ONLY ARE YOU MAKING ME LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT TO THE WORLD, BUT YOU’RE MAKING ME LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT TO ALL THE CLIENTS I’VE RECOMMENDED TO YOUR CHEAP SERVICES. F*K YOU GUYS, SERIOUSLY. GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER.
March 7th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
@Nick Kaye -
First, STOP YELLING!. Second, if you promise more to your “clients” than the hosting company promises to you, then you ARE an idiot. If you have made representations to your clients that are not true, then you deserve to look like an idiot to the world. If your clients have signed up for DH and they haven’t read (or you haven’t provided to them, if you are reselling) the TOS, then they are idiots.
Here’s the relevant paragraph, directly from the current TOS:
“Customer expressly agrees that use of DreamHost Web Hosting’s Server is at Customer’s sole risk. Neither DreamHost Web Hosting, its employees, affiliates, agents, third party information providers, merchants licensers or the like, warrant that DreamHost Web Hosting’s Server service will not be interrupted or error free; nor do they make any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from the use of the Server service or as to the accuracy, reliability or content of any information service or merchandise contained in or provided through the DreamHost Web Hosting Server service, unless otherwise expressly stated in this contract. ”
You chose to buy the service despite this statement. Stop whining.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Wow. Just.. wow. It takes so long to get a good rep, yet so quickly it turns to custard. A couple of outages is understandable - sh*t happens, but day after day after day after day after day after day..? Yes this one was planned, but it now says resolved, yet it’s taking forever to log into webmail, and my site is slow as hell to load too!
And before some fanatical anally-fixated DH defender starts going on about 99.9% uptime, yes, it’s cheap hosting and I don’t expect 99.9% guaranteed uptime, but for ANY paid hosting I do expect at least a reasonable level of uptime - a level far above what it has been here for the last month, hell, I’d expect a better level of uptime from a free host than what we’ve been experiencing here lately.
Sorry to have to say it, but DH, please sort this sh*t out - get some sort of functional contingency plan, thin out the users per server a little, and make the deadline yesterday. Having a separate server for DB ain’t the best either - if one goes down, the other server being up is useless if the site is DB driven, so effectively you lose two servers for as a result of one falling over. If I were an alternative provider, I’d be spamming all over these comments offering a transfer package of some sort…
March 7th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
@ brasscrest : stfu you idiot, I’ve seen you rant the same sh*t over and over for the last few weeks. You’re not doing anyone - least of all DH - any favors by patronizing dissatisfied users, all you’re doing is making sure they leave rather than stay. NOBODY can reasonably expect completely error-free uninterrupted service no matter how much they pay, however the point is there is a reasonable level of service that is expected for paid service, even if it isn’t specifically stated, even on cheap hosting plans, so take your bullshit and peddle it elsewhere and stop escalating the issue by patronizing those who have a valid complaint - if it was just one outage I would agree with you, but this has been going on for days and is not acceptable, even for cheap hosting. All you’ve done is piss me and others off, and your asshole attitude will likely make the difference between me staying or moving. If you support DH, then do them a favor and stfu.
March 7th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
@danger - I understand that some people have issues with the amount of recent downtime, although most of them are wildly wrong about how much there has actually been. I was responding to the specific complaint that someone’s reputation had been hurt because they apparently promised more to a client than they had control over.
I fail to understand how stating the facts is in any way “escalating” the issue, or why you should be “pissed off” because I quoted the TOS. I was responding to a specific complaint, not to anything else.
I don’t “support” DH, nor do I not “support” them. I read the comments here because I am genuinely concerned about the current issues. You are entitled to your expectations of uptime, but that’s all they are. My expectations are evidently more realistic than yours, because I haven’t been disappointed in the service yet.
I haven’t had days of downtime on any of my services - in fact, the only real downtime I’ve had in the last six months was during the recent power issue. About six and a half hours. Not unreasonable for the maintenance that was done.
March 7th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Sometimes I am disgusted to call you ‘people’ fellow customers.
Those of you complaining about this so-called ‘outage’ - it was a PLANNED OUTAGE of ONLY the centralized services - webmail, panel, wiki, blog, etc. I donno about any of you, but my email didn’t go down - of course, I use Evolution on my Fedora box to grab mail. I was awake, and I could have done some work with the panel, but it wasn’t urgent.
There is an RSS feed to inform you of planned and unplanned outages. They’ve made it pretty clear that’s that only way they’re going to contact their userbase. I get their articles in my email - that’s just my way of setting up RSS. So you really can’t be upset that they’ve provided a place where they post all outages, and they’ve told us all about it several times, AND it’s in the panel! Can’t get much easier, right?
The power outage in their building? They couldn’t control that! (Either outage!) This time, they completed it 3 HOURS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE! Not too bad, I would say; they only took 25% of the time allocated to that project.
I, for one, have faith that Dreamhost will return to former stability (that is to say, pre-Summer 2006). I have much less faith in the people who post on the blog regularly. Don’t you people have jobs? Y’know, some place where you get paid to be productive? Most places don’t go under if one employee can’t access their email. Ever heard of Sneakernet(tm)?
March 7th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
and to add to that if you people do have jobs we hope they are watching you and what you spend your time doing
March 7th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
AMAZINGLY the server I’m on is not just working for a change, but it’s actually running on speed. Is there anything special going on in the US today so that people don’t have time to go online or did DH actually do something to the server. Cool!
March 7th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
support (at) dreamhost (dot) com doesn’t go anywhere, and I can’t submit a support issue without getting into the panel. So when the Panel is down, what am I to do?
March 7th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
MasterBlaster:
The blog entry has been updated to reflect the outage. Nobody can get to the Panel.
“18:23 PST - Planned “Online” maintenance that has been ongoing since the offline maintenance last night caused a table lock that made the panel unresponsive. Will be back online shortly. Sorry for the interruption.”
March 7th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Even though https://panel.dreamhost.com is down, https://panel6.dreamhost.com/ appears to be working.
March 7th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
working! Yahoo!
March 7th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
Mmmm. i wonder what “online shortly” means.
:/
March 7th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
panel3.dreamhost.com is working too
March 8th, 2007 at 1:30 am
I am going to have to agree with Matt Van Dusen. Some of you are taking this waaaay too harshly. Of course, I am displeased with all the downtime recently, but I also have faith in DreamHost’s ability to restore uptime. This downtime has been some of the first I have had in two years: I find DreamHost extremely reliable. It’s 2:22am right now where I am, but I’m sure my server will be back up by the time I wake up again.
I don’t use my websites for work purposes, only personal. Thus, I understand it must be hard to work if you are using the server for work related things. I just hope people can be patient and give it a couple hours: you won’t die without your site(s) and webmail.
Every server has some downtime. It’s to be expected. You shouldn’t expect 100% uptime with any server. Updates have to me made, servers have to be moved. It’s just life on the web. Plus, as brasscrest said, we all signed up for this service and SUPPOSEDLY read the TOS. If you truly read it and had such a problem with downtime, I don’t think you would have signed up in the first place.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Great job done! Dreamhost is the best hosting you can find!