Network Problems
Posted (June 4th, 2008 at 3:05 pm PST) by briansWe are experiencing a major network outage at the moment. This will affect your ability to access your site, email, etc. Our admin team is fully aware and working to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we do not have more details while the admins get to the bottom of this. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please check back here for updates as this issue progresses.
Update - June 4, 2008 @ 3:22 PM PST: It would appear that someone in one of our data centers wrongfully turned off one of our circuit breakers. This caused a bunch of central machines to shut down as well as one of our network distribution switches. Once this was noticed, our admin team sprung into action to take care of this. Our servers (and most of your sites) should be coming back online now and we’ll update this post when things have leveled back out. -jasonc.
Update - June 4, 2008 @ 3:50 PM PST: One last update before the “all clear”. The major delay in getting all our services back up (web panel, webmail, etc.) is due to the fact that our central database is recovering from the outage. Once it does so tho, we should be able to safely mark this issue as “resolved”. -jasonc.
Update - June 4, 2008 @ 5:34 PM PST: And we’re back! The database should be plugging along and the web control panel, webmail, WebFTP and all Easy One-Click Installs should be running again. If you continue to have issues, please contact Technical Support and we’ll be glad to sort things out for you. -jasonc.
75 Responses to “Network Problems”
Again? Come on!
Two major network outages in two days?
Not very comforting, to be polite.
Doesn’t seem like my site’s down, but the panel is. Hopefully this means they are already making progress and I’m not just lucky.
My sites note down but going very slow…
Our site seems in good shape but no emails have been received in the last hour & half.
The hamsters got tired… or maybe they just stop to polish their wheel =)… I’m sure they’re working on it…
Just switched our company to dreamhost less than a week ago and it’s already actively disrupting our business. VERY FRUSTRATING.
Our site was down for a min and then back up. The e-mail has been down for a while. It can connect to mySQL is the error I’m seeing, but with out the cpanel working, I have no way to report it.
Justin, all I can say is sorry and get use to it. There’s constant problems 
Most of the time they are good about fixing it but there has been times were the problems have remained for a week or more.
Arrrrgh. I love you guys, I really do, but email has to be “five-nines” available. I think I saw something in the latest newsletter about dreamhost assisting us to move our domain MX to google gmail for mail hosting… I might just try that.
Now where is that newsletter? Ahh… IN MY MAIL which I can’t get to!
omg hire some people that know wtf there doing please…
Great. Just what we need.
This downtime better not effect your mental state for the basketball game tonight, I want my $1,000,000 hosting credit!
I second that tacitus! I would be highly disappointed if the million dollar game was cancelled. We have a written contract josh! We already bribed the other team to take a fall!
heh, yeah, turns out free web hosting is a good bribe for some teams, and $1,000,000 can buy a lot of bribes… its like a uber promo code!
Hallo. My e-mail’s down and I’m waiting for some time sensitive documents…
And I thought I was the only one who mistakenly shut off circuit breakers. :0)
We apologise for the fault in the subtitles Circuit Breakers. Those responsible have been sacked.
I can only say that I’m a little disappointed. I switched to Dreamhost just a few days ago from a “mom and pop” hosting company. I liked what I read Dreamhost (green hosting, bells and whistles, etc.) but I’m second guessing my decision. I’m glad that I’m still in the 90-day money back guarantee. I was with my old host for almost two years. My personal and business sites never went down. How can someone mistakenly shutdown the power?
Is not afecting my sites already but i am with all those who are having problems now!. Good look.
Sadly the reliability is not too good at dreamhost. More sadly, you should get used to this asap if you want to preserve your mental sanity. I find it relaxing to think that at least it is damn cheap.
Todd: It wasn’t a DreamHost employee who did this — but trust me when I say that we will be having some words with the data center about this.
This is kinda weak..
In order to increase reliability, I would like to request my website be removed from the circuit breaker and wired directly into the main power grid. That way problems like this can be averted in the future!
I think Kallahar has an excellent idea 
It’s a great idea until something goes wrong and the circuit needs to be broken.
Well if you could find a way to get 1.21 gigawatts of power, everything would be ok
The hamsters went on strike because they would use 1,000,000 bucks for bribing instead of cheese… and better wheel facilities… =)
Just replace the breaker/fuse with a foil gum wrapper, as would MacGuyver (as proven effective by Mythbusters).
Hmm My first day with Dreamhost…not cool.. This is exactly why I left sewage (servage)…too many monkeys touching the circuit breakers .-)
Hey I don’t care what the hampsters (sic) do as long as they win tonight, otherwise I am missing out on $999,900 in hosting credit tonight.
my tities are itching, and i cant get my web panel open.
Sites are up but the one touch Zen Photo Gallery is down (Lost connection to MySQL server). Just when I fired off an email to a potential client, boasting to check out my portfolio online! Dreamhost has been very reliable for the past year and this disruption is unfortunate but seems to be rare.
Seriously, baboons that throw shit on a computer can keep an uptime longer than you retards…
Sometimes my 17 month old daughter turns the plug off on my circuit breaker on my computer. She wants to know if you are hiring? Always the visionary.
Seriously, someone switched off the circuit breaker??
… I’m so baffled I can’t even make a joke about how stupid that is … labels? security on the panel?
Wow … what kind of data center is this anyway?
… just … wow.
I love how those with extreme and untreated Personality Disorders flock to these notices. Kinda makes you want to smack the guys who invented RSS.
Almost an hour since the last update …
On an unrelated note … just took me about 10 attempts to post a comment, each time it said there was an error and I should allow cookies and javascript …. I’m using a fresh download of Firefox.
Anyone else having this issue?
Oh wait, if you’re having the issue I guess you can comment … ha!
In that case, blink twice if yes.
PS. Once again, took quite a few attempts … weird.
Instead of wasting space complaining, I will shamelessly plug my DH websites which may keep boredom at arms length for a few minutes.
1) http://www.kevinwolkober.com (I just set up Google e-mail with DH, and now things are weird, but should be fixed once the panel is up
2) http://www.newyorkwebguy.com (blog)
And now two YouTube clips I enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_nw_mQF6RE&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKO6G0pC0AM
That is all.
So, it turns out I can FTP into my websites just fine. I can see all of the files, and everything looks absolutely wonderful, but ONE of my websites I am completely unable to access via HTTP…
I get a lovely little 404 error with it. All files are there, just no love with HTTP.
So how does this happen, I’m confused? I understand that a rogue DC employee turned off the wrong circuit breaker, but does the DC seriously not have any backup generators? Every DC I have been in (even ones owned by 50 employee companies) have had at least 2 redundant systems, which would give enough time to reset the breakers without having downtime.
I’m confused - are there no sources of backup power on the rack-side of the circuit breaker?
My sites appear to be fine, but I can’t get to my webpanel at the moment.
Also having the same problem as in comment #37.
No access to webmail for the last few hours and starting to panic a bit. I have a flight confirm in there that I need asap.
Please magic hamsters, run, run, run!
i need access to mySql.. i dont have access to my web panel. WTF IS THIS.
what kind of company are you running here? every time im down i can never email support because that seems to be down to. i need my website up to MAKE MONEY. think about that. cant wait till i switch to media template
if i was owner of this company i would’ve fired that stupid person up who certainly by mistake turned the freakin circuit breaker off, that nerd and sleepy employ had drink before he was getting into data center? he just tried playing with alot of people’s money.
Welcome! My name is Sim and I will be your mentor for CB 101 - Circuit Breakers and the History of Patience.
The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the Process through a series of discussions and assignments that leads through invention and drafting and revising of waiting. In addition, this course prepares you to examine and to engage in patience. This course culminates in a portfolio presentation that charts your Process of pressing the refresh button on this discussion thousands of times until your webmail and website are back to normal.
I really look forward to working with you over the next few hours, so please feel free to contact me for any help I may be in the course.
Regards,
Sim B
Start Date: 7/4/08
End Date: Unknown
PS - Please complete the pre-course survey on your Course Page.
What is the ETA to fix a circuit breaker and reboot the machines ?
Temporarily Unavailable
The web panel is temporarily unavailable while we perform maintenance on our database.
[Sources: dreamhost]
I was all ready to tag it [citation needed] but DH already put a source. 
Heh.. panel.dreamhost.com gives me this…
Software error:
Can’t call method “disconnect” on unblessed reference at /usr/local/lib/site_perl/Ndn/Common/Db.pm line 187.
For help, please send mail to the webmaster (support@dreamhost.com), giving this error message and the time and date of the error.
YAY! Panel is back up!!!
OH MY GOD! I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS CRAP! I PAY $21,3334,666,77,000.99 A MONTHS FOR THIS???? I’M TAKING MY BUSINESS ELSEWHERE! HOW COULD THE POWER GO OUT? WHO IS YOUR SYSADMIN - CHRIS BURKE??? YOU ALL SUCK AND I HATE YOU I WANT A REFUND I REGRET SWITCHING TO YOU LAST WEEK THIS IS UNPROFESINIAL DIE JOSH DIE
Also, your font sucks.
Panel appears to be online again.
@ Jason C: Oops. Sorry. I was trying to lighten the mood by posting (what I thought would be) an easily recognized quote. It wasn’t meant to be a flame or anything. Being a IT professional, I can certainly empathize with your pain. However, it’s a little surreal to be on the receiving end of an outage. Hope things come up all right.
Hmm, I just signed up for Dreamhost recently and within a few days of my site being up, there was an outage last night for a few hours. Then it worked for a few hours, but now it’s been down all day long today.
Does this happen often? Is this circuit breaker problem the reason for my ‘http 500 internal server error’? How long will this take to be resolved?
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks!
It’s been a long time since I’ve had issues - so I’m not so upset about this. Mostly, I feel bad for the DH team who have to deal with people who don’t treat you like human beings. It’s not your fault some dumbass “pulled the plug” by accident.
I’m sure you’ll get it resolved, soon - take care, and I’d buy you guys a drink if I could. (I have a friend who works in IT… the idiots that piss all over him on a daily basis for things he has no control over make me want to set all their computers on fire.)
It’ll get resolved, and nobody will die as a result of this outage. Hooray!
does anybody have any good tutorials on how to have a backup of my site with another host so if outage probs arise ie no site or dns down that the user will be directed to the other host. I use mysql php5 as cgi so any advice on setup/cron/dns would be great.
Art
I still can’t connect with all my mySql databases….
Mommmmm!! I told you not to turn off that light switch! The computers are plugged into it! I’ll be upstairs for dinner in just a minute.
this really blows - for everyone, Dreamhost included. even if someone else really did trip a breaker, DH is going to pay a pretty penny in PR no matter what. it sounds like the previous outage could have been avoided by better planning (new hardware collided with your network? shame on you.) but there was no foreseeing this bone-up. bummer.
oh, and you can still access your email. just SSH to your account and use pine, no problem.
Every once in a while, Amateur Hour busts out at Dreamhost. They work so hard on their website to make sure they come across as all hip and cool and fun and friendly and wacky - and it appears that all may be true, but at the expense of consistency. They have people who are clearly extremely competent, and they’re great at apologizing and conveying (and I will assume following through on) the notion that people will be held accountable…but this sort of just impossibly unprofessional stuff just keeps happening. They just don’t seem to care very much about preventing the real catastrophic mess-ups (like that “mass bill everyone too much” caper, and now this). How is it *possible* for someone to be allowed inside a data center who doesn’t know better than to leave circuit breakers alone? What does this say about data security there?
And yet DH people do so many things so very well. It’s almost like the place is being run by smart people…but as a hobby.
All is fixed!
Yep, my site is back too. Down for quite a while today, but thanks to the DH staff for getting it back up and running. Hopefully this was just an unfortunate anamoly
I am glad that some of you are back up, but as of 21:14 CDT we are still down, ugh!
SSH seems to be having problems. I get disconnected after only 2 minutes (literally)
Site is still down and no replies from support…, did everyone just go home with stuff still broken? WTF!
Also having ssh disconnect issues.
Ditto, everything is down, support AWOL, this is a CRITICAL outage with absolutely no information. Disasters happen, mistakes get made, but it is inexcusable to hide out and not tell the truth.
My site is still running very slow, or intermittent. It has been for the last few days. No matter where I access it from.
Hey Dreamhost… I forgot to mention… Fuck You and in case you haven’t heard it 1000 times before, Fuck You again. You are bunch of pussy amateurs. I’m a retard for EVER signing up with you guys, so Fuck me too. To all those with the warm fuzzy bullshit here of “I love dreamhost” and “you get what you pay for” Fuck you too. Dreamhost is not a host, it is a new term for “Outage” or “Malfunction”. I’m surprised these guys are actually able to drive to work without running off the road every 3 seconds.
Did I mention… FUCK YOU DREAMHOST.
pissed. Yes you did. Thanks for that.
Unfortunately all you complaining jerks distracted the team and they lost the basketball game! Where are your priorities! I can’t believe we live in a world where people put hosting uptime ahead of city C league basketball. wow.
Priorities should be delivering what the customer pays for, not some stupid basketball game.
I was fortunate to not lose any service time; however, for others it’s quite the different of stories and it’s effected them greatly.
Fine don’t take my comments you fucking communist assholes, now I don’t even get some lame message about spam that I wasn’t even trying to post. It’s no wonder the hardware is such a mess when you shitting dicknipples don’t even know how to set up ickle baby software like wordpress properly.
Oh so THAT goes through publicly, but not the dozen or so attempts at posting family friendly messages. Is that because your little cheerleaders use such vulgar language to insult anyone who isn’t completely rabid in their undying support of you? Nice way to block regular folks while letting your fanboys stroke your ego you worthless assholes, and I only use that word now so that this will post to your fucking communist piece of shit blog which you don’t even know how to set up right even though you host hundreds of thousands of sites.
I agree with Shorty about rack side power. Even when the circuit breaker was turned off, the rack side UPS should have kicked in, and alerted someone at DH in a timely manner. Oh God, please don’t tell me the racks don’t have UPS’s! Come on, seriously, shoveling the entire blame on a DC employee is not right. DH employees should own up to their share of it as well.
Leave a Reply
Comments posted here may not be viewed by DreamHost staff at all. Please note that this is not a way to contact DreamHost.
Good luck getting it back up! I hope things go well for you.
Panel and WebFTP are down too, thats the first thing I noticed.
Well my hopes are with you!